The Café at Le Cirque

Like most luxury restaurants these days, Le Cirque has a formal dining room and a dressed-down café, where reservations aren’t taken and the menu is a bit more approachable.

Since our meal in the main dining room almost two years ago, Le Cirque has acquired a new chef: Craig Hopson, formerly of Picholine and One if By Land, Two if By Sea. None of the city’s major critics has reviewed Le Cirque since Hopson took over. It holds three Times stars, courtesy of a Bruni re-review in February 2008. It almost pained him to dine there:

At Le Cirque you will indeed eat too much food, of a kind that neither your physician nor your local Greenpeace representative would endorse, in a setting of deliberate pompousness, at a sometimes ludicrous expense.The ravioli, all three of them, are $35.

But that has long been the way of certain restaurants, which exist to be absurd, to speak not to our better angels but to our inner Trumps, making us feel pampered and reckless and even a little omnipotent, if only for two hours and three courses with a coda of petits fours.

And while I’m not calling for the spread of these establishments (or the massacre of Chilean sea bass), I’m charged with noting when one of them fulfills its chosen mission with classic panache. Le Cirque now does.

Has ever a critic awarded three stars to a restaurant, while saying that he would prefer to see no more like it?

I had an evening commitment on the Upper East Side during Restaurant Week, and as Le Cirque would be on the way, I decided to drop in. The Dining Room was fully committed, even at 5:45 p.m., but the adjoining café was empty (it would begin to fill up later on). The website advises: “Jackets are required for gentlemen in the dining room and suggested in the café.” I was wearing one, but it did not seem to matter.

The café is a comfortable space, dominated by a huge cylindrical wine tower. In the oddly-shaped room, two of the walls have ceiling-height windows that face on Third Avenue and 58th Street, admitting plenty of natural light.

Lately, the owners have been struggling to fill the café. Evidently, the idea of dropping into Le Cirque for an order of sliders hasn’t caught on. Offers to drop in for free fried chicken to watch major sporting events (sixth game of the World Series; Thursday night Jets–Bills game) have dropped in my mailbox with regularity.

There is a dizzying array of options at Le Cirque. The main carte offers a pre-theatre prix fixe at $48, a tasting menu at $120, and a regular prix fixe at $95. You can also order à la carte, which I don’t recall before, with some of the highest prices in town: appetizers $25–30 (most in the high 20s), pastas $28–38, mains $42–70.

The café menu, also called the wine bar menu, has tasting plates from $14–35, along with a three-course “restaurant week” prix fixe for $35, which was available all summer long. Apparently you can order from any of these menus in the café, but the server gave me only the restaurant week menu, as they said it’s what most of the café visitors want.

No one should be under the illusion that they’re getting a $98 value for $35. When the price for three courses is less than the cheapest dining room entrée, you’re obviously not going to get the restaurant’s best stuff. None of the three dishes I had is shown on the main dining room carte. But I did have a modestly satisfying meal at a respectable price, with two forgettable dishes and one I would happily order again.

Gnocchi with tripe ragu (above left) was pedestrian, but I loved (at the price) the pavé of veal with zucchini, tomato, and pecorino romano (above right). The veal was nicely crisped, but tender on the inside. I was afraid of another humdrum tomato broth, but both the tomato and the zucchini were vibrantly flavored. The cheese didn’t add much, though.

Dessert, a lemon merengue pie, was competently executed but rather ordinary, and the accompanying sorbet paired with it poorly.

Café diners get the same bread service as the main dining room—not that it is anything to write home about. Coffee ($4) came in its own silver pot. Service overall was attentive and pleasant. The café has its own pared-down wine list (though I’m sure you can get the bigger one), and prices by the glass are reasonable. A 2003 Haut Médoc was $15.

It may not offer the main dining room’s culinary fireworks, but the Café is a fine way to enjoy an inexpensive dinner if you happen to be in the area.

The Café at Le Cirque (151 E. 58th Street between Lexington & Third Avenues, East Midtown)

Review Recap: SD26

Today, Sam Sifton drops the expected one-spot on San Domenico:

They really are trying down there at SD26, the old lion Tony May and his indefatigable daughter Marisa, the two of them working the dining room of their fancy new restaurant as if all that happened to their old one, San Domenico, was a face-lift. . . .

But what’s happened here is much more than simply a face-lift. The sedate and elegant San Domenico, which opened in 1988, has been kicked to the curb. SD26 is the restaurant equivalent of a second wife: younger, considerably more nervous, dressed in a way that might raise eyebrows in the social circles the original restaurant was opened to serve. . . .

Then there’s the long walk back through the bar to the street, past slightly stunned old regulars from San Domenico and gastro-tourists wondering what all the fuss was about. Emerging onto 26th Street, the overwhelming feeling a diner is left with is one of exhaustion, the sense that at SD26 we are a long, long way from the kind of restaurant Mr. May has stood for in New York City. It’s a restaurant to make anyone feel old.

You have to feel bad for Tony and Marisa May. They invested $7 million in this place—reportedly their own money—in the sincere view that this was what today’s diners wanted. But in chasing the latest fashions, they weren’t true to themselves. This isn’t the restaurant that the old San Domenico regulars wanted. And it isn’t the restaurants that the younger, edgier clientele wanted.

As Steve Cuozzo points out in today’s Post, recent upscale hits like Corton and Marea, and the dressing up of Eleven Madison Park, have proven that sophisticated diners will flock to places that present serious food in an adult setting. That’s not the only path to success, but it’s the only path that Tony May had ever known.

There are ways of subtly updating the original concept without entirely abandoning it. “Renovation of the original mission may have been a smarter course,” says Sifton.

Eater predicted two stars, and loses a dollar on our hypothetical bets. We win $4 at 4–1 odds.

	Eater		NYJ
Bankroll	$5.00		$2.00
Gain/Loss	–$1.00		+$4.00
Total	$4.00		$6.00
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Won–Lost	3–2 (60.0%)		3–2 (60.0%)

Life-to-date, New York Journal is 73–29 (72%).

The Burger at Gansevoort 69

Note: Gansevoort 69 closed in August 2010. (As often happens, a “temporary closure” for renovations turned out to be permanent.) The owners told the Times that “the diner thing has to go,” apparently oblivious to the fact that the previous restaurant in the space, Florent, had a long and successful run as a diner and would still be in business, but for an economically unsustainable rent hike.

*

Gansevoort 69 would be utterly unremarkable, if not for the reputation of the establishment it replaced, the sainted Florent, which closed last year.

The new place seeks to fill the gap left by Florent’s demise—essentially, a cafeteria to sop up the alcohol after a long night of boozing. It’s open to 6:00 a.m. Thursdays to Saturdays, midnight the rest of the week.

I never dined at Florent, which perhaps says more about my drinking habits than anything else. From all I can tell, Florent was basically a diner serving French and American bistro standards, but it had a cult following. The cult was none too please when the chef, Florent Morellet, was forced out by a rent hike.

The décor has been smartly updated, while retaining the feel of a diner. The old “R & L” signage remains outside—a reminder of what the place was four tenants ago. Reservations are taken on OpenTable, but I’d be surprised if they get much traffic that way. The whole point of Florent was that you could just drop in if you happened to be nearby.

The menu, described as American comfort food, has appetizers and soups ($6–10), salads ($7–16), sandwiches ($12–15), entrées ($8–26), and side dishes ($3–5). In the true diner spirit, breakfast is served anytime. So are cocktails.

There’s an amuse-bouche of tater tots (above right), served with three dipping sauces, to munch on while you wait for your food.

My son and I both had the burger ($12 plus $2 for cheese). I liked the thickness and juiciness, medium rare as we had requested. The beef had a slightly metallic tang, which will keep it out of the pantheon. The fries were just fine.

Gansevoort 69 (69 Gansevoort Street btwn. Greenwich & Washington Streets, Meatpacking District)

Scenes from Thanksgiving 2009

I know it’s terribly un-Web 2.0 to post my Thanksgiving photos five days late. Sorry, but New York Journal took some time off. Here, at last, they are. Appetizers first; then the carved bird.

Review Preview: SD26

Tomorrow, Sift Happens at SD26, the relocated re-do of the former San Domenico. The Eater Oddsmakers have set the action as follows: One Star: 4-1; Two Stars: 3-1; Sift Happens: 20-1.

As Eater notes, this is Sifton’s fourth review of a re-located or cloned restaurant. Aureole, Oceana, and A Voce Columbus were all rated one star lower than they had been before. That bodes ill for SD26, which had two stars in its old location. In general, Sifton has been a tough grader, except for the odd deuce given to DBGB in his inaugural review.

This is Sifton’s third Italian restaurant, after Marea (three stars) and A Voce Columbus. All three have been on the rounds of the city’s major critics, and a hierarchy is clear, with SD26 conspicuously at the bottom of it. A weak deuce is probably the best it can hope for.

Given Sifton’s biases thus far, we think the safe bet is one star.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!

Daniel

When Frank Bruni re-affirmed the four-star rating for Daniel earlier this year, his endorsement came with caveats not usually found in such a review: “it yields fewer transcendent moments than its four-star brethren and falls prey to more inconsistency,” and a clunker rate “slightly higher than a restaurant as ambitious as this one’s should be.”

I gave Daniel four stars in March 2007, but as I look back on that meal, I think it was the least satisfying of those to which I’ve given the highest rating. This must be taken in relative terms: obviously the food was very good. But four stars, meaning “extraordinary,” must be something more than that. When I looked back on that meal, and realized I couldn’t even vaguely recall very much of it, I realized that I must have overrated the place.

This feeling was cemented by a return visit last weekend. The décor has been brightened, the plush red velvet banished, but the food remains unexciting. I should clarify that our tastes are distinctly not biased against Chef Boulud because he has been cooking the same food for twenty years. We love the classics done well. Actually, there is nothing more exciting than breathing life into an old standard.

But among seven courses we had on a $185 tasting menu (click on image for a larger copy), there was not one I would especially care to have again. That’s not because there was anything wrong with them—to the contrary, I have great respect for the care with which most of them were put together. But all of that effort yielded curiously dull effects.

Part of me wished we had selected the $105 prix fixe. Several of the items offered there sounded a lot more interesting. On my next visit to Daniel—though I assure you, it probably won’t be anytime soon—we will probably go that route.

The bifurcated service at Daniel—one level for the anointed, another for everyone else—is the stuff of legend. We experienced none of this. We found all of the servers friendly, efficient, and highly professional.

But there were several inexplicably long waits, which struck us more as inattention than snobbery. We figured that by 10:15 p.m., the time of our reservation, the restaurant would be starting to thin out. To the contrary, we were kept waiting until 10:45.

While we cooled our jets in the bar, it seemed like forever until someone came to took our drinks order. The party next to us endured a similar wait, and they appeared to be known to Chef Boulud, who came over to say hello; they were later seated in a secluded nook designed (or so it appeared) for V.I.P.s.

We do understand that restaurants sometimes run behind for reasons beyond management’s control, but we think an explanation—or at least an apology—was in order, and under the circumstances our drinks should have been comped.

The one thing they did to help us bide our time, was to serve the amuses-bouches in the bar (photo right).

When we were seated, there was another fairly long wait before bread (many varieties of it—none warm) was served. Once our tasting menu was underway, service moved along at a good, but not hurried, pace. As it was, we were not out of there until 1:00 a.m., by which time only one other table was still seated.

The tasting menu format offers choices for every course, and we diverged on all but one of them, which allowed us to taste a good cross-section of the menu. (Most of the tasting menu items are also available on the prix fixe.)

First Course:

• Mosaic of Capon, Foie Gras, and Celery Root. Pickled Daikon, Satur Farms Mâche, Pear Confit (above left)
• Pressed Duck and Foie Gras Terrine. Chimay Gelée Chestnuts, Red Cabbage Chutney (above right)

These were both labor intensive dishes, and you had to respect the artistry involved. The Mosaic of Capon was the more satisfying of the two.

Second Course:

• Maine Peekytoe Crab Salad. Celery, Walnut Oil, Granny Smith Sauce (above left)
• Olive Oil Poached Cod “en Salade”. Artichoke Puré, Tarragon Dressing, Lemon Zest (above right)

The crab salad was the more successful of the two. The juxtaposition with apples struck us as especially clever. The poached cod salad didn’t have much flavor.

We both made the same choice for the third course: Handmade Spinach Tortelloni. Chanterelles, “Tomme de la Chataigneraie,”, Lomo, Black Garlic (left).

(The other choice for this course was a butter poached abalone with yellow curry braised greens, crispy rice, and chayote.)

Once again, we were impressed by the amount of labor that had gone into this dish, but the flavors were far too muted.

Fourth Course:

• Whole Grain Crusted Skate. Chanterelles, Swiss Chard, Caper Chicken Jus (above left)
• Loup de Mer with Syrah Sauce. Leek Royale, “Pommes Lyonnaise” (above right)

The blizzard of vegetables surrounding the skate was arguably more impressive than the skate itself. The Loup de Mer was somewhat unappetizing; on the plate, it resembled an eel.

Fifth Course:

• Elysian Fields Farm Lamb Chop. Garbanzo Bean Fricassé, Chorizo, Rutabaga, Chickpea Tendrils (above left)
• Duo of Dry Aged Black Angus Beef. Red Wine Braised Short Rib with Parsnip-Potato Gratin, Seared Rib Eye with Black Trumpets. Gorgonzola Cream (above right)

The lamb and the short rib, although correctly prepared, seemed pedestrian for a restaurant on this level—or should I say, purported level. The ribeye was tough, and had none of the marbling that it should.

Sixth Course:

• Citrus Biscuit with Pink Grapefruit. Buddha’s Hand Lemon Confit, Mandarin Sorbet (above left)
• Warm Guanaja Chocolate Coulant. Liquid Caramel, Fleur de Sel, Milk Sorbet (above middle)
• Birthday Cake (above right)

The citrus biscuit was the best of the three. The chocolate coulant was dry, and we didn’t bother finishing it. The birthday cake was better.

The meal finished with petits-fours (average) and the warm beignets (excellent) that, by this time of the evening, sadly went to waste.

While Daniel has the format of a four-star restaurant, with its high ratio of servers to customers, high-end servingware, labor-intensive preparation, sauces poured at tableside, and so forth, we found the food uninspired and dull. We hold nothing against Daniel for serving the same classics year after year. But they need to inspire more than just “respect” for the level of effort involved.

We respect Daniel, but we did not love it.

Daniel (60 E. 65th Street west of Park Avenue, Upper East Side)

Food: **½
Service: **½
Ambiance: ****
Overall: **½

The crab salad was the more successful of the two. The juxtaposition with apples struck us as especially clever. The poached cod salad didn’t have much flavor.

Belated Review Recap: A Voce Columbus

I came down with a cold on Tuesday, and didn’t get around to posting a Review Preview: a pity, as New York Journal needed a win, and we would have correctly predicted Sam Sifton’s verdict on A Voce Columbus: two stars:

There are two A Voce restaurants in New York City. One opened in 2006, off Madison Square Park. It is dark and almost romantic, loud when crowded, pretty after a fashion, perfectly good. The other opened in September on the third floor of the Time Warner Center, in the space that used to be Café Gray. The second restaurant is bright and airy, loud when crowded, pretty after a fashion, also perfectly good…

But make no mistake. A Voce is a corporate enterprise, part of a master plan, and feels like it. Save for swiveling yourself around in the Eames-y leather chairs that appoint both restaurants, there is very little room for improvisation. Service is clinical, almost silent, beyond language. Wine is what a chairman would expect, what most would order: a lot of big California cabernets, excellent chardonnays.

Sifton clearly visited the downtown site. It’s a pity he didn’t squeeze in two more meals there, so that he could re-rate A Voce Madison in the same review. It’s abundantly clear that he thinks the two are interchangeable, but A Voce Madison remains on the Times’s list of three-star restaurants, courtesy of an air-kiss blown their way by Frank Bruni in 2006. That was with Andrew Carmellini as chef, and even then it was over-rated.

508 Restaurant & Bar

Note: 508 Restaurant & Bar closed in late 2014. A restaurant called The Houseman from Prune alumnus Ned Baldwin is supposed to replace it in early 2015.

*

508 Restaurant is in that out-of-the-way district that some call West Soho or Hudson Square. Destination dining hasn’t proven itself here. The places that succeed are those that attract a repeatable neighborhood crowd.

Maybe we need a new term for restaurants like 508: “neighborhood-plus.” The economics of West Soho are what they are, but the food here is a lot better than you’d expect for a local place. The restaurant has been open for just over a year, and the owners are now trying to raise its profile, hence the publicist’s invitation to dine here on a recent Friday evening. 

The chefs, husband and wife Jennifer Sant’anna Hill and Anderson Sant’anna De Lima, have restaurants like Lupa, Del Posto, and Aquavit on their resumes. Jennifer’s father and mother, Fred and Lynn Fisher Hill, both retired lawyers, are co-owners. Fred also serves as wine director.

The menu is loosely described as Rustic Mediterranean. (Click on the image for a larger copy.) That strategy plays out in a long list of tapas qua appetizers and as many pastas as entrées. There is also the obligatory Pat LaFreida burger and barbecue spare ribs. I am not sure which Mediterranean country they come from.

I am told that everything is made in-house, except for the ice cream.

If you’re tempted to order three savory courses, as you would in an Italian restaurant, you’ll need to be hungry. The pastas are entrée size, and they’re excellent. If Andrew Carmellini served them at Locanda Verde, he’d be hailed as a genius. Come to think of it, he’s been hailed already.

The mains are arguably a bit expensive, with most of them $25 and over, but the portions are enormous, and they are quite good indeed. We were less impressed with the two tapas we tried.

Ham and Manchego Croquettes ($10; above left) left a curiously flat impression. Truffled Mac and Cheese ($14; above right) was good enough, but probably not worth the fifteen-minute wait for it to be made to order.

Spinach and egg fettuccini ($19; above left) came piled with roasted duck and skin cracklings, pine nuts, spinach, Brussels sprouts, and pancetta. Gnocchi ($18; above right) might be the lightest in town, as they’re made from celery root rather than potatoes, and served with lamb, Italian sausage, mushrooms, smoked tomatoes, and sage, in a creamy parmesan sauce.

It is not often that you find so many ingredients in a pasta dish, and yet find that all of them make a distinct impression. These are among the best pastas we’ve had all year.

The Beef Long Rib ($28; above left) should be on many more menus. It is basically a whole short rib on the bone in a red wine-cranberry braise, with corn pudding and a terrific sautéed broccoli rabe. It takes guts to serve Miso Glazed Black Sea Bass ($26; above right) on a cuttlefish ink lemon risotto, but these chefs pulled it off.

The wine list has 30 bottles priced between $30 and $50, although the top end goes up to $300. I am not sure who will be spending that kind of money on this food, but it never hurts to have the option. Wine choices by the glass are ample, with a dozen reds and a dozen whites. There are 25 beers and also a very good sangria.

The space seats 60, including a small lounge up-front and a 12-seat communal table near the open kitchen at the back. The exposed brick walls are decorated with wine bottles and knick-nacks. We weren’t there as civilians, but service seemed to be attentive at all of the other tables I could see.

With its marketing position as a “neighborhood joint,” the owners here are being careful not to portray 508 as anything more than what it is. But even if you go out of your way to get there, 508 is more than good enough to justify the effort.

508 Restaurant & Bar (508 Greenwich Street near Spring Street, West Soho)

Review Recap: Oceana

Yesterday, Sam Sifton awarded the expected two stars to Oceana, finding that in the move to larger digs, it had lost a star along the way:

More recent meals in the new Oceana, which opened around the corner from Del Frisco’s in the McGraw-Hill building in August, reveal a different scene: a retort to all those who thought the old Oceana was cramped and outdated, a little too much actually like a steamship. It is now a massive restaurant, open and white and blue and tiled, with enormous lamp fixtures that throw light into every crevice of the room, with giant flowers to soften that and beneath them deep leather booths with velvet backs and walnut trim…

Those who order carefully can partake of fabulous meals. They will certainly drink good wine, off a whites-heavy list that is ably negotiated by both waiters and sommeliers alike. But if the Oceana of old was a pleasant, shipshape room with elegant food and a caring touch, the new version is a high-functioning luxury mill, designed to service pre-theater crowds and to celebrate corporate success on expense-account dimes. It is in some ways a very good restaurant. But the room ensures that it is not entirely a pleasant one.

Although this counts technically as a demotion (since the old Oceana had three stars), the review finds plenty of things to like. Still, the chef and the owners are no doubt disappointed.

We and Eater made the identical two-star bets, winning $3 against our hypoethetical one-dollar wagers. 

	Eater		NYJ
Bankroll	$2.00		–$1.00
Gain/Loss	+$3.00		$3.00
Total	+$5.00		$2.00
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Won–Lost	3–1 (75.0%)		2–2 (50.0%)

Life-to-date, New York Journal is 72–29 (71%).