Restaurant Outlook

Welcome back to Restaurant Outlook, a periodic, highly subjective listing of restaurants we’re paying attention to.

Fairly New

• Sheridan Square — We already posted our first impressions, but we’re going back for a closer look. Reservation: Tonight.
  
• Scarpetta — Italian restaurant by Scott Conant, formerly of Alto and L’Impero. Early reports are promising, but it’s in the Meatpacking District, which hasn’t seen a serious restaurant in years. Reservation: tomorrow.
  
• Hundred Acres — This Marc Meyer/Vicki Freeman follow-up to Provence opened a few weeks ago. It will be in the Five Points–Cookshop haute barnyard vein. Reservation: June 27.
  
• Talay — Pan-Asian food in Harlem, and how often does that get a mention from Florence Fabricant? No plans to visit yet.
  
• Persimmon — David Chang isn’t the only one doing an Asian-inspired prix fixe in the East Village. No plans to visit yet.
  
• Duane Park — This sequel to Duane Park Café looks interesting, though there aren’t many reviews to go on. No plans to visit yet.
  

Forthcoming

All of these restaurants have been announced or mentioned in the press, but some of them may be a long way off.

• Matsu Gen — Jean-Georges Vongerichten does Japanese in the old 66 space. Opening is a couple of weeks away. Naturally, there’s no website yet.
  
• Lever House — Bradford Thompson is taking over the kitchen this month. We’ll wait for the early reports before we decide whether to pay a visit.
  
• Corton — Paul Liebrandt in the former Montrachet space in early August, or thereabouts. ’Nuff said.
  
• Bouley 3.0 — David Bouley’s move to the Mohawk Atelier Building at 161 Duane Street. Expected “by the fall.”
  
• La Fonda del Sol — Mexican you can take seriously? Gael Greene thinks so, and so does Adam Tihany, who’ll be designing the space. Expected in “late fall.”
  
• Susur Lee’s first New York restaurant at 200 Allen Street on the Lower East Side, as yet unnamed, but also expected “come fall.”
  
• Brushstroke — another Bouley restaurant, at 111 West Broadway. Given the well chronicled problems getting this restaurant off the ground, I would be surprised to see it before 2009.
  

Off the List

• Merkato 55 — Now that it’s officially a certified disaster, we’re in no particular hurry to visit. If we happen to be in the neighborhood, then maybe…
• The Redhead — Despite a mostly enthuisiastic 29-page Mouthfuls thread about the Thursdays-only family-style meal, we’ll wait till after a forthcoming expansion.
  
• Greenwich Grill — Near the office, but more likely a choice for a rainy day.

Exit Montrachet, Enter Corton with Paul Liebrandt

Ending months of speculation, the Times reports today that the former Montrachet space will re-open “in about two months” as Corton, with Paul Liebrandt in the kitchen.

In 1985, Montrachet was an iconic restaurant, blazing a trail in TriBeCa, which was then considered remote and even a bit dangerous—hardly the place one would put a three-star restaurant. We visited Montrachet a couple of times near the end. We found it to be serving respectable, mid-range three-star food, but some people thought the restaurant had slipped, particularly the Times’ Amanda Hesser, who demoted it to two stars.

The list of chefs that worked at Montrachet is practically a Who’s Who of New York City dining: David Bouley, Terrance Brennan (Picholine, Artisanal), Kerry Heffernan (Eleven Madison Park, South Gate), Claudia Fleming (Gramercy Tavern, North Fork Table & Inn), Harold Moore (Commerce). Looking back on the list of names that worked here, you have to wonder if perhaps there wasn’t quite enough stability in the kitchen.

The ringleader, then as now, was restauranteur Drew Nieporent.

Montrachet closed in 2006, for what was originally described as a mere “vacation.” Since then, we’ve learned that “closed for vacation” often means, quite simply, closed. It’s not clear what took so long, when the Nieporent–Liebrandt partnership was not exactly a secret. Apparently there was an ugly corporate divorce between Nieporent and his original Montrachet partner, Tony Zazula, who is now with Harold Moore at Commerce.

The Times couldn’t even get a straight answer on who owns the Montrachet name. In any case, they’re renaming it “Corton,” which like Montrachet is a French wine appellation from Burgundy. Sadly, much of Montrachet’s prized wine cellar was auctioned off last year. We can only hope that the new restaurant’s wine program will be as impressive as the old one.

According to the Times, there space will be extensively renovated to a Stephanie Goto design in “textured white walls, chartreuse upholstery and touches of gold.” Like many restaurants these days, Corton will have a “wine wall.” The dining room will seat 70, or about 30 fewer than Montrachet did. This will allow Liebrandt to expand the kitchen, which after twenty years is probably overdue for a facelift.

Liebrandt must be the most popular chef that has never had a successful restaurant. Whether it was Atlas, Papillon or Gilt, Liebrandt always attracted admirers, but never enough paying customers. At Atlas, he at least had critical acclaim (three stars from Grimes), but not at Gilt (a pathetic two-spot from Frank Bruni). We think Bruni severely underrated Liebrandt’s achievement at Gilt, but history will record that Liebrandt lasted less than a year.

We think the Corton team won’t be so foolish as to disclose their aspirations, but make no mistake: Corton is gunning for four stars, perhaps the last significant accolade that has eluded Nieporent. We’re a little doubtful that they will open in August, given that we walk by the site fairly often and have never seen so much as a peep of activity. But if anyone can pull it off, Nieporent can.

The timing is perfect, if they can stick to it. An opening in two months would put Corton’s debut in early August, traditionally a slow period for fine dining. That will give the staff time to iron out the kinks before the fall season gets in gear after Labor Day.

The Payoff: Elettaria

Today, as expected, Frank Bruni awards one star to Elettaria, finding the performance too inconsistent, the ambiance too scatter-brained:

The ostensibly individual tables bisecting the dining room are essentially one way-too-long communal table, which makes for odd traffic patterns.

And why is this central and most crucial region of the restaurant so cramped when there’s so much elbowroom and extra space around the bar up front? Elettaria is lovely but awkward, and its awkwardness undercuts Mr. Nawab’s impressively creative cooking.

But then his cooking also undercuts itself, some dishes mirroring the setting: seductive in the abstract, less so in actuality. There’s too broad a gap between the best of them, which are excellent, and the rest. I had only one meal that wholly delighted me, while the others were a mix of exciting, intriguing and frustrating moments.

We and Eater both win $2 on our hypothetical one-dollar bets.

	Eater		NYJ
Bankroll	$86.50		$106.67
Gain/Loss	+2.00		+2.00
Total	$88.50		$108.67
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Won–Lost	40–18		42–16

Tasting Room Closes

Eater reported yesterday that there is a “Closed for Renovations” sign at the Tasting Room. In the Comments section, chef Colin Alevras confirmed that the restaurant is, indeed, just plain closed (see #16). (Update: It was later replaced by the restaurant Jo’s.)

The Tasting Room had a terrific cult following at their original location in the East Village. When they moved to Elizabeth Street in NoLIta, they tripled the size of the restaurant. We never visited the original Tasting Room, and so can’t make comparisons, but perhaps Alevras wasn’t able to scale the concept up to such a large space. Although we enjoyed the Tasting Room, the new space never quite attracted the rapturous reviews of the old.

When I stopped by recently to sample Alevras’s “Old McDonald’s Hamburger,” I noticed that the menu had been retooled; ironically, it no longer offered “tasting” portions, which of course was the original point of the restaurant. Business seemed to be slow.

There is no justice in the restaurant industry. The Tasting Room wasn’t perfect, but it was better and less expensive than plenty of places that are still open.

The Alevrases still have their original space on 1st Street between First & Second Avenues, which they transformed into a wine bar when the NoLIta location opened. What will they do now? We’ll have to wait and see.

Rolling the Dice: Elettaria

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 takes a belated look at Elettaria, Akhtar Nawab’s Indian–American fusion restaurant in Greenwich Village. The Eater oddsmakers have set the action as follows (√√ denotes the Eater bet):

Zero Stars: 5-1
One Star: 2-1 √√
Two Stars: 3-1
Three Stars: 8-1
Four Stars: 1,000-1

The Skinny: As usual, there are only two possible outcomes here: one star or two. The closeness of the odds (2–1 and 3–1 respectively) shows that this is basically a coin toss. Reviews have been all over the map, ranging from Platt’s one-star slap to RG’s three-star rave. Will the real Elettaria please stand up?

The X-factor is the rather long time it took Bruni to get around to this review: it has been more than six weeks since most of the other critics filed, including this blog, which awarded two stars. We can only assume that Bruni saw potential, and wanted to give Elettaria time to resolve the early kinks. Bruni doesn’t usually give restaurants that chance, so you’ve got to figure that he really wanted to like this place.

We are torn, but our sense is that the cramped ambiance, abbreviated menu and chronic inconsistency will rate mentions in this review.

The Bet: We are betting, with some reluctance, that Frank Bruni will award one star to Elettaria.

Savarona

 

Note: Savarona has closed. It closed so quickly, in fact, that none of the city’s major critics got around to reviewing it. The double gamble we referred to in our opening paragraph did not pay off.

*

The new restaurant Savarona takes a double gamble. The first is that New Yorkers will warm up to haute Turkish cuisine, of which this is practically the only example in Manhattan. The second is that they’ll do so in Sutton Place, a tiny East Midtown enclave not easily reached by mass transit.

I can’t say whether the gamble will pay off. The only thing I can say is: I certainly hope so. Savarona deserves your attention. In a town where so many restaurants are plainly derivative, this one blazes its own trail. The chef, Tevfik Alparslan, comes from Istanbul via La Tour d’Argent and Gordon Ramsay at Claridge’s. His menu has a recognizably Mediterranean tint, but every dish we tried led us to unfamiliar territory, and quite happily so.

The owners have given Alparslan a beautiful stage on which to perform: a comfortable space, elegantly redecorated. The lighting is warm and inviting, the tables generously spaced. The restaurant is on the ground floor of a residential building in the shadow of the Queensboro bridge, but set comfortably back from the street. There is room for outdoor seating in good weather. There is an ample bar and a spacious, semi-private dining room that seats twelve.

Appetizers are generally priced in the teens, entrées in the twenties. The reasonably priced wine list is Mediterranean-centric, though there are no actual Turkish wines, curiously enough. There wasn’t as much variety as I’d like; most of the bottles were fairly young. (We had a 2005 Italian Syrah; $56.)

There was a nice bread service, with four kinds of homemade bread and a fried cheese spread (above right).

 

I enjoyed the Stuffed Mackerel ($12; above left), accented with fresh pine nuts, currants, asparagus, warm fennel, and a fresh red pepper emulsion. My girlfriend had the traditional Mezze Platter ($14; above right). Two of the five items were made with eggplant, which is about the only food I don’t eat, but she said they were terrific. I liked the yogurt cucumber and the chicken salad, the latter topped with pine nuts.

I thought that the entrées surpassed the appetizers, but my girlfriend said, “I’m not so sure; that eggplant was pretty damned good.” 

 

An entrée of Stuffed Grape Leaves ($24; above left) was remarkable: four plump grape leaves stuffed with beef tenderloin in a sweet cherry-apricot sauce. The Sultan Kebab ($25; above right) had tender meatballs and diced beef in a yogurt and light chili sauce.

The pastry chef here trained in French kitchens, and the staff admitted that the deserts are more French than Turkish. Pineapple ($12) with mango sorbet, mascarpone and spun sugar could make an appearance anywhere. It was one of the most enjoyable desserts we’ve had in quite some time.

There were minor service glitches, as one might expect at a three-week-old restaurant. Plates were deposited in front of the wrong diner. The cheese spread arrived a bit too late. One item wasn’t quite as warm as it should be.

The food at Savarona is very good, and the space is as relaxing as any we’ve visited in recent months. Since there is almost zero foot traffic on this stretch of 59th Street, the restaurant will be heavily dependent on word-of-mouth and favorable reviews. This is a restaurant we’ll be rooting for.

Savarona (420 E. 59th Street between First and York Avenues, Sutton Place)

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

Elizabeth

 

Note: There was a series of chef chuffles after this review was written. Elizabeth finally closed in early 2011.

*

The new restaurant Elizabeth showcases several recent trends.

In the first place, we have a former three-star chef working in much humbler surroundings—trying to “make it small” after he’d already made it big. That chef is Doug Psaltis, who worked at both The French Laundry and Country. In the second place, Psaltis is merely consulting, with another former colleague from Country, John Iconomou, in the kitchen day-to-day.

Lastly, there’s a “small plates” format, which at its best encourages grazing and sharing, but at its worst encourages over-ordering or leaves the customer confused about how much to order.

In part, these trends reflect the preferences of some younger diners, who want to enjoy haute cuisine without putting on a coat and tie, who don’t want to be locked into the standard three-course meal, and who don’t want to pay the higher prices that fancier restaurants need to charge to recover their overheads. These trends also reflect tough economic times: the risks and the capital required to open a multi-starred restaurant.

Some of the post-modern, deconstructed restaurants are terrific. Others are derivative—pedestrian—ordinary. Elizabeth is in the latter camp.

The space is configured somewhat like a railroad apartment, with several dark rooms in sequence, leading to a bright, cheery garden space with a large skylight. The garden looks like it dropped in from another restaurant; it looks like nothing like the indoor space. Most patrons seem to prefer the garden. It was full at 6:30 p.m. on a Friday night, but the dark indoor rooms, where we were seated, were empty. They started to fill up a bit later on.

The menu is divided into three categories with five dishes apiece: First ($8–14), Second ($11–13) and Third ($14–19). Naturally, the idea is to encourage you to order one from each category, though we ignored that advice. If our experience is any guide, one appetizer and one entrée (selected from the third category) is sufficient unless you’re unusually hungry.

For the record, desserts are $7–9, a cheese plate $13. House cocktails, at $12–14, are a bit over-priced in relation to the rest of the menu. The wine list is more reasonable, though it is less than half a page, with about 10 choices by the glass and another 10 by the bottle. We had a respectable Shiraz for $45.

 

A Green Gazpacho ($9) with cucumber and passion fruit was probably the best thing we tasted, cool and summery. In the middle of the bowl was a scoop of mango sorbet; the soup was poured over it at tableside.

A lettuce salad ($8) was competently done.

 

Pork Tenderloin ($14) was prepared in the traditional manner, with applesauce, sour cream, and potato latkes. A Crispy Cheese Burger ($14) wasn’t tender enough. It was served with a bizarre frisbee of burnt cheese that was twice the diameter of the bun. Fries ($5) were huge and far too mushy on the inside. I called them “horse fries,” meaning that only a horse could love them.

The restaurant has been open for about six weeks. Some early reports complained about service, but we found it mostly under control. We found nothing at Elizabeth that was worthy of the former chef de cuisine at the French Laundry. The kitchen serves decent comfort food.

Elizabeth (265 Elizabeth Street between Houston & Prince Streets, NoLIta)

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

First Look: Sheridan Square

Note: Click here for a full review of Sheridan Square.

The long-delayed Sheridan Square opens tonight in Greenwich Village. The restaurant has been in a “soft open” for the last couple of days, and after reading a glowing review yesterday on Mouthfuls, I decided to stop in for dinner.

The chef here, Gary Robins, joins a gaggle of former three-star chefs opening in much humbler Greenwich Village settings. Bar Blanc is run by a trio of Bouley alumni, Bobo opened with a former Ducasse chef (who has since left), Commerce has Montrachet’s Harold Moore, and Sheridan Square has Robins, who earned three stars at the Biltmore Room and, less honorably, numerous pans at the Russian Tea Room.

Sheridan Square might be the best of this quartet of restaurants, all within two square blocks of one another. We rated Commerce an outright failure, and Frank Bruni gave it only one star. Bar Blanc got the two stars it likely wanted, but it continues to be dogged by service complaints; we consider it an under-achiever. We liked Bobo (not yet reviewed by Bruni), but the jury is still out; it appears to be righting the ship after a nearly disastrous start.

Bobo certainly has the loveliest space, though Sheridan Square rates a respectable second, with a cheery modern vibe, large windows that admit plenty of natural light, a woodburning stove, white tablecloths, and elegant service. It’s a pity those windows don’t offer something nicer to look at. Like all restaurants located on avenues and major cross streets, the view is nothing special.

There’s a divided kitchen, with most of the cooking done in the basement, and some of the finishing and plating done upstairs in view of the dining room. I don’t quite understand the allure of open kitchens, but this one seemed to be humming along efficiently without being too much of a distraction.

The seasonal (“Late Spring”) menu is priced about in line with the neighborhood’s other upscale newcomers, with starters $11–19, entrées $24–36, and side dishes $8. I counted at least four entrées that are prepared in the wood-burning oven, and I suspect they’ll be among the most popular. I wasn’t happy to see two entrées with “m.p.” instead of a price (lamb, strip steak). Given the ease of reprinting these days, and a seasonal menu that changes frequently, how hard is it to reprint when the price changes?

A mis-named appetizer called “Crispy Squash Blossom” ($17) was mildly disappointing. The brown fritter in the photo is basically an oddly shaped jumbo lump crab cake with a tangy mango chili sauce. The corn salsa and avocado were a bit more exciting, but seemed to have parachuted in from a different appetizer. A couple of ugly shards of lettuce didn’t add anything either, and for the life of me I couldn’t find any squash.

I adored the Wood Grilled Carolina Trout ($24), plated with golden beets in a honey ginger vinaigrette, wild rice, garden beans and yuzu hazelnut brown butter. Everything in this dish worked beautifully together, punctuated by two ample filets of tender trout and a mild smoky flavor imparted by the wood-burning oven.

Service was about as smooth and assured as I’ve seen in a restaurant that is not yet technically open. I did not order wine, but the wine list, though not particularly deep, seemed to be fairly priced, with plenty of bottles under $50 and a good selection by the glass. I had a couple of terrific cocktails, but there was no printed cocktail menu. Bread service could be better, with only humdrum sourdough bread and a caraffe of olive oil as the only choice.

I don’t assign ratings to restaurants that are not yet open, but Sheridan Square seems to have all of the pieces in place for a solid two stars. I look forward to coming back again in another month or two.

Sheridan Square (138 Seventh Ave. S. between W. 10th & Charles Sts., West Village)

The Payoff: The Harrison

After a week off, Frank Bruni returns today with a review of The Harrison, clocking in at the upper end of two stars:

How often, really, do you go through four appetizers, entrees and desserts without confronting a total bore, a total bust or an overwrought underachiever?

Take it from someone who spends as many hours dining out as a cat does dozing: not often. Even the best, most exciting restaurants stumble from time to time over their own ambitions. They’re exhilarating rides, but also risky ones.

The Harrison, in contrast, is the very definition of dependable, poised to impress you, if not quite wow you…

Like the Red Cat, which is technically its older sibling but feels like its younger one, the Harrison doesn’t promise or deliver out-and-out excitement. But it safeguards against disappointment as well as just about any other Manhattan restaurant.

We haven’t yet visited The Harrison under new chef Amanda Freitag, but Bruni’s review captured the spirit of the place as we recalled it from past visits, though his complaint about the décor seemed off-key: “…the Harrison’s visual evocation of a country inn in the big city still strikes me as more stodgy than cozy.” We don’t find it stodgy at all.

We win $3 on our hypothetetical one-dollar bet. Eater, who had predicted three stars, loses a dollar.

	Eater		NYJ
Bankroll	$87.50		$103.67
Gain/Loss	–1.00		+3.00
Total	$86.50		$106.67
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Won–Lost	39–18		41–16

Revolving Door: Ed Cotton Out at Veritas

Eater reports that Veritas chef Ed Cotton has been fired. Gregory Pugin, currently sous chef at L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon, will be replacing him.

There’s no doubt that Cotton is gone: his name is now completely banished from the Veritas website. The second half of the story is mere rumor, but believable enough that we’ll run with it. [Update: The Times confirms the story.]

Historically, the food at Veritas has been very good, but low-key and not-at-all showy, which allowed the restaurant’s nonpareil wine collection to take center stage. We thought that Ed Cotton’s menu at Veritas still merited three stars, but as we were never there under founding chef Scott Bryan, we had nothing to compare it to. Some people thought that Veritas had lost a step.

If they’ve hired Pugin, it surely means the owners are ready to serve food that can command as much attention as the wine list does.