Stuzzicheria

Note: Click here for a later visit, when we had the Feast of the Seven Fishes.

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In a poor economy, restaurateurs are opening second branches of concepts that have already proved successful across town—this being a much safer bet, as consumers seek comfort in names they already know.

Thus it is, that the modestly successful Bar Stuzzichini in the Flatiron District, begat Stuzzicheria in Tribeca, which opened about a month ago at the corner of Church and Walker Streets. The space has tall picture windows on two sides, offering a panoramic view of . . . the old AT&T building.

The new place is considerably smaller than Bar Stuzzichini, and so is the menu. It features only about half as many of the small plates, or stuzzichini, as its predecessor. (There’s also a handful of salads, pastas, entrées, and so forth.) I sampled four of the stuzzichini, on two different visits. They are well made, but the chef offers only the safest choices—minor tweaks on very familiar items.

 

The Pane Panelle Sliders ($10; above left) were the most intriguing item I tried. Made with Sicilian chickpea fritters, ricotta, and caciocavella, on warm brioche rolls, they exceed expectations, even without meat. Bufala Mozzarella ($6; above right), imported from Naples, comes with just a touch of olive oil, but it’s served colder than I’d like (or am used to).

 

Salume Finochietta ($7; above left), or dried pork & fennel sausage, has a nice spicy tang, but you can find the same in many an Italian restaurant. So too the Polpette Pomodoro ($7; above right), a hearty meatball dish.

Wine is served by the quartino, at about the price ($11–16) many places would charge for just one glass. I was pleased to enjoy again the same Montepulciano d’Abruzzo Riserva we had at Bar Stuzzichini last year.

Right now, the menu has the distinct feel of a work in progress, of a chef unwilling to take chances. The space could also work as a wine bar, although the selection would need to be much broader than it is now. Stuzzicheria is not bad for what it is, but you’d like to see the chef take a few culinary risks.

Stuzzicheria (305 Church Street at Walker Street, Tribeca)

Novitá

I must have walked by Novitá dozens of times, over the years, but it never actually registered until after Sam Sifton upgraded it to two stars in February (it previously had one from Ruth Reichl). The city is full of places like that — decent neighborhood restaurants that get zero media coverage, that you walk by on the way to someplace else without a second thought.

Sifton’s argument for awarding two stars was exceptionally weak — by which I mean that, even taking him at his word, it made little sense. Pasta is “excellent . . . a rejoinder to low expectations.” “[T]he plates are food, not art,” the chef makes a great prosciutto with melon, and “Main courses are less successful.”

It is, in other words, one of a hundred mostly interchangeable Italian restaurants in our fair city.

 

Gramigna alla carbonara ($14.50; above left), a concoction of macaroni with eggs, pecorino romano, guanciale and black pepper, was probably the best thing we tried, lustily flavored and amply portioned. Eggplant Parmigiana ($15; above right) was just fine, but it is fine at lots of other places.

 

The kitchen did well by a whole Branzino ($29; above left). Very few restaurants serve a pounded Veal Chop ($29; above right) on the bone, but one couldn’t avoid thinking that it was a preparation designed to bury mediocre product in a blaze of cheese and tomato.

On OpenTable, Novità is flagged as “romantic,” and that’s a mistake. The room is attractive, but it is too crowded, the tables too tightly packed, the service too impersonal. At prime times, you’ll feel like you’re dining in front of an audience: there is no waiting space for unseated parties, so they just line the edge of the room until a table frees up.

The restaurant was full on a Thursday evening, probably not due to Sifton’s review, but simply because the neighborhood is glad to have it. The waiter recites a long list of specials, which irritates the neophyte, but if you’re a regular it means there is always something new to try. Though not exactly inexpensive, it’s a fair deal given the size of the portions; the food, if unoriginal and unspectacular, is a step up from generic sidewalk Italian.

Novitá (102 E. 22nd Street, east of Park Avenue, Gramercy)

Food: *
Service: *
Ambiance: *
Overall: *

The Burger at Beacon

The folks at Eater.com asked me to submit a favorite restaurant for their late-summer feature, “You May Also Enjoy.” The premise is, “a favorite, somewhat oddball restaurant, bar, or place of note that perhaps exists mostly off the radar.”

A few places came to mind, but I thought I should have a recent data point before recommending anything. A couple of others we need not name flunked the test, and that brought me back to Beacon.

Yes, Beacon—nearly as far off the radar as you can get, but consistently dependable (previous posts here & here). I don’t think Beacon is in any danger of closing, but it does run more specials than most places, and I have never seen its large dining room full. It has received little press since William Grimes awarded two stars eleven years ago.

I came with no fixed idea about what to order, but when the host said that a burger, fries, and two drinks were just twenty bucks at the bar during happy hour, my mind was made up. You get a thick, perfectly-cooked rare burger, and the fries are spot-on. It’s not a LaFreida designer blend, but a rock-solid option, especially at the price.

The bar layout is a bit irritating. The little lamps every few feet are cute, until you realize they are permanently attached, and you cannot move them out of your way. Service was a bit slow.

The menu still emphasizes—as it always did—the kitchen’s wood-burning oven. Unless I am mistaken, the steakhouse theme has been somewhat deemphasized in favor of a more well-rounded modern American cuisine. Beacon was never a pure steakhouse, but I recall more beef on the menu than there is now.

Beacon remains what it was before, a very good midtown restaurant you can always depend on.

Beacon (25 W. 56th Street between Fifth & Sixth Avenues, West Midtown)

Breakfast at the Lambs Club

 

Geoffrey Zakarian has been quiet for the past year or two, ever since his three-star restaurants, Town and Country, imploded under the weight of mismanagement and a poor economy. Now he’s back at The Lambs Club, a fine-dining restaurant in the new Chatwal Hotel on 44th Street.

A chef with Zakarian’s resume shouldn’t have to prove himself. He rose through a long line of serious restaurants where excellence couldn’t be hedged or faked. But the rapidity of his demise at Town and Country, and the decline of those places long before that, raises difficult questions. Does he still have fire in the belly, or is this just another consulting contract? Opening in a hotel is usually good insurance against failure, but the last two places were in hotels too.

The Lambs Club—named for a famous theatrical club that formerly occupied the space—is not yet open for dinner. As I happened to have business in the area, I dropped in for breakfast. The dining room is comfortable, decked out in lipstick red furniture and dark wood paneling. There is an 18th-century fireplace, though it appears to be re-configured with a gas burner.

 

Breakfast has nothing to do with dinner, but this was a very good meal, and not as ridiculously over-priced as hotel food sometimes can be. That said, it wasn’t cheap either. I loved a nectarine smoothie ($9) and an egg sandwich ($13) with bacon, cheddar, and tomato confit.

Will this be the place where Geoffrey Zakarian retakes his place on the culinary stage, or will dinner just be a succession of better-than-average hotel dishes? We’ll find out in a few weeks.

The Lambs Club (130 W. 44th St. between Sixth & Seventh Avenues, West Midtown)

Brindle Room

The Brindle Room opened last March on a sleepy stretch of East 10th Street that doesn’t get much foot traffic.

The nouveau-Korean Persimmon was once here, but it is hard to imagine a more thorough transformation. The look is comforting, with exposed brick, polished dark wood tables and banquettes, and a warm butterscotch glow on the upper walls and ceiling.

The obscure name—Brindle is a shade of brown and black-speckled dog fur—has nothing to do with the cuisine, vaguely Southern-influenced comfort food that strays well past the usual boundaries. A poutine, much admired by reviewers, was offered for a while, but it seems to be on summer hiatus.

The menu is focused, which is always a good sign. There are fewer than twenty items in three categories—Spreads ($6–9), Small ($8–15), and Large ($19–23)—which inspires confidence that Chef Jeremy Spector is serving what he knows he can make well, and not wasting time by trying to please everybody.

There are just five entrées, er, Large Plates, with an emphasis on sharing the smaller ones, but as I was there alone I went the conventional route, ordering one of each.

 

An ample salad of Salt Roasted Beets ($8) with stilton blue cheese may not win any award for originality, but it was one of the most luscious, vibrantly favored beet salads I’ve had this year, and amply portioned at the price.

The Parmesan Crusted Pork Chop ($23), featured on OzerskyTV a couple of months ago, deserves the accolades. It’s massive, and Spector cooks it perfectly on the pink side of medium. The parmesan crust was slightly too aggressive for my taste, but I am a shade more sensitive to salt than most diners, which probably means Spector is getting it right. The chop is served atop a tomato and green leaf salad that could be a proper appetizer.

The beverage list, like the rest of the menu, is focused and not expensive: who else serves $9 cocktails these days? I was in a beer mood; $12 buys an 18-ounce bottle of Samuel Smith’s Organic Cider. It’s nowhere near as sweet as most alcoholic ciders and paired well with the pork.

On weekends, the East Village starts late and ends late. At 7:00 p.m., I had the place to myself, but a late summer Saturday evening is probably atypical. It would be pointless to judge the service when the staff had only one customer, but I found the Brindle Room comfortable and relaxing, the food excellent for its ambition and its price point.

The Brindle Room (277 E. 10th St. between 1st Avenue & Avenue A, East Village)

Food: *
Service: *
Ambiance: *
Overall: *

Breakfast at The Breslin

Like most hotel restaurants, The Breslin is compelled to serve breakfast. I say compelled because it is not the meal into which the chef pours much creative energy, although it is comparatively lucrative. The profit margin on a $2.50 cup of coffee must be around five hundred percent.

Still, April Bloomfield’s fingerprints are all over the menu: I don’t know of many places that serve poached eggs with curried lentils, yoghurt, and cilantro, or beans in pork fat. Ricotta, Bloomfield’s favorite cheese, makes an appearance in at least two dishes.

 

I had the Seasonal Frittata with — yes, riccotta ($14) — and the house-cured bacon ($7). Unlike the bacon you have at home, Bloomfield’s doesn’t get crisp. It is really a portion more appropriate for sharing, given the high fat content, but there I was by myself . . . and finished it.

The Breslin (16 W. 29th Street between Broadway & Fifth Avenue, West Midtown)

The Pub Mutton Chop at Keens Steakhouse

I’ve written before about the so-called Legendary Mutton Chop (it is actually lamb) at Keens Steakhouse. It’s the most quirky item on the menu: no other restaurant I know of serves lamb butchered this way.

The mutton chop in the dining room costs $45, and like most steakhouse portions is more than all but the hungriest diner will finish.

In the pub, they serve a half-sized version for $25 that is still ample, especially if you order appetizers and side dishes. (The limp greens that come with it are nothing to write home about.)

It is nice to have warm rolls offered beforehand; not so nice that they are served with butter that just came out of the fridge.

Still, it is worth your consideration if you’re in the Herald Square area and want a light bite without signing up for a heavy steakhouse meal.

The other useful thing is that there is no break between lunch and dinner service: Keens is open continuously from 11:45 a.m. until late.

Keens Steakhouse (72 W. 36th St. between Fifth & Sixth Avenues, West Midtown)

Lunch at Prime Meats

 

To visit Prime Meats for dinner, you need the Goldilocks plan. A couple of months ago, I arrived at 6:30 p.m. on a Saturday evening, when the wait was quoted as two hours. That was too late. (I dined at the same owners’ Frankies Spuntino instead.) Last week, I was so over-eager that I arrived at 4:45 p.m., which is considered the lunch shift. That was too early. Maybe next time will be Just Right.

In any event, I had traveled an hour to get here from Washington Heights, and I was not going to waste the opportunity. Prime Meats at 4:45 is almost empty, which is delightful. You can sit back, relax, enjoy the late afternoon sun, and not feel guilty that a hundred other people want your table.

With its Germanic Alpine theme, Prime Meats is an odd follow-up from two guys who opened a pair of Italian snack & sandwich places, both called Frankies Spuntino. It shares with them its rustic homespun décor, a commitment to locally-sourced ingredients and making as much as possible in-house.

They also share a no-reservations policy, and until recently credit cards weren’t taken either. Sam Sifton spent four paragraphs of an otherwise glowing two-star review complaining about that, and within a week they caved. American Express is now accepted.

At lunch, Prime Meats serves a much abbreviated version of its dinner menu, and the items in common are a dollar or two cheaper. (Click on the image above for a larger version.)

I’m sure that either Steak Frites ($25) or a burger ($15) would be just fine, but I wanted a better example of the restaurant’s Teutonic theme, so I decided on the Vesper Brett ($14), an “Alpine tasting board” with mixed charcuterie.

It’s a bit like a sandwich without the bread—an Atkins-friendly appetizer. I won’t try to describe the different meats, all excellent, which included everything listed on the menu and more (e.g.,duck prosciutto, fanned out in the lower-left quadrant of the photo).

Like the charcuterie boards at most restaurants these days, the Vesper Brett works best for sharing: it’s really too big to be an appetizer for one. As I was alone, I settled for that and a side dish of sautéed spinach with garlic ($6)—again, too much for one person, but very good for what it was.

 

The bread service, though, was underwhelming.

There is an alcoholic punch of the day ($5), which on this occasion featured gin, mint, and lime, with a hint of grapefruit juice. It came in an itsy bitsy glass, and even with the restaurant empty, it took a long while for the server to notice I was ready for a re-fill.

If you don’t live in Carroll Gardens, and you’re not keen on waiting for an hour or more, it’s hard to find the right time for a visit to Prime Meats. One of these days, when the time is right, I’ll try again.

Prime Meats (465 Court St. at Luquer St., Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn)

Death & Co.

Death & Co. was the third stop on my speakeasy crawl—after Please Don’t Tell and Angel’s Share. As I write this, I see that their website is blocked at work, which is hilarious, given that there are dozens of other bars with websites that I can get to easily.

There’s no hidden door to get into Death & Co. The street entrance is in plain sight, but it’s a barely-marked wooden door with the name of the establishment written in such small print that you could easily miss it.

Like the other speakeasies, standees aren’t allowed, so you have to wait until a seat is available. The host is outside, so you don’t even get to look at the place until he lets you in. It was about 9:00 p.m., which is pretty early for a Friday night in the East Village; even so, I waited about five minutes, but I was alone. For couples, the host had a long waiting list.

The dark photo (above) is no exaggeration: there isn’t a lot of light. Like a casino, there are no open windows, and you could easily lose track of time. But I hadn’t lost track of my cocktail count, and I decided to have just one.

The cocktail menu is in categories organized by the main ingredient (gin, rum, tequila, brandy, etc.). They are every bit as inventive, and as well made, as at Please Don’t Tell. I settled on the Black Magic ($13; cognac, angostura, 5-year rum, white crème de menthe, fernet branca, and absinthe).

The food here is compelling, with a selection of bar snacks (most under $15) that go beyond the obvious—for a cocktail bar. I had an order of really well made barbecued pulled-pork sliders ($12): three plump helpings of pork on toasted mini-buns, and potato salad too. Most nights, that could be dinner for me.

I’m not quite sure when I’ll make it back—the line to get in is rather daunting (to me)—but I was impressed here.

Death & Co. (433 E. 6th Street between First Avenue & Avenue A, East Village)

Angel’s Share

After a visit to Crif Dogs & Please Don’t Tell, I continued my East Village speakeasy crawl at Angel’s Share. The name comes from the splash of wine in each wine bottle that sommeliers sometimes keep for themselves — the angel’s share, as it is called.

Like other speakeasies, this one is hard to find. The tiny number 6 above the door is the only hint of an address. It’s not even immediately apparent that you can eat here.

Go up the stairs, and you’re plunged into a Japanese restaurant called Village Yokocho. The entrance to Angel’s Share is behind an unmarked wooden door. A hostess escorts you to the bar or a table, and as at other speakeasies, they will not accommodate you unless there is a vacant seat.

In 2002, New York called Angel’s Share the city’s best date bar, but I found the space charmless, the lighting too bright and unkind, the servers unfriendly. Even the menu seemed a bit shopworn.

I later spoke to a beverage director who has no interest in any East Village bars. He said, “I have no idea why Angel’s Share is mentioned in the same breath as PDT or Death & Co.”

I ordered a Cousin Mary, a cousin to the Bloody Mary, with cucumber, black pepper & garlic infused vodka, olive juice, onion vinegar, celery salt, and a garnish of olive & pearl onions.

In less time than it took me to write all that in my iPhone, the drink appeared. Actually, I had no more than glanced away for a few second. Clearly, it was pre-made, and poured from a pitcher. Not bad, but you can get a Bloody Mary anywhere.

Angel’s Share (6 Stuyvesant Street, east of Third Avenue, East Village)