Resto

Note: Bobby Hellen was the acting executive chef at Resto at the time of this visit. The “acting” part of his title was later removed. Since then, he has left the restaurant. The current chef is Preston Clark. Click here for a more recent review.

*

Resto has been on my to-do list for over a year, since Frank Bruni awarded an unlikely two stars in May 2007. Back then, the restaurant didn’t take reservations, and there were reports of waits up to an hour at prime times. Sorry Charlie, but I don’t like to eat that way. Time is too precious to squander an hour of it just waiting to eat. So Resto went on the back burner.

After the hubbub died down, Resto got wise, and put itself on OpenTable, so people can actually plan to eat at a particular time, rather than just hoping. Perhaps the bloom has withered a bit. We found it nearly empty at 6:30 p.m. on a Friday evening, albeit in August. It got busier as the evening went on, but at no point did it appear to be full.

Resto today doesn’t quite seem to merit the laurels Frank Bruni bestowed on it. However, that was when Ryan Skeen was chef; he has since moved onto Irving Mill. Perhaps I visited Resto too late.

The cuisine here is Belgian, a genre not well represented in Manhattan (Markt comes to mind), though it shares much in common with rustic French. The selection of 70 beers is admirable, if not overwhelming. The wine list isn’t long, and neither is the seasonal menu. There are five appetizers ($9–13), five kinds of house-made charcuterie ($9), four seasonal entrées ($16–28), four classic entrées ($15–24), and four side dishes ($6–8).

In the context of these modest prices, a six-week-aged prime ribeye for two at $140 seems incongruous. So does an $85 tasting menu. We were curious, but gave both a pass.

 

Lamb Niçoise ($9), a home-made lamb sausage, had a nice spicy kick. My girlfriend loved the Crispy Pig’s Ear Salad ($12). Loaded with greens, beans, chicory and a soft egg on top, it could easily serve as an entrée. And yes, those really are pigs’ ears, fried crisp and scattered about the bowl like croutons.

 

I couldn’t exactly say the entrées misfired, but they were pedestrian. Wild Striped Bass ($28) was chewy and overwhelmed with red peppers. Steak Frites ($24) featured hanger steak, nicely done, but the fries were mushy.

The décor is plain and bare-bones, but service was prompt and friendly. We had many questions about the menu, and the server provided helpful advice with much enthusiasm.

Resto (111 E. 29th Street between Park & Lexington Avenues, Gramercy)

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

Le Gavroche

For the second major meal of our London trip, we chose the two-star Le Gavroche. This restaurant opened in 1967 in Sloane Street, moving in 1981 to its current quarters in Upper Brook Street, just steps away from Hyde Park, where it earned its third Michelin star, the first U.K. restaurant to be so honored.

The founding chef, Michel Roux, left to take over The Waterside Inn in Bray, which I reviewed two years ago. His son, Michel Roux Jr., took over as chef de cuisine. Michelin docked a star, leaving Le Gavroche with two. The Waterside Inn is the prettier location, but we found the cuisine here more impressive. This was probably our best meal since the late lamented Alain Ducasse at the Essex House.

The restaurant is on the lower level of an elegant Georgian townhouse, with a hotel occupying the upper levels. The Roux family once owned the hotel too, but it is now independent. The dining room walls are deep green, the banquettes plush. Ducks and roosters dominate the décor, along with orchids.

The restaurant is named for the little urchin in Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables. That little figure appears everywhere at Le Gavroche, including the handles of all the flatware, many of the serving pieces, the door to the kitchen, and probably other places I failed to notice.

Prices can only be described as staggering. The Menu Exceptionnel (a long tasting menu) was £95 (around $190) per person. I didn’t take note of individual prices, except to note that many entrées were upwards of $70 or $80 apiece (and some more than that), with many appetizers in the $40 to $60 range. As we noted the night before, in relation to what we were already bound to spend anyway, the tasting menu seemed to be a bargain. so we chose that once again.

Once again, we avoided ordering until we had settled on a wine. And once again, the staff acted as if this was an unusual procedure, though we didn’t get the snooty reaction we had at Hibiscus. Here the choice was more difficult, as the wine list is a large volume. I noted that the largest section was the French Bordeaux, so I asked the sommelier for a Bordeaux under £60. You can imagine my surprise when he recommended a 1997 St. Julien at just £48. He decanted it with much ceremony, holding a candle up to the bottle to check for sediment. (In the U.S., Bern’s Steakhouse is the only restaurant where I have observed that procedure.)

I apologize in advance for the poor quality of the photos. The ambient lighting here was low, and we didn’t feel it was appropriate to use the flash. It went off once by accident; it will probably be pretty obvious which photo that was.

 

The canapés (above left) were smoked duck and foie gras. I liked the duck a bit better, but they were both excellent. The bread service offered two contrasting butters (salted, not) and multiple breads, but none of them were memorable. We then moved on to our eight-course menu, a copy of which was on the table, a method I like much better than long explanations delivered at the table.

1) Lobster Salad with Mango, Avocado, Basil and Lime (above right), stuffed in an endive leaf.

 

2) Langoustine and Snails (above left) in a light Hollandaise sauce, flavored with Basque pepper and parsley. As Michelle noted, though the menu did not, there was about half a pound of butter in this dish. It was intensely creamy, but the combination worked beautifully.

3) Seared Sea Bass (above right) on a soft polenta, roast pepper coulis, olive and garlic croutons. Michelle called it “one of the prettiest fish presentations I’ve seen,” and “just amazing.” The intense olive and pepper taste worked well with the perfectly prepared fish.

 

4) Hot Foie Gras and Crispy Pancake of Duck (above left) flavored with cinnamon. This was perhaps the best foie gras dish ever: amazing. The seared foie reduced to liquid almost instantly, but it seemed neither fatty nor heavy. It was a fairly large serving, too. The duck pancake was the pancake I want for breakfast every day.

5) Roasted Rack of Welsh Lamb (above right), courgette flower fritter and tarragon jus. The rack of lamb was carved and plated tableside. It was soft as butter, and the deep-fried squash blossom also perfect.

  

6) Next came the cheese course. There was a large selection, from which we each chose five, and portions were generous. I didn’t note the individual cheeses, but we wanted sharp, intense-tasting ones, and we got them.

 

7) Ouefs à la Neige, or Soft Caramel-covered Meringue, Vanilla Cream and Poached Strawberries (above left). The flavors were intense and clear.

8) Bitter Chocolate and Coffee-Layered Sponge Cake and Chocolate Sorbet (above right). I’m not a chocolate guy, but Michelle pronounced it a success. I liked the coffee flavor. (Sorry for the awful photo.)

 

One of the petits-fours plates is shown above; there were others, but the photo isn’t presentable.

The restaurant was about 85% full on a Saturday in mid-August, and we were gratified to find that the average age of the clientele seemed to be under 45. The New York media repeatedly inform us that “young people” aren’t interested in composed formal meals of the kind Le Gavroche offers. Whether it’s even true in New York is debatable, but it certainly doesn’t seem to be true in London.

Service was superb; I can’t really find any fault with it. Nor with the food, which was at the highest level we’ve experienced.

Le Gavroche (43 Upper Brook Street, London)

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

Hibiscus

 

On a recent trip to London, my girlfriend and I wanted to try a couple of Michelin-starred restaurants. Full disclosure is due: both of our first choices were fully booked, but we landed on two very good alternatives, starting with Hibiscus. The chef, Claude Bosi, was born in Lyon and trained in France, but his cuisine relies heavily on locally-sourced ingredients. If you’d told me he was English, I would have believed it.

The restaurant opened in Shropshire in 2000, winning a Michelin star in 2001 and a second star in 2004. Eager to play on the big stage, he moved the restaurant to London in 2007, and the Michelin folks knocked him back down to one star. The menu is £60 for a three-course prix-fixe or £75 for the nine-course tasting menu. We thought that £15 was a modest premium to pay for a much broader sample of Chef Bosi’s cuisine, so we went with that.

  

We began with a bowl of warm, slightly salty gougères. The bread didn’t especially impress me, but we loved the soft Welsh cow’s-milk butter. It had an unusually high fat content, which imparted a yellow color, and was also a bit more salty than most butters.

 

1) The amuse-bouche was a Chilled Cucumber & Pineapple Soda (above left) with smoked olive oil and black pepper. This was very clever dish, slightly chunky, but with the consistency of soda.

2) Ravioli of Spring Onion & Cinnamon (above right) with meadowsweet flower, roast onion, and Granny Smith apple. This was a delicate dish, in which the ingredients worked perfectly together. The roasted onions were formed into little pellets that seemed solid, but melted instantly at the touch.

 

3) Tartare of Line-caught Cornish Mackerel (above left) with English strawberries & celery, wasabi & honey dressing. There was a lot on the plate, but this dish was extremely mild, and could almost have used a bit more punch. I couldn’t really detect much of the wasabi.

4) Roast Cornish Lobster cooked in Brown Butter (above right) with green bean and lemongrass purée, Cavaillon melon. This had the “oomph” that the previous dish lacked. Michelle’s comment was, “This was really very nice.”

 

5) Roast Monkfish (above left), Mona Lisa gnocchi, summer truffle, sage & onion purée, mead sauce. This had a nice savory, healthy flavor.

6) Lightly Oak-smoked Lamb Sweetbreads (above right) with fresh goat cheese, tamarillow powder, and lettuce veloute. The sweetbreads had a terrific smokey flavor, and everything on the plate worked well together. To me, this was the most remarkable dish of the evening.

 

7) Roast Goosnargh Duck (above left), cherries scented with lapsang Souchong, barbecued almond butter, and cauliflower four ways (purple cauliflower couscous, white cauliflower purée, and roasted cauliflower × 2). The duck was flavorful but a little too tough.

8) SweetTomato Skin (above right) with vanilla & frozen raspberries, held together with gelatin. Michelle said, “It’s so light, it’s like eating a cloud.” The tomato taste was in the background, while the raspberries were wonderful. 

 

9 ) English Pea & American Mint Tart (above left), sheep’s milk whey & coconut sorbet. Michelle called this “the oddest thing I’ve ever tasted,” and “very strange.” I found it bizarre. That didn’t stop us from finishing the whole thing, but we felt that a tart made of peas misfired. At the end of a long meal, one wants a real dessert, not an appetizer masquerading as dessert.

The petits-fours (above right) were just fine.

Service was generally good, with many sauces applied at table-side, but some dishes weren’t cleared quite as promptly as they should be, and the staff were occasionally frazzled. We had trouble understanding the explanations of quite a few of the dishes. We got a printed menu at the end, but it would have been a lot easier had this been left on the table.

The server seemed offended when I said I wanted to make a wine selection before we ordered. I don’t know if our habits are unusual, but I’ve found that if you don’t choose the wine before placing the food order, you’re liable to be eating the first couple of courses with only water to drink. I haven’t noted the bottle we chose, except that we paid £43 for it (a reasonable price by London standards). The list was not an especially long one. After I narrowed down the choice to two bottles, the sommelier made a very good recommendation and decanted the wine without being asked to do so.

We were gratified to note that the restaurant was full in mid-August, with a mixed demographic of young people and jeans, old folks in suits, and everything in between. The clientele did not seem to be tourists. The tables are not overly cramped, but the noise level was on the loud side after the space filled up. The décor is a mediation on taupe and pine, but bright orange charger plates (pictured at the top of this post) give the room a dash of color.

Chef Bosi dares to challenge his audience on occasion. There were a couple of misfires, but on the whole this was a happy experience.

Hibiscus (29 Maddox Street, London)

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

The Payoff: Scarpetta

This week, Frank Bruni reviews Scott Conant’s greatest hits, finding their current home at Scarpetta worth a three very generous stars:

“Spaghetti, tomato and basil.” That’s all it says. That’s pretty much what it is. But however Mr. Conant is choosing and cooking the Roma tomatoes with which he sauces his house-made spaghetti, he’s getting a roundness of flavor and nuance of sweetness that amount to pure Mediterranean bliss…

More than that, it underscored the wisdom of his work at Scarpetta: he’s getting back to the tomato. I mean that not literally but figuratively, in the sense that Mr. Conant, whose cooking took a precious turn when he opened the restaurant Alto in 2005, is mining a more straightforward, soulful vein.

Here’s a reminder: The Bruni didn’t like Alto, finding it “haute and cold.” He awarded just two stars, which was an insult to a restaurant clearly designed for three. After Conant left, Bruni re-reviewed Alto and gave it the three stars it had deserved in the first place. Critics love to be vindicated. At Scarpetta, Conant has abandoned his excellent work at Alto, so Bruni says, “I told you so.”

Ironically, I am fairly certain that the owners of Scarpetta weren’t gunning for three stars. They’ll happily take them, but I’m sure a two-star verdict wouldn’t have carried anything like the disappointment it did at Alto. Scarpetta is a decent enough place, but it is well below any of the other Italian places that have won three stars from Bruni.

Give full credit to Eater, who correctly forecasted that Bruni’s Italian grading curve would be on full display this week. Eater wins $4 on a hypothetical one-dollar bet, while we lose $1.

	Eater		NYJ
Bankroll	$97.50		$121.67
Gain/Loss	+4.00		–1.00
Total	$101.50		$120.67
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Won–Lost	46–21		48–19

Rolling the Dice: Scarpetta

Every week, we take our turn with Lady Luck on the BruniBetting odds as posted by Eater. Just for kicks, we track Eater’s bet too, and see who is better at guessing what the unpredictable Bruni will do. We track our sins with an imaginary $1 bet every week.

The Line: Tomorrow, Frank Bruni reviews Scott Conant’s comeback at the Meatpacking-adjacent Scarpetta. The Eater oddsmakers have set the action as follows:

Zero Stars: 12-1
One Star: 5-1
Two Stars: 3-1
Three Stars: 4-1 √√
Four Stars: 10,000-1

The Skinny: We’re reasonably confident that Scarpetta was designed as a two-star concept. The prices, the vibe, the service, all say two stars.

On rare occasions, Bruni has awarded a third star that the restaurant itself probably never planned on, with Dovetail being the most recent example. But that doesn’t happen often. It’s hard enough to get three stars when you’re trying to. An unintended third star is a blessing granted to very few.

Working in Scarpetta’s favor is the two-star kiss that Bruni blew at Bar Milano just four weeks ago. In a way, it’s an insult to the obviously superior Scarpetta to be saddled with the same two stars. With Italian restaurants and Bruni, it never hurts to figure on a star more than the restaurant deserves.

But we know the Italian restaurants Bruni really liked—Babbo, Felidia, Del Posto, A Voce (under Carmellini) and Alto the second time around. We are hard pressed to put Scarpetta in that league. Our 1½-star review may have under-rated it, but we’ve seldom been that far away from Bruni’s assessment.

The Bet: We are betting that Frank Bruni will award a very enthusiastic two stars to Scarpetta.

Forge

Sam Horine via Eater

Note: Forge has been renamed Marc Forgione, after an unrelated Miami restaurant complained that it had the original name trademarked. Click here for a more recent review.

Forge is the brainchild of Marc Forgione, whose more famous father, Larry Forgione, has been a big-name chef for thirty years. Son Marc has worked as a second fiddle in a number of places, most recently as Executive Chef at Laurent Tourondel’s BLT Prime.

I always say that if you want a successful restaurant, you should open near a bunch of other successful restaurants. Forgione followed that advice—not that he asked me—and opened right in the heart of TriBeCa. The look is the same rustic chic you could swear you’ve seen at about a dozen other places. You’ll have that same feeling about the menu, which offers standard New American bistro food.

As Forgione is not blazing any trails, the only question is whether he is doing the old standards well enough to make Forge better than just a decent neighborhood fallback. I can’t say that he is. The menu doesn’t range far or deep. With just six appetizers ($12–18) and six entrées ($26–34)—plus leg of suckling pig for two ($68)—there is a high premium on getting just about everything right. There are signs of higher aspirations here, but I found the food uneven.

The meal started on a promising note, with a terrific corn soup amuse-bouche. And I could have filled up on warm, soft dinner rolls with caramelized onion butter. If Forgione has learned anything from the BLT franchise, it’s a superb bread service.

The savory courses were a less happy story. A grilled fluke appetizer ($14) and a halibut entrée ($26) both seemed too tart and acidic. The fish were impeccably prepared, but the sauces seemed to overwhelm them with a bitter salty taste that I wouldn’t be eager to sample again.

A cheese plate ($12) was very solidly done, and the house comped a small pour of Sancerre to go with it.

Service was just fine, but I was in quite early, before the crowds. There is a large bar area, suggesting perhaps that management is hedging their bets as to what kind of restaurant this will be. The cocktail program is underwhelming: think raspberry lemonade with vodka. They were out of the sangria I ordered, as their supply of rum had run out.

For now, Forge strikes me as a slightly over-achieving American bistro, fighting for the destination crowd among many other restaurants that do a more dependable job at the same type of food.

Forge (134 Reade Street between Greenwich & Hudson Streets, TriBeCa)

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

The Payoff: Szechuan Gourmet

Was there ever any doubt? Yesterday, Frank Bruni awarded two stars to Szechuan Gourmet. Its flaws are considerable. The menu rambles (over 100 items), it’s not as good as Spicy & Tasty in Queens (also two stars), and:

It has its limitations: no hard liquor, a short list of wines you won’t yearn to drink, an even shorter list of desserts so negligible that servers don’t bother to ask if you want one before dropping the check. Meals here can be rushed, especially at lunch, when the restaurant is busiest.

But somehow it manages two stars anyway. It’s a pretty sure bet that Frank will do that when he’s in his “$25 & Under” mood, so we and Eater both win our hypothetical one-dollar bets at 2–1 odds.

	Eater		NYJ
Bankroll	$95.50		$119.67
Gain/Loss	+2.00		+2.00
Total	$97.50		$121.67
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Won–Lost	45–21		48–18

Matsugen

 

Note: Matsugen closed in March 2011, after failing consistently to draw crowds. Click here and here for more recent visits reviews.

*

Matsugen, which opened about a month ago in TriBeCa, is Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s latest Manhattan restaurant. It replaces 66, which I sort of liked, but which died a slow, natural death, and closed last year.

Vongerichten has had a long love affair with Asian Cuisine. Vong and Spice Market are both Thai-inspired, 66 was Chinese. At Matsugen, it’s Japanese. But at those earlier restaurants, Vongerichten was the nominal chef, even if he paid little attention to them after they opened. At Matsugen, the Matsushita brothers are running the kitchen. The only things Vongerichten supplied were the space and the chocolate cake recipe. Funnily enough, he wrote a blog post about dining at Matsugen, as if he were an ordinary customer.

An almost inconspicuous sign outside reads “Soba Cuisine,” but while there certainly is soba here, there’s a lot more, at a wide range of prices: appetizers ($6–65), salads ($8–39), tempura ($12–22), grilled items ($20–135), shabu-shabu ($52–160), rice dishes ($32–45), hot & cold soba ($14–36), sushi & sashimi à la carte ($4–10), and rolls ($5–12). To be fair, the higher-end prices are for luxury items like Wagyu beef, fatty tuna, and sea urchin. Typical prices are nearer the lower end of each range. Still, this has to be called a luxury restaurant.

So it’s hard to avoid the fact that the décor is rather charmless and ugly. I deliberately didn’t try to find the best angle. The photo (left) was the view from my table: an unadorned industrial column, white walls, spare tables, plain banquettes. Restaurant 66 wasn’t a beauty, but I don’t remember it being this barren. Maybe my memory is deceiving me.

The staff aren’t any more stylish than the space, but they are knowledgeable. When I asked about something to drink, I got a course in Sake 101. The explanation of the soba dishes rose to a graduate-level seminar. As I was alone, I didn’t really mind the explanation. But it does underscore the potential to be overwhelmed by the menu here.

Fortunately, when the food arrives your patience is repaid—maybe enough to make you forget the grim surroundings.

 

Sliced chilled asparagus was cool and crisp, but it was $15 for a small portion. An eel–cucumber roll ($8) was uncomplicated, but beautifully done. There was a nice contrast between the warm rice and the cold cucumber. The soft, fresh-ground wasabi put to shame the clumpy version of it that most sushi places serve.

That left the main event, Soba Goma Dare ($16), one of the simpler soba items on the menu. The noodles at Matsugen are offered three different ways, with a variety of accompaniments. I chose the darkest, huskiest noodles, served cold. They had a lively, bracing flavor that is difficult to describe.

A server brought over a funky-looking teapot (right) containing the hot broth that the noodles were supposedly cooked in. I was instructed to pour this broth into the bowl in which the noodles and condiments had been dipped (lower left of the photo above), and to drink it like a soup. This was the highlight of the meal, with all of those terrific flavors floating together in one bowl.

After $14 for a small carafe of sake (served in a bamboo box), this fairly modest dinner was $53 before tax and tip. As everything I ordered was near the low end of the range, it’s safe to say that most meals here will cost a lot more. Any Vongerichten restaurant is bound to attract plenty of attention, but I have to wonder if such an expensive, yet ugly, restaurant will be able to build up a loyal fan base. I’ll probably be back, but not on a regular basis.

Matsugen (241 Church Street between Leonard & Worth Streets, TriBeCa)

Food: **
Service: **
Ambiance: Are negative stars allowed?
Overall: *½

Rolling the Dice: Szechuan Gourmet

Every week, we take our turn with Lady Luck on the BruniBetting odds as posted by Eater. Just for kicks, we track Eater’s bet too, and see who is better at guessing what the unpredictable Bruni will do. We track our sins with an imaginary $1 bet every week.

The Line: Tomorrow, Frank Bruni reviews Szechuan Gourmet. The Eater oddsmakers have set the action as follows (√√ denotes the Eater bet):

Zero Stars: 12-1
One Star: 4-1
Two Stars: 2-1 √√
Three Stars: 8-1
Four Stars: 900-1

The Skinny: We’ve never been to Szechuan Gourmet (we know, we know…fifty lashes with a wet noodle), but Eater’s analysis is compelling. We’re not aware of a previous Times review, so there’s no existing rating that cries out for correction. Therefore, the only conceivable point of the review is that Bruni has something compelling to say. What could that be? In a city where zero-star Chinese is on almost every block, and one-star Chinese is in almost every neighborhood, two stars is the realistic minimum that could be worth calling attention to.

We assume that three-star restaurants don’t hide in plain sight, and in any case Bruni isn’t going to award the trifecta two weeks in a row. That leaves two stars as the only possibility.

The Bet: We agree with Eater that Frank Bruni will award two stars to Szechuan Gourmet.

The Payoff: Oceana

We’re rather late with this week’s edition of The Payoff, as in five days late. Our only excuse is that we’ve been busy.

Anyhow, the news is that Oceana is still great. Who knew? We all do now, thanks to last Wednesday’s three-star review from Frank Bruni:

I RARELY hear people chattering about Oceana anymore. They don’t mention it as a special-occasion restaurant they yearn to try. They don’t mention it as a favorite they circle back to.

Say the restaurant’s name even to some diners who diligently canvas the city’s dining scene, eager not to lose touch with anything noteworthy, and you can tell that Oceana has slipped away from them…

But more than a decade and a half since it opened, Oceana presses on, still proud, still vital, still very much worth boarding.

Its owners, the Livanos family, who also operate the Greek restaurant Molyvos and the Italian restaurant Abboccato, obviously care about Oceana, which they’ve steered through several chef changes: from Rick Moonen to Mr. Gallagher, and then to Ben Pollinger, who took over in late 2006.

Like a number of other people, I was skeptical when this review was announced. Given the rarity of re-reviews, I thought it made more sense to review Oceana when it moves next year, rather than now, when it’s nearing the end of a sixteen-year run in its old digs.

But Bruni made a persuasive case that the review made sense. Although he doesn’t admit it, about 90% of his reviews are really just confirmations of critical judgments the market has already made for itself. It isn’t often that he can actually draw attention to an excellent place the food cogniscenti had ignored. As far as I’m concerned, he can do that all he wants. It’s never too early to celebrate excellence.

We and Eater both anticipated a demotion to two stars. We both lose on our hypothetical one-dollar bets.

	Eater		NYJ
Bankroll	$96.50		$120.67
Gain/Loss	–1.00		–1.00
Total	$95.50		$119.67
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Won–Lost	44–21		47–18