Park Avenue Autumn

As a general rule, I don’t believe restaurant spaces are “cursed”. Consecutive failures at the same address are usually attributable to explainable human errors, and not any supernatural intervention.

I might just have to revise my view if Park Avenue Autumn (and its three seasonal cousins) fails in its new home, which has seen four restaurant concepts in four years, all from the same ownership group, Alan and Michael Stillman’s Fourth Wall Restaurants. The company has a strong record of populist success (Smith & Wollensky, Quality Meats, Quality Italian), everywhere but here.

In its original home, almost forty blocks north, this restaurant lasted twenty-two years, first as Park Avenue Café, and starting in 2007, as Park Avenue what-have-you, with the name, signage, décor, servers’ uniforms, and menu changing with the season every three months. That lasted six years, before losing its lease at the end of 2013.

After General Assembly quickly flopped earlier this year, the Stillmans decided to re-launch “a more casual, accessible version” of their Park Avenue concept. Design firm AvroKO is on hand once again with a modular décor, which evokes the current season with pitch-perfect precision, but within a matter of days, can be swapped out for the next. It might be too Disney-fied for some tastes.

By the end of its run uptown, Park Avenue Season had matured into a solid two-star place: I liked my second visit (in 2011) quite a bit better than the first (2007). The restaurant was usually full at prime times. But that was in a much smaller space, and in a neighborhood where the locals don’t wince at entrées averaging in the mid-$30s.

Located at a comparatively dead spot on Park Avenue South, the massive floor plan worked to the disadvantage of Hurricane Club, Hurricane Steak, and General Assembly, the first three concepts the Stillmans tried here. In this cavernous labrynth of connected rooms, the charm of the original Park Avenue hasn’t quite survived. Meanwhile, the promise of a supposedly “more casual, accessible” restaurant does not apply to the bill: it’s as expensive as ever. (The online menu is posted without prices—a strictly low-class move.)

Zene Flinn and Benkai O’Sullivan are co-executive chefs. Flinn was with the team uptown, and the menu here is very much in the same spirit as the original, with most of the dishes inspired by the season. It might almost be called old-fashioned, with appetizers $15–19, entrées $19–38 (almost all over $30), and side dishes $10. The downtown crowd might be disoriented in a restaurant with no sharing plates, “large format” dishes, or tasting menus.

The ten-page wine list (available online with prices—such a concept!) doesn’t offer many bargains, but it is not unfairly priced in relation to the food. The 2004 Château Berliquet was $76, a shade over two times retail, and the sommelier decanted it—always a nice touch.

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élan

Note: Elan closed in February 2016. The restaurant was in a high-rent neighborhood, and it never really caught on.

*

For David Waltuck, it has been a long walk in the desert. His beloved Chanterelle, once a four-star restaurant, closed abruptly in 2009, in the depths of the Great Recession. Who’d have thunk he’d spend the next five years on forgettable consulting projects, before finally opening his own place again?

His new restaurant, élan, is a double palimpsest, with echoes not just of Chanterelle, but also Veritas, the last restaurant in this space, also felled by the financial crisis. Give Waltuck at least this much credit: he closed Chanterelle with his reputation intact, instead of spoiling what he’d achieved with a failed re-vamp, as the Veritas owners did.

If you remember Chanterelle at its best, it’s hard not to be melancholy that such a wonderful place can no longer exist. But its charms came at a price: $95 prix fixe, and that was in 2006, the last time I visited. You needed an occasion to go there. Heaven knows what it would be today for comparable quality—certainly not the kind of restaurant where you could just pop in for a quick bite after work.

At élan, there’s no amuse bouche or petits fours, no cheese cart or service brigade. But you could drop in a couple of nights a week without breaking the bank. The cuisine is ambitious for the price, carefully prepared, and like no other in town. Waltuck’s French technique borrows liberally from Asia (“General Tso”), Greece (moussaka), and middle Europe (sauerkraut). Some items are just unclassifiable (foie gras lollipops). Starters and appetizers are mostly in the $14–19 range, main courses $27–33, side dishes $8.

If you hoped the owners bought out the Veritas wine list, you’ll be disappointed. The list here runs to about 100 bottles, with no particular viewpoint, most of them priced eccentrically at $20 increments: $45, $65, $85, $105,etc. Among the reds, $65 seems to be the sweet spot, but in the ten days since we visited, the 2008 Margaux we tried has apparently been replaced (on the online list) by the 2010 at the same price.

The bread service (above right) consists of warm, house-made “everything” pretzels with mustard butter. Finish them, and the server brings more. They’re so good, you might be tempted to skip dinner, and just eat these.

 

Waltuck’s guacamole ($16; above left) is like no one else’s, topped sea urchin. The seafood sausage was perhaps Chanterelle’s best dish, and the version served here ($18; above right) is every bit as good as I remember.

 

Duck fat appears in multiple dishes, here with fettucine and grilled scallops ($15 the small portion shown, above left). Salmon is usually the most boring dish on any menu, but Waltuck makes this version exciting, with tamarind spices and a crisp skin ($30; above right).

The space has been totally remodeled, with no remaining vestiges of the last, failed re-design at Veritas. There’s now a dining counter at the front window, where we sat (see photo at the top of the post). This is a comfortable place to perch on a warm evening, but random passersby may walk up to you, and chat you up while you’re eating.

As we had our backs to the dining room, I didn’t get a feel for how full it was, but in its opening couple of months, the restaurant has been solidly booked at prime times. Service was in line with comparable upper mid-range establishments.

For those who missed Chanterelle, David Waltuck’s return has been a long time coming. Welcome back!

élan (43 E. 20th St. between Broadway & Park Avenue South, Flatiron District)

Food: French technique; American chef; global influences
Service: Just fine
Ambiance: Upscale casual

Rating: ★★

Blenheim

Note: Chef Ryan Tate left Blenheim abruptly in March 2015. Mazen Mustafa is the restaurant’s third chef in its first year of existence.

*

When a restaurant announces that it’s “closing temporarily,” it’s usually done-for. So I promptly crossed Blenheim off my to-do list when opening chef Justin Hilbert was canned, and the restaurant shuttered, after a month in business.

Blenheim escaped the usual fate of such establishments—and recovered brilliantly, in fact—when Tribeca’s Le Restaurant closed, and the Michelin-starred chef Ryan Tate became a free agent. A couple of weeks later, Tate was in, and Blenheim had recovered from the dead. Full disclosure: I wasn’t a fan of Le Restaurant. I must’ve caught it on a bad day, as no one else disliked it as much as I did. The food at Blenheim is terrific.

The owners are husband-and-wife team Min Ye and Morten Sohlberg, best known for the Smörgås Chef mini-chain of Swedish restaurants. In 2007, they bought the Blenheim Hill Farm in the Catskill Mountains, which dates back to the 1700s, but had been abandoned since the 1970s. They restored the farm, and started raising pesticide-free produce and heritage breeds of pigs, cattle, and lamb.

You might’ve guessed that a farm-to-table restaurant wouldn’t be far behind. Welcome to Blenheim, which will remind you of that other restaurant with an affiliated farm, Blue Hill, in its humbler days, before it started serving S. Pellegrino cuisine and playing host to presidents. (Even Smörgås Chef now touts its farm-to-table bona fides, which wasn’t the case when we visited in 2007.)

The v1.0 release of Blenheim had no online menu, but The Pink Pig sampled a Guinea Hen dish that was $32; the same is now $27. Further comparisons aren’t possible, but I gather the new chef has thoroughly re-habilitated the menu, which is now firmly mid-priced, with appetizers $10–19 and entrees $20–34. There are no snacks or side dishes to plump up the bill.

There are also two so-called tasting menus: four courses ($65) and seven courses ($95). Wine pairings are $35 and $55 respectively. We chose the former. If I’m picky, the four-course option isn’t really a tasting menu, although it did come with a couple of amuses. The wine pairing came with four pours, and at the price would have to be called generous.

The amuse (above left) was a tomato carpaccio with lovage emulsion, about as perfect as tomatoes can be. The bread service (above right) offered a choice of three varieties, served warm, with soft butter from the farm.

 

Blenheim 1.0 was criticized for serving “overly precious creation[s] made mostly from greens that humans don’t typically eat for a reason.” You see it, too, in The Pink Pig’s far more favorable review.

There’s still some evidence of that at Blenheim 2.0 (a $15 gin and lime cocktail served with ice plant) and on the plates above, where farm greenery is tossed about, mainly because they can. Le Restaurant, the chef’s last place, suffered from similar self-indulgence, but here the dishes succeed.

We started with White Asparagus (above left), not from the local farm, but from northern Italy, with a poached egg, sorrell, and pine juice. “Mix it up and have fun,” the server exhorted, in case you were wondering. There was a crunchy, crouton-like ingredient, and something sweet I couldn’t identify. The chef had done something incredible with very little.

Greenery on the next plate was purely decorative, but the Skate Wing (above right) was exquisite.

 

Pork Loin (above left) had a pungent, “hammy” taste that was wonderful. I also enjoyed the salted peaches on the plate, but didn’t need charred okra or smoked onion.

The dessert amuse was a cucumber sorbet, tasting something like a key lime pie, which I didn’t photograph. The dessert was a cream cheese panna cotta (above right) with plums, whey, and buckwheat crêpes that was one of the best desserts I’ve had in a while.

The ambiance at Blenheim straddles the line between high-end informal and low-end formal. Despite the tablecloth-free décor of exposed wood and farm implements hung from the walls, the dining room feels upscale: it’s a third-date place. The staff are extremely attentive about the small things, such as the setting and clearing of plates and silverware. There are butter knives on the tables, and when was the last time you saw that outside of a three-star restaurant.

The dining room was quiet, and only about half full at 8:00pm; by 10:00 it was almost empty. There is nothing wrong with the location, an ideal West Village street corner, in a part of town where many restaurants have thrived. Blenheim has got the chef; now it just needs the buzz.

Blenheim (283 W. 12th Street at W. 4th Street, West Village)

Food: Haute barnyard
Service: Upscale
Ambiance: Straddling high-end informal and low-end formal

Rating: ★★

Bacchanal

Note: Well, that was fast. Four months in, chef Scott Bryan left the restaurant to take over at Corvo Bianco on the Upper West Side. That’s not exactly a hotspot, so the difference of opinion between Bryan and the owners here must have been substantial. As noted below, it seemed to us that there was a disconnect between Bryan’s inexpensive casual menu here and the deep wine list. Alas, the new chef at Bacchanal, couldn’t rescue the concept either, and the restaurant closed at the end of 2015.

*

Years from now, perhaps the early twenty-teens will be called the VeriCru diaspora. Veritas and Cru, perhaps the two best wine restaurants the city has seen, both expired in 2009–10, victims of the Great Recession.

(For the history buffs out there, I do realize that Veritas re-modeled and somehow soldiered on until 2013. I prefer to remember Veritas as it was conceived, not the watered-down replacement that tried and failed to replace it.)

Since then, we’ve seen openings like Pearl & Ash and Charlie Bird, where great (but not “VeriCru” epic) wine lists pair with good (but not great) food in drastically pared-down rooms. To me, it seems odd to pair a $250 Brunello with a $29 roast chicken, in a room where you can barely hear yourself talk. But if you want it, you can have it. Veritas and Cru had it all; these places do not.

Welcome to Bacchanal, the latest entry in the genre. The pedigree is obvious, starting with the chef, Scott Bryan, who opened Veritas (lasted eight years there), consulted a bit, spent five years at the mediocre Apiary, and is now back in his element.

Owner Peter Poulakakos has a stable of Financial District restaurants, anchored by Harry’s at Hanover Square and the more recent Vintry Wine & Whisky, where the reserve list goes as high as a 1945 Château Haut-Brion for $9,975. No doubt Poulakakos borrowed from those superb lists to open Bacchanal, as it’s almost unheard of to build such a cellar from scratch at an untried restaurant.

On a wine and spirits list that runs to 40 pages, you’ve got 1970 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti ($9,125), 1978 Château Pétrus ($2,900), and 1982 Château Mouton Rothschild ($1,950), to name a few. For those who don’t want to spend a mortgage payment on dinner, there are many excellent offerings in the $45–60 range. But how can you not splurge, at least a little bit? A 2001 Château Moulinet, which the sommelier decanted, was well worth the tarrif at $75.

The knock on Scott Bryan at Veritas, was that the food never approached the wine list’s pyrotechnics. It was quietly competent and seldom disappointed, but it never left you with enduring memories, the way the wine did. He has built a similar menu here. It is surprisingly affordable, with no entrée more expensive than a $26 steak.

I am still left with the question that left me perplexed at Charlie Bird and Pearl & Ash: who is ordering three- and four-figure wine bottles, but demands a food menu that is practically budget-priced by today’s standards? Where’s the 28 dry-aged prime ribeye that Harry’s Steak sells for $48.

On paper, the food doesn’t exactly set the pulse racing. Listen to this list of entrées: pasta, ricotta agnolotti, risotto, chicken, codfish, salmon, skirt steak. As he did at Veritas, Bryan executes all of this with cool precision that makes it worthwhile, especially if the prices remain as low as they are now. If the food doesn’t get in the wine list’s way, it has done its job.

 

An Escarole Salad ($10; above left) wasn’t as blurry in real life as my lousy photo, but it was exceedingly pedestrian, with an anchovy vinaigrette that barely registered. Why not charge a couple of bucks more, and give us real anchovies? But Bryan can still cook. A Chilled Corn Velouté ($10; above right) was a soup of astonishing clarity, drizzled with roasted poblanos, sweet tomatoes, and basil.

 

Both entrées were wonderful, bearing in mind the price point: Atlantic Codfish ($26; above left) with white bean purée, manila clams, roasted garlic, and parsley; Roasted Chicken ($22; above right) with polenta, chanterelles, madeira, and tarragon.

Dessert was a delightful Peach Tarte Tatin ($10; left) with créme frâiche ice cream and caramel.

Bacchanal occupies the southern frontier on the new Bowery, with its own street entrance in the boutique Sohotel. It is a more polished restaurant than Charlie Bird or Pearl & Ash, but like those establishments, it has a distinctly downtown vibe. Low ceilings and brick walls ensure a punishing sound level. My wife and I had to shout at each other all evening, and we were seated at a two-top in a corner, with no one on either side of us.

The well-executed food and excellent wine list are somewhat undermined by the service, which was a bit slow. The restaurant was close to full on a Wednesday evening.

It will be interesting to see how Bacchanal and other restaurants of the VeriCru diaspora evolve. If you want vast wine lists without paying three-star prices for the food, these restaurants are the places where you find them. But such a large room is hardly the place where I would contemplate a three-figure Brunello. The chef does a thoroughly professional job, especially at the absurdly low price point. You have to wonder how the clash between such luxurious wine and the quotidian surroundings will eventually be settled.

Bacchanal (146 Bowery at Broome Street, Soho)

Food: Casual American, mostly well executed at a surprisingly low price point
Service: At times slow, but otherwise good
Ambiance: A punishingly loud, low-ceilinged room

Rating: ★★

The Gander

 

Four years after Recette charmed the West Village, chef Jesse Schenker has expanded to more upscale digs at The Gander, which takes over the space that briefly hosted the doomed Alison Eighteen.

I thought Alison Eighteen would last longer. It turns out the goodwill accumulated at Alison on Dominick and her Hamptons restaurants did not travel with her to the new location.

I mention this, because Schenker may have to overcome similar challenges. The restaurant is on a charmless, lightly-traveled block. The newly-remodeled space is attractive and comfortable, but so was Alison Eighteen.

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Heartwood

Note: Heartwood closed in November 2014. We weren’t impressed, so this doesn’t come as a surprise. The restaurant was tweeting out free pizza deals in October, so it was obviously not doing well. Donatella Arpaia, who still controls the lease, expects to replace it with Prova, yet another pizzeria.

*

The remains of Donatella Arpaia’s once-formidable restaurant empire continue to crumble. Her mediocre pizzeria, Donatella, closed in January after a shade over two years in business.

Heartwood opened recently in the same space. The pizza oven imported from Naples still dominates the open kitchen, decked out in a sober terra cotta, rather than Donatella’s blinged-out gold plating.

Ms. Arpaia remains a partner here. There’s an impressive list of other names involved, perhaps too many: Mark Fiorentino, a former bread-maker at Daniel, is in charge of the pizzas. Bradford Thompson (ex. Lever House, Miss Lily’s) writes the rest of the menu. Nick Mautone (ex. Gramercy Tavern, Eighty One) runs the front of house.

Put those folks together, and you get a restaurant designed by committee, with menu categories like: Snacks, Bowls, Salads, Pizzas, Proteins, and “Grains and Veggies”.

It’s priced for a recession we are not currently in, with appetizer-like plates $11–14, entrée-like plates $22–26, pizzas $14–21 (they are easily sharable), and side dishes $8. Unfortunately, many of the dishes read better than they taste.

 

The Bibb and Bacon Lettuce Wraps ($13; above left) aren’t “wrapped” at all. You get three fists of Bibb with chunks of soggy maple-candied bacon perched on top. Slices of tomato and stray droppings of smoked pecan sandwich the bacon, but as soon as you touch it the tower collapses. You eat the piece parts, and I suppose the idea is that they’ll be reunited in your stomach.

On this bacon-happy menu, Warm Spinach and Frisée ($14; above right) is a better bet, as the kitchen has mixed the ingredients together, which is how a salad is supposed to work. There’s a poached egg, maple vinaigrette, and house-cured lamb bacon.

 

In the photo, you can’t make out the Heritage Pork Chop ($26; above left), as it’s hiding beneath peach chutney and honey-glzed turnips. It never should have left the kitchen at all. Three meager medallions, cooked off the bone, had been roasted to the texture of dry cereal. If pigs could sue for wrongful death, this pig should.

Pizza was a far happier choice. I’d heartily recommend “When Peter Luger Goes Out For Pizza” ($21; above right), with braised short rib, creamed spinach and horseradish on a charred, thin crust, smoky enough to remind you of a good porterhouse steak.

Duck Fat Potato Wedges ($8; above right) aren’t nearly as compelling as they sound, but they grew on me. You could do a lot worse.

The mostly domestic wine list is short and recent (nothing older than 2011), but fairly priced in relation to the menu. There’s a summery list of slightly-overpriced house cocktails ($15), many with smoky names like the Firecracker Martini (peppered vodka, cucumber, BBQ rub).

Service was friendly, but a bit discombobulated at times: there was a substantial gap between the arrival of my cocktail and Wendy’s glass of wine; another gap between the delivery of my entrée (the pork) and her pizza.

The space is casual, but a little nicer than I remember at Donatella. Sound ricochets off the brick walls and the low pressed-tin ceiling, so be ready for the assault on your eardrums. But the restaurant was full on a Tuesday evening. For a hot summer in Chelsea, this is probably what the neighborhood wants.

Heartwood (184 Eighth Avenue between 19th & 20th Streets, Chelsea)

Food: An uneven menu of American grill standards, salads, pizzas
Service: Casual and discombobulated
Ambiance: Casual and noisy

Rating: Not Recommended (no stars)

Après

Note: Well, that was fast. Après closed just nine days after our visit, and before I got around to hitting “publish” on this review. Après wasn’t busy, and we thought it needed to get customers—pronto. That didin’t work out for them. We still think chef Mazen Mustafa is a talent who’ll be a success somewhere else, and so, for the record, we’re happy to recognize his all-too-brief tenure here. After a renovation, the space re-opened as Unidentified Flying Chickens.

*

Remember Apiary, the East Village restaurant with Scott Bryan, the former Veritas chef, in the kitchen? We gave it zero stars in 2009, and Eater deathwatched it in 2010, a judgment they reversed in 2012.

Turns out they had the right idea but the wrong sell-by date. Bryan left in April 2014, Apiary closed in May 2014, and after a brief renovation, it reopened as Après with chef Mazen Mustafa, Paul Liebrandt’s former top lieutenant at both Corton and The Elm.

Owner Jenny Moon was smart to recognize that a new name was far more likely to be reviewed than a new chef under the previous name. Aside from that, she changed very little. The outdoor signage uses the same typeface as before, allowing the letters ‘a’ and ‘p’ to be re-used. (I am just kidding: the sign appears to be new, although the typeface is indeed the same.) Inside, Après’ décor is extremely similar to the generic Lower Manhattan upscale casual I remember at Apiary.

Mustafa serves recognizably Liebrandtish cuisine, and if it’s not quite as good as his mentor’s best work, it is considerably less expensive than any Liebrandt restaurant in recent memory. On an à la carte menu with no clear division between appetizers and entrées, there are eleven items priced between $14–24; desserts are all $9.

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General Assembly

Note: General Assembly quickly flopped, and closed in September 2014. The transfer of the same owners’ Park Avenue [name-your-season] concept from its original location (where it lost its lease) has replaced it. This will be the third concept in the space in a matter of a few short years. Park Avenue was a long-term success in its first home, so if it fails here, I have to think the owners will give up on the location.

*

For about 10 minutes in 2010, it looked like Tiki Bars were going to make a comeback. Hurricane Club was the glitziest of them all, a 250-seat behemoth that could’ve put Tahiti out of business. If it had worked.

By mid-2013, it was called Hurricane Steak and Sushi, and by late 2013 it was kaput. What must’ve been the most expensive AvroKO design concept ever was hauled out to trash, and replaced with another expensive AvroKO design concept called General Assembly.

The bright, airy space is an Art Nouveau revival. The cuisine is either “a market-driven grill” or “a bistro with . . . French and Italian influences.” It’s a crowd-pleaser without a point of view. Craig Koketsu, the corporate chef at Fourth Wall Restaurants, has long since proven that he can run a competent kitchen, and he does so here. If there are no revelations on the menu, there are no weak spots either. It won’t enter the culinary conversation, but most diners in its target demographic will go home happy.

During our visit, the restaurant was subjected to one of the few forms of legalized terrorism, a visit from the Department of Health. For the record, GA’s predecessor, Hurricane Club (with the same operators), earned an “A” grade a year ago. A repeat visit in January netted just 2 violation points. Three of its four sister restaurants currently have “A” grades; one has a “B”.

Despite this exemplary record, an inspector shut down the whole restaurant between 6:00 and 8:30pm on a Friday evening. No parties were seated. At the bar, the staff tossed all of the prepared sodas and syrups, apparently as a precautionary measure. Wine and beer were served on the house, while they awaited the all-clear. After a couple of hours, runners brought out canapés, free of charge. I was determined to support the restaurant, but by then many parties with reservations gave up and left. General Assembly passed its inspection, but I’ll bet the visit cost them $10,000 or more in lost business and food/drinks both given and thrown away.

This is not the first time I’ve visited a perfectly safe restaurant during a DOH inspection, and it is not unusual. In 2013, the DOH shut down La Grenouille twice during dinner service (once with then-Mayor Bloomberg present), both times renewing its “A” grade (see stories here, here). These terror inspections at perfectly clean establishments ruin dinner for dozens or even hundreds of people, and impose huge costs on restaurant operators.

Due to the length of our wait, and perhaps because I was recognized, General Assembly comped the entire meal for our party of four. (I couldn’t tell for sure if anyone else was comped.) The online menu does not show prices, and we didn’t receive a bill. As I recall, prices were in line with other Fourth Wall places, with entrées generally in the $20s and $30s, and some steaks above that level.

 

The bread (above left), served warm in a cast-iron pan, was terrific. We started with the Raclette (above right), which came with sliced meats, grilled potatoes, and pickled vegetables.

 

I didn’t try the Sea Bass with avocado, snow peas and shiitake (above left), but our friend seemed pleased with it. Lamb Ribs (above right) were terrific, but the menu failed to state that this is an extremely spicy dish, which I wouldn’t have minded, but the companion who ordered it did.

 

Wendy wasn’t that hungry, so she ordered a soft-shell crab appetizer as her main course (above left), and was quite satisfied. I ordered the duck confit with gingered kumquats and apricots (above right), a good preparation of this classic dish.

  

Three of us ordered desserts. I didn’t note the description of the first two, but my own choice, the lemon–blueberry chiffon ice cream (far right, above) was a fine way to end the meal.

A DOH visit makes for a stressful evening. The staff handled it calmly, keeping us abreast of the situation while we waited, and serving us promptly after it was over. I wouldn’t call General Assembly an ambitious restaurant in any sense, but it offered exactly the kind of experience our guests wanted. It took two hours more than we’d planned, but I’m glad we offered our support while the health department terrorist inspector shut down a perfectly safe restaurant for no reason.

General Assembly (360 Park Avenue South at 26th Street, Gramercy/Flatiron)

Beautique

Note: Just four months after opening night, chef Craig Hopson and creative director Frank Roberts left the restaurant, citing “creative differences.” Just a month earlier, a New York Post article described the place as a “playpen for millionaires.” Whether it can retain its cachet without Hopson or Roberts remains to be seen.

*

A high-gloss restaurant opens in midtown, with white tablecloths, glistening chandeliers, a mirrored staircase, a grand piano, rose petal wallpaper, Jean Paul Gualtier fabrics, plush suede seating, and a décor modeled on Coco Chanel’s Paris apartment.

No, it is not 2004. Welcome to Beautique, which opened last month in a subterranean space adjoining the Paris Theater, just behind the Plaza Hotel and steps away from Central Park.

The question here is not whether the chef, Craig Hopson, can run a kitchen worthy of such a luxurious setting. He more than proved himself, first as Terrance Brennan’s chef de cuisine at Picholine from 2003–07, and then at Le Cirque from 2008–12.

No, the question is who exactly will be the core constituency for a restaurant so resolutely contrary to every current trend. I’d love to see it succeed, but I’m not blind to fashion, and cheerleading from this blog doesn’t matter.

The Central Park South ecosystem has not been friendly to restaurants. It’s a place they go to die, or at best, to be forgotten. In the last decade, only Marea has opened in this neighborhood, and been both a critical and commercial success.

If Beautique wants to be taken seriously, a few easy fixes are in order. It certainly looks shady when, less than a month after opening, the online menus are revised to omit prices. They have nothing to be ashamed of. For the neighborhood, it is not really that expensive, with appetizers $14–19, entrées $29–39, side dishes $9, and desserts $12.

On a menu that pretends the last ten years never happened, there’s no tasting menu, no snacks, sharing plates, or large-format entrées for two. Not that I object to any of this, but I can well imagine the critical reaction.

As I recall, the 200-bottle wine list was fairly priced in relation to the food: a 2005 Château du Grand Bos (above left) was $86, a shade under 3 times retail, and the staff decanted it. But why is the list not online? Just because the décor is from another era, does not mean the technology must be.

Frank Roberts, formerly of Rose Bar, is the general manager here. One might assume that he superintends the cocktail program, and it’s a good one (even if expensive, at $19 a pop). There’s a mixture of slightly-tweaked classics (Bellini, French 75) and house recipes.

The appealing bread service (above right) came with hummus, but there was no amuse bouche, which a restaurant of Beautique’s apparent ambitions ought to have.

 

Although everything is capably prepared, there’s not much critic bait on the menu—the sort of dishes that set pulses racing from their descriptions alone. A Crab Flan ($19; above right) is one of the exceptions, with chunks of pork belly in a malt caramel sauce. More typical is a soft-shell crab ($19; above left) appetizer: first rate and technically correct, but you’ve seen it before.

 

You can’t go wrong with the Scallops ($32; above left) with a foie gras sabayon, shitake mushrooms, and turnips in a diablo sauce. A Lamb Mixed Grill ($38; above right) was served five ways, of which three stood out (bacon, sausage, and chop).

 

The pastry chef is Jiho Kim, formerly of Gordon Ramsay at the London. His work here is superb, assuming his Mascarpone Custard ($12; above left) is any guide.

The design by Marc Dizon and Valerie Pasquiou is stunning. You already knew that. There’s a comfortable bar, two dining rooms (we were seated in the smaller “oval room”), a private dining area, and a spacious lounge that was not open when we visited.

Despite the luxury design, the basement space can feel a bit gloomy when empty, as it was on the early side of the dinner hour, on a Wednesday evening. By the time we left, it was a bit over half full, and felt more energetic. The service is a bit retro: I can’t remember the last time outside of France that I was called monsieur, but the staff are relatively unobtrusive. Dishes are presented without the slightest explanation, and that is that.

The decision to open a restaurant that practically ignores contemporary fashion is obviously deliberate. I don’t mind it at all, though I suspect many will. If Beautique wants to revive the service model of another era, there shouldn’t be any half-measures. Put your prices and wine list on the website, and take credit for offering something that no one lately has done.

Beautique (8 W. 58th Street, west of Sixth Avenue)

Food: Old-school luxurious French-influenced cuisine
Service: Polished and unobtrusive
Ambiance: A series of rooms modeled on Coco Chanel’s Paris apartment

Rating: ★★½

Narcissa

You have to admire the effort behind Narcissa, chef John Fraser’s new restaurant in The Standard East Village hotel. The space is lovely, and well put-together. But we’ve been down this road before, and it usually doesn’t end well.

By my count, Narcissa is the fifth restaurant at this address since 2009. It’s built on the dead bodies of Table 8, Faustina, The Trilby, and The Restaurant at The Standard East Village.

In 2011, André Balzacs acquired the building (formerly the Cooper Square Hotel) and incorporated it into his chain of boutique hotels. His other New York property (straddling the High Line) has been a hit—it’s not my taste, but I respect it—and no doubt he thought that he could spread his pixie dust on the other side of town.

For the main restaurant (there is also a casual café), Balzacs followed a formula that has already bombed here twice, bringing in a respected chef who could fill seats on name recognition alone. First it was Govind Armstrong at Table 8, then Scott Conant at Faustina. Now it’s John Fraser, whose quiet Upper West Side restaurant Dovetail has a Michelin star. Let’s hope they have better luck this time.

According to the website, Fraser is serving “California cuisine with new techniques of roasting, rotisserie and slow-cooking.” Does that set your pulse racing? Nah, me neither. I didn’t notice any “new techniques,” but Fraser has mastered the old ones. The restaurant is named for a cow on Balzacs’ upstate farm, which supplies much of the produce.

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