Juni

  

You’ve got to give Shaun Hergatt credit for persistence, if naught else. His first fine-dining restaurant won two Michelin stars but took a critical drubbing. The critics acted clowns, but the same clowns (or some of them) are still running the circus.

A lot of chefs would have followed it up with a steakhouse or a noodle shop. But here he is again, giving the critics what they already told him they don’t want.

To be fair, dumb reviews weren’t all that went wrong at SHO Shaun Hergatt. It was in a terrible location, not visible from the street, on an upper floor in a building surrounded with scaffolding and Jersey barriers. Even with the best reviews, I’m not sure he could have overcome that.

Juni (a diminutive of the Latin word for June) isn’t a SHO clone. It doesn’t look like a hotel in Dubai, the room isn’t as spacious or as opulent, there are no tablecloths, he’s not sending out edible gold leaf, and the wine list is far more modest. But it’s still an expensive fine-dining restaurant in a boutique hotel (The Chandler at 31st and Madison), a genre the foodocracy does not embrace.

There are two gracious, comfortable dining rooms, decorated in taupe and other muted colors, with custom flower prints on the walls and a large floral centerpiece. The flower motif is in the food too, with colorful petals on many of the dishes. Servers are in navy suits and ties, runners in dark blue coats, with a low diner-to-staff ratio. There’s a heavy ceramic pedestal at every place setting, and plates are served on top of this. Water glasses, silverware, and serving pieces, etc., are first-rate.

The cuisine is recognizably Hergatt, but there is a hint of the new Nordic here and there, with a heavy dose of crisps, flower petals and herbs, assymetric platings, and austere presentation. Whether you like this style of cooking or not, it is obviously labor- and ingredient-intensive, and beautiful to look at.

Click to read more ...

Alder

Note: Alder closed in August 2015. Wylie Dufresne, the chef and owner, did not explain the decision, but when we dropped in a couple of months earlier, we found the dining room almost empty on a weeknight. Earlier in the year, he instituted a tasting-menu format that, perhaps, didn’t go over as well as he’d hoped.

*

Give Wylie Dufresne credit. Give him double-credit.

When WD~50, his modernist—and not always approchable—restaurant, struggled during the Great Recession, he stayed open. For a while, he was doing just five nights a week, but he didn’t give up, and he never dumbed down the menu.

And for ten years, WD~50 was all he had. Unlike most chefs with three New York Times stars, he didn’t open a more casual restaurant that might’ve distracted him, or competed with the flagship for his attention.

In May 2012, WD~50 abolished the à la carte menu in the main dining room. Tasting menus are now all you can get. They’re also back up to seven nights a week. I guess the Great Recession is over. (Not everyone thinks the new format is an improvement.)

About that time, he started planning Alder, a new casual restaurant in the East Village, which finally opened in March 2013. Alder is à la carte and less elaborate than WD~50. It’s Dufresne’s take on classic pub food, recognizably in his style, but not as avant-garde as WD~50 sometimes can be. There are four cooks in the kitchen at Alder, as opposed to twelve at WD~50, so the food is a lot simpler.

Generally, you’ll recognize what you eat, which at WD~50 is not always the case. You can take grandma or perhaps even your picky Aunt Gertrude, provided she doesn’t mind the noise. Sound levels in the dining room can be punishing. We visited on a warm summer evening, and fortunately were able to sit outside. Indoors, I might like Alder a lot less.

But we ate outside, so I loved it.

The menu consists of eighteen items priced $8–24, served tapas-style, and suitable for sharing, with no explicit division between appetizer and entrée. Like most small-plates restaurants, it only seems inexpensive. Our fairly modest order of five plates, a cocktail each, and a $48 bottle of wine, ran to $177 before tax and tip.

 

Every meal at Alder begins with a serving of Giardiniera (above left), an Italian–American relish of pickled vegetables. It’s a bit odd, as several critics have noted, as it doesn’t really go with the rest of the food, and no bread is served with it. But it’s very good on its own terms: we made fast work of it.

“Pigs in a Blanket” ($13; above right), like so much of the food at Alder, is a play on the old classic, here made with Chinese sausage, Japanese mustard, and a sweet chili sauce. Consider it a must-order.

 

Sun Gold Tomatoes ($18; above left) are served with Peekytoe crab, fried naan, and edamame; but what comes through is mostly tomato, and not enough of the crab.

I could eat the foie gras terrine ($19; above right) all day. It was served with watermelon and shiso on a Ritz cracker. (Some critics have mentioned poached apple, so I think the recipe changes periodically.) But the Ritz cracker is a constant: who knew it paired so well with foie gras?

 

New England Clam Chowder ($16; above left) comes with “oyster crackers,” which you toss into the soup. It’s a terrific combination. A party of two need not worry about ordering this: they send it out in two bowls.

 

The kitchen aced the Roasted Chicken ($21; above left), served with oyster mushrooms and charred romaine. But Halibut ($24; above right) was bland and dry: I was more fond of the corn underneath it than the fish itself.

The pacing of the meal was just right; silverware was replaced after every course.

There’s about 40 bottles on the wine list, plenty of them below $50. The server decanted our 2010 Morgon ($48), which was served at the correct temperature, but in juice glasses. For a check that rises above $200 after tax and tip, you’d think they could afford wine stems.

Out of five dishes, I count three hits, one dud (the Halibut), and another in between (the tomatoes with crabmeat and edamame). That’s pretty much what everyone says about Alder: Dufresne and his team don’t hit a home run with every dish, but there’s more than enough to make the restaurant hugely worthwhile.

Alder (157 Second Avenue at E. 10th Street, East Village)

Food: A modernist take on pub food
Service: Very good; would be great if they’d bring in real wine glasses
Ambiance: East Village chic, and too noisy: east outside while you still can

Rating: ★★

Atera

You could hardly blame owner Jodi Richard if she’d given up after Compose quickly failed in 2010–11.

The concept was always a tough sell: a foraged modernist $120 prix fixe-only tasting menu served around a 12-seat dining counter, served by a chef with impeccable credentials but no record of success.

Despite favorable reviews in other outlets, The Times could not be bothered to review it, sending Julia Moskin for a Dining Brief, no doubt while Sam Sifton snored his way through three visits to La Petite Maison.

Richard didn’t give up. She lured Matthew Lightner to New York, chef of the acclaimed Portland restaurant Castagna, closed for a renovation that stretched to nearly six months, and re-opened as Atera.

It had to have been a risk for Lightner: this city sometimes chews up and spits out chefs imported from elsewhere. Just ask Miguel Sanchez Romera.

Click to read more ...

WD~50

  

Note: WD~50 closed at the end of November 2014, giving way to a condo development. Chef Dufresne still has his casual restaurant Alder nearby, but at present he has no known plans to ressurect WD~50.

*

I probably spend far too much time seeking out the newest restaurants—which often aren’t that great anyway. Either they haven’t worked out the early jitters, or they just aren’t destined for excellence.

The Great Recession still casts a long shadow, and it’s harder than ever to find exciting new restaurants. That doesn’t mean I’ll stop looking, but perhaps it’s time to shift the balance a bit towards old favorites that are overdue for a fresh look.

WD~50 has been on my revisit list for a while, not because anything has changed, but simply for the pleasure of discovering the latest creations to come out of mad scientist Wylie Dufresne’s laboratory. His food might not be to all tastes, but in the avant garde niche he occupies, his work is without peer in New York City.

A few years ago, people wondered if Dufresne could keep the place going, but on a Saturday night, at any rate, it was packed. He has held a Michelin star for five years running, and two years ago Frank Bruni gave WD~50 a much deserved and overdue promotion to three New York Times stars.

The food is expensive, with most of the entrées over $30. Most of the bottles on the wine list are in three figures, and there is hardly anything under $65.

I’m not necessarily complaining about how expensive WD~50 is, merely putting the restaurant in context. Dufresne’s cuisine is well worth the tariff. It is also labor intensive, and Dufresne has only five services a week in which to cover his fixed costs: he doesn’t serve lunch, and he is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays.

The restaurant sells a lot of tasting menus at $140, up from $105 just three years ago (though I think it had fewer courses then). We had it, and so did the tables on either side of us. At a restaurant where so much of the food is unfamiliar, it is better to try a dozen items, as you do on the tasting menu, than to guess which two or three you’ll like.

Our tasting menu was one hit after another, with only one dud among twelve courses. I’m not going to try to describe every one, but I’ll list them all and describe the highlights. (The staff deposited a printed souvenir copy on our table before it began, so that we could follow along.)

The bread service (above) might seem initially disappointing, but sesame flatbread is surprisingly addictive. Before the end of the evening, it was all gone.

 

1) Veal brisket, honeydew, black olive, fried ricotta (above left)

2) Everything bagel, smoked salmon threads, crispy cream cheese (above right)

These dishes, like everything else on the menu, derive their success from unusual and often surprising combinations of ingredients that just happen to work perfectly. The “everything bagel” is actually a small donut-shaped circle of deep-fried cream cheese.

 

3) Foie gras, passionfruit, chinese celery (above left). When you see a disc of foie gras on the plate, you assume it’s a terrine. In fact, Dufresne has managed somehow to stuff the foie with passionfruit, which runs out when you cut into it.

4) Scrambled egg ravioli, charred avocado, kindai kampachi (above right). No Dufrene tasting menu would be complete without an egg dish, and this one was masterful.

 

5) Cold fried chicken, buttermilk-ricotta, tabasco, caviar (above left). We didn’t much care for the cold fried chicken. I’m sure Dufresne has a reason for serving it cold, but it was beyond our comprehension.

6) Striped bass, chorizo, pineapple, popcorn (above right). The striped bass was perfectly cooked.

 

7) Beef and bearnaise (above left). I think this was meant to be a neighborhood-appropriate play on matzo ball soup.

8) Lamb loin, black garlic romesco, soybean, pickled ramps (above right).

 

9) Chewy lychee sorbet, pistachio, yuzu, celery (above left).

10) Hazelnut tart, coconut, chocolate, chicory (above right).

12) Rainbow sherbet, rhubarb tarragon, orange, olive oil (no photo).

I have less to say about the desserts individually. Alex Stupak is the pastry chef, and he is every bit Dufresne’s match and alter-ego in the mad science department.

We wrapped up with Cocoa packets, chocolate shortbread, and milk ice cream (right), which took the place of the usual petits-fours.

The standard wine pairing is $85. We didn’t want to drink that much wine, nor was there a particular bottle that caught our fancy, so we asked the sommelier to choose four wines by the glass, and space them out over the two-hour duration of our meal, which he was perfectly happy to do. Like everything else at WD~50, his choices were off the beaten path, but excellent nevertheless.

Although WD~50 is a casual-looking place, the service is as polished and professional as at almost any three-star restaurant in the city. If you haven’t visited, you must. If you haven’t visited lately, it’s time to go back.

WD~50 (50 Clinton Street between Stanton & Rivington Streets, Lower East Side)

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

New Year's Eve at Tailor

Note: Tailor closed in late 2009, after Chef Sam Mason left the restaurant. The space re-opened as the Hawaiian-themed restaurant Lani Kai.

*

Those who spend New Year’s Eve in restaurants, rather than at parties or bars, face a dilemma. Most places charge crazily-inflated prices for dumbed-down versions of their regular menus. I don’t mind paying a little extra, but I want to at least enjoy the food. Three years ago, we were appalled by what Picholine passed off as dinner for $400 a person. We vowed never again to patronize a luxury restaurant on the last night of the year.

I have two criteria for a New Year’s Eve restaurant. First, the price needs to be reasonably close to what you’d pay on any other night. And second, the chef needs to be serving the same kind of food he normally serves. WD~50 passed the test two years ago, so I decided on Tailor—in many ways a similar restaurant.

A nine-course tasting menu was $100 a person (it’s normally $90 for seven courses). Wine pairings were $45 (normally $35). And chef Sam Mason, one of the city’s enfants terribles of molecular gastronomy, wasn’t about to start serving catering-hall food.

(Someone at Tailor can’t count. Though described as a “7 course tasting menu,” nine courses were listed, and nine were served. Click on the image for a larger version.)

I’ve written about Tailor in earlier reviews (here, here). The restaurant had a nearly disastrous opening in late 2007 and took a critical beating. Mason continued to fine-tune the menu, and a popular downstairs bar brought in plenty of customers. I’ve no idea how the 60-seat dining room does on a typical night, but it was full for New Year’s Eve.

Mason is a cross between a classically-trained chef and a mad chemist. He tosses ingredients together in wild combinations. Some of his experiments end in disaster, but everything he serves is perfectly cooked and beautifully plated. Even where we thought he failed (in two of the nine dishes), the technical quality was first-rate.

Mason’s avant garde plates aren’t for everyone. It’s not hearty comfort food; that’s for sure. Although Tailor has improved since Frank Bruni awarded one star in late 2007, I am still not sure the Times critic would be a fan. At WD~50, Wylie Dufresne had to rein in his wilder flights of fancy before getting an upgrade to three stars. Mason just does what he wants, sometimes with reckless disregard for common sense.

I didn’t use the flash last night (though I probably could have gotten away with it), and the low-light dining room is not camera friendly. I’m including the photos anyway, though they’re not as good as I’d like.

1. An oyster (above left) was paired beautifully with kiwi and Thai peppers.

2. Rye-Cured Char (above center), served warm, was balanced by a cool dill cream and slivers of radish.

3. Tiny cubes of warm tongue (above right) shared a plate with beets, pistachio and horseradish.

4. A deconstructed “Baked Potato” (above left) misfired. A crisp curly french fry was positioned like a toast rack for a bacon chip sliced as thin as a human hair, a potato chip, and I believe a parsnip chip. These little chips were lovely, but the potato itself needed more help. A schmear of sour cream underneath it was almost undetectable.

5. “Bouillabaisse” (above center) was another deconstructed classic, but it worked. I think there were five or six different kinds of seafood in it (char, monkfish, razor clam, etc.), along with a small cube of French toast. There was nothing complicated about it, but every piece of fish was cooked perfectly.

6. Waylon Braised Brisket (above right) with sweet potato and cranberry was probably the evening’s straightforward dish, but no less successful for it.

7. A small, delicate sphere of Foie Gras (above left) was decorated with dulce de leche, apple and cashews.

8. Brown Butter Cake (above center) was not so much deconstructed as detonated. Instead of a cake, we got a pile of crumbs with a bitter squash sorbet and a so-called “maple caviar.”

9. Hazelnut Parfait (above right) ended the evening on a strong note.

For a final surprise—a play on the traditional petits-fours—we had a chocolate truffle filled with cotton candy.

The wine pairings were pedestrian, as they often are. Of the seven glasses served, the two most successful weren’t wine: a champagne-and-gin cocktail called a “French 75,” served with the oyster; and a nut brown ale served with the “Baked Potato.” The others were generic and mostly forgettable. Several of the wines were served long before the food they were meant to pair with, and the “Bouillabaisse” was served with no wine at all.

Aside from that, service was very good. I loved the bread service, with two different fresh breads and soft butter. Servers did a good job of explaining Mason’s unorthodox creations. Plates and glasses were promptly cleared. There were some long pauses between courses, which I assume was by design, as the ninth plate came out a shade before midnight. In all, the meal lasted just over 2½ hours.

The tasting menu format works to Mason’s benefit. Some of his crazier ideas are fun when they last for just a few bites, but they might not sustain interest when served in larger portions. Over a nine-course menu, you won’t mind if a few courses aren’t successful. In a standard three-course meal, even one dud is unacceptable, and there’s a decent chance of that happening, especially as it’s hard to guess what you’re getting from the printed descriptions.

We find Tailor unique and indispensable. If you have your doubts, the regular menu offers several ways to sample Mason’s cuisine without committing to a full meal. For instance, a three-course dessert tasting, which two can easily share, is just $28. Pair it with Eben Freeman’s excellent cocktails, and you’ve got avant-garde cuisine on a recession budget.

Tailor (525 Broome Street between Sixth Avenue & Thompson Street, SoHo)

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

Cocktails at Tailor

Note: Click here for a more recent review of Tailor.

Most restaurants go through an adjustment period after they open, as chefs figure out what works, and what doesn’t. Those adjustments were somewhat more dramatic at Tailor, where chef Sam Mason had to eat a huge helping of humble pie, after his restaurant was roasted and pilloried by every critic in town.

In an early visit, I found the restaurant promising, but the menu didn’t have enough choices, and the lack of a serious wine list was a serious drawback. Mason has rectified both. The current menu offers about a half-dozen each of appetizers ($15–17), entrées ($24–27) and desserts ($12), though it must be noted that portion sizes remain small, and hearty eaters may need to order more than three courses to go home full. A seven-course chef’s tasting menu is $90, which seems exorbitant when you consider that Momofuku Ko serves ten courses for $85.

The wine list has been fleshed out too. Early on, Mason conceded that “Wine’s a little beyond me,” but he finally figured out that customers want wine with food. From the beginning, Eben Freeman’s cocktails won high praise, but I still think they pair poorly with food. They need to be enjoyed on their own.

Last night, I dropped in for a couple of cocktails before heading uptown for dinner. The bar area is downstairs, and it is one of the loveliest bar spaces in town. Both of my visits have been quite early (around 5:30 p.m.), when it is still relatively empty, and the bartenders have time to chat.

 

One feature of Eben Freeman’s cocktail menu is that almost every item has ingredients you never heard of. I asked for something “not too sweet,” and the bartender recommended the Mate Sour ($13), which is made from Yerba Mate, Queberante Pisco, Lime Juice, Honey, Egg Whites, and Angostura. Half of those ingredients are as unfamiliar to me as they probably are to you. But it had a nice cool, bracing taste.

Freeman also serves a tasting of three “solid cocktails” ($12), captioned Cuba Libre, Ramos Gin Fizz, and White Russian. The menu is unhelpful—it lists only the short names—and I wasn’t about to give the bartender the third degree. I’d describe them as interesting, rather than good, and they disappear awfully quickly.

I asked the bartender about a mysterious unlabeled bottle, which he said was tobacco-infused bourbon. None of the cocktails on the printed menu actually uses that ingredient, so I asked him to make one up for me. So he put some tobacco-infused bourbon, Jim Beam, and a couple of different bitters into a mixing vessel, and voila! Out came the drink shown on the left, which resembled an Old Fashioned.

Last week’s Time Out New York named Tailor “Best restaurant you were sick of before it opened.” That captures the contradiction, which is that Tailor is very good, but suffered badly from early over-exposure. I didn’t eat any of the food this time, but it looks like Tailor has matured. Those who were sick of it should consider a second look.

Tailor (525 Broome Street between Sullivan & Thompson Streets, SoHo)

Food & Drink: **
Ambiance: **
Service: **
Overall: **

Bite Club

 

Another New Year’s Eve…what to do? Most restaurants serve a less interesting version of their normal menu, while at least doubling the price. The only exception I’ve found is WD–50, but as we tried that last year, I wanted something different.

Enter Bite Club, the “French Laundry of dinner clubs.” With raves on Grub Street and eGullet, I knew it was for real,  and that owners Daniel & Alicia would turn out another of the fantastic menus they’re quickly becoming famous for.

But first, there were a few hurdles. You don’t just call Bite Club for a reservation; you have to become a member. Then, a 50% deposit was due (that’s $200), payable in cash, hand-delivered either to Daniel’s or Alicia’s workplace.  Three days before the event, clandestine instructions came by e-mail, cautioning us to “maintain silence” in the apartment building where the dinner was held, until were in the apartment itself. “Should you be in the elevator with someone, it is imperative that you NOT mention Bite Club. Even if you suspect they are fellow diners for the evening, please wait until you are both brought into the apartment to confirm that.” My girlfriend wondered if we should have brought payment in small, unmarked bills.

There are reasons for all of that secrecy, as Bite Club’s operation is something between a restaurant (with all the laws and regulations that implies) and a just dinner party amongst friends. It isn’t quite clear on what side of that line Bite Club falls. Initially, it really was just Daniel and Alicia throwing dinner parties for their friends. It has clearly become something a bit more commercial over time, though the party atmosphere still lurks in the background.

I was surprised at the size of the crowd, as I’d been led to expect somewhere around a dozen guests. There were nearly 30, at tables mostly for 6–7 guests, although there was one two-top. We were seated with a party of four, but we quickly built a rapport and enjoyed our four-hour meal together as if we were old friends. One of Bite Club’s advantages is that you know you’ll be eating with people who really appreciate great food and wines. With Daniel and Alicia serving plenty of both, you won’t lack for conversation.

There were printed menus for everyone, describing both the food and the wines in some detail. Daniel and Alicia’s style is modern, not clearly beholden to any particular cuisine. They relish combining ingredients in unexpected ways. What comes out on the plate is generally spare and uncluttered, though the preparation may well have been complex. Daniel told us they started cooking at 7:00 the night before.

We noted that there were hardly any vegetables on the menu; we weren’t sure whether this was a preference, or if they had reached the limit of what two people could accomplish in such a small space. I don’t know what they have at home—this was not their own place—but we were in a standard Manhattan apartment, with a fairly small kitchen clearly not designed to turn out 7 courses for 30 diners. Assisting were a dish-washer and two servers—the place couldn’t have accommodated any more helpers, even if Daniel and Alicia had wanted them. What they produced was a marvel.

Besides preparing all the food, Daniel and Alicia also have an impressive battery of stemware and china. Given the length of the meal and the number of guests, they needed all of it. As they raise Bite Club to new levels, they might want to consider a small investment in flatware. A few times, we were given utensils that weren’t quite right, or asked to re-use utensils from a previous course. Butter knives would have been helpful. But this was the only small complaint we had, with what was otherwise flawless service.

Dinner was seven courses with paired wines. I wasn’t sure about the etiquette of taking photos, and in any case I didn’t want to risk disrupting such a festive occasion, but check out Off the Broiler if you want to see what some of Daniel and Alicia’s creations look like.

We began with a sparkling Spinetti Moscato d’Asti, followed a short while later with a crazily good amuse-bouche, venison loin with Thai chili and goat cheese. Two breads were served, along with two contrasting spreads, a soft butter and a liver pâté. Soft, warm onion rolls came later.

The first savory course was called Egg (truffled egg custard, vodka cream and caviar), paired with a Casa Ferrienha Esteva 2002. The custard and caviar came inside of a hollowed out egg. The combination was terrific.

Next came Lobster (cream of lobster, black truffle pastry), paired with a Tissot Les Bruyeres 2004. Though described as cream of lobster, there were actually several solid chunks of butter-poached lobster with the pastry on top, in a small dish that you’d normally use for crème brûlée. The presentation didn’t quite work, as you couldn’t really navigate your knife inside of the dish to cut the lobster. The wine was a Chardonnay with an unusual smoky flavor.

After that, Sweetbreads (JG raisin caper emulsion and cauliflower puree), paired with Rosenblum Viognier 2005. Three hunks of sweetbread each rested on a dab of cauliflower, with the raisin emulsion splashed between them, in the middle of the plate. The lusciously tender sweetbreads and the cauliflower puree complemented each other perfectly, but we felt that the raisin caper emulsion didn’t really add anything.

The main savory course was titled “Pork & Beans”, a sly name very much in the French Laundry style. Two juicy slices of caramelized pork belly were bathed in a cranberry bean puree and pomegranate reduction, paired with Castell’in Villa Chianti Classico 2003. This was a highlight for everyone at our table, though I have to admit that I’ve hardly ever seen a pork belly dish go wrong: with all of that fat, there is bound to be decadence on the plate.

The Cheese Flight offered five raw (i.e., unpasteurized) cheeses, which I believe Daniel and Alicia import from Canada. There was a contrast of cow, goat, and sheep’s milk cheeses, arrayed in order of increasing intensity. I found one of them a bit dull, but the other four were first-class; overall, it was a well judged selection. The paired wine was Brovia La Brea Barbera 2005.

In perhaps their most daring choice of the evening, as well as the most complex, the last savory course was Foie Gras (also a Canadian import) with poached pear, ginger snap, cacao nibs, and star anise caramel. Foie gras is normally served early in the meal, so I was surprised to find it after the cheese course. But  foie gras is a versatile ingredient: serve it with poached pears and caramel, and it becomes a dessert. Brilliant! The paired wine was Rasmussen Late harvest Gewurztraminer 2003.

Midnight approached as the foie gras plates were being cleared, so everyone pitched in to get the champagne poured (Roederer Anderson Valley NV Methode Champenoise), and we counted down the seconds to midnight.

The final course, captioned Chocolate, was the only one that really misfired: a chocolate cake bedecked with a frosted scotch bonnet (a kind of chili pepper). Despite its time in the freezer, the pepper packed serious heat, and I was the only one at my table who ate all of it. It was a four-alarm fire in my mouth, but it felt great afterwards. After that adventure was over with, we were left with a dull mound of chocolate that wasn’t worth eating. After four happy hours and seven wine pours (several with refills), nobody at my table was paying much attention to the chocolate anyway.

The overall quality of the meal approached the level of the better tasting menus in town. Wine pairings were all lovely, and some of them even witty. It is all the more remarkable when you consider that (as I understand it) Daniel and Alicia are self-taught. They also don’t have the advantage of trying everything out in a test kitchen: every meal they serve is unique, based on the ingredients available and their own whims. And in another week or so, they’ll have to go out and do it all again. (Bite Club events are generally on weekends, since Daniel and Alicia have day jobs.)

Daniel and Alicia richly deserve all the accolades that have come their way. They are also gracious and gregarious hosts, and love to talk about the food. I suspect that even greater things are to come, and I hope to be at Bite Club again to enjoy them.

Tailor

The exterior, clearly unfinished. Across the street, the no-photo rule clearly doesn’t apply!!

Note: Click here for a more recent review of Tailor.

Sam Mason is the latest pastry chef to open his own restaurant, following in the footsteps of Will Goldfarb at Room 4 Dessert (now closed) and Pichet Ong  of p*ong. Mason’s solo act is called Tailor. The website says that it’s “named as an ode to the skills of a seasoned craftsman.” Tailor shares with R4D and p*ong a creative approach to desserts. This is no cherry pie and vanilla ice cream place. Mason’s former gig was as at the avant-garde WD–50, of which Tailor’s cuisine is strongly reminiscent.

For a while, I wondered if Tailor would open in my lifetime. Grub Street had a recurring feature called The Launch, chronicling Mason’s pre-opening adventures. As of last December, Tailor’s debut was expected in “late February or the beginning of March.” After a while, the delays became almost comical, and Mason wisely stopped posting. Well, Tailor is finally here, and eGullet is ecstatic.

I was happy to find that Tailor is only about 5 minutes’ walk from the subway station I use to get home, so I thought I’d drop in after work. The bi-level space is modern chic, but nicely done. There is an ample bar area downstairs with a dining room on the ground level. The dining room is arguably more comfortable than WD–50, and it is certainly more so than p*ong or the late lamented Room 4 Dessert.

Service was as polished as at just about any three-star restaurant. Although there are no tablecloths, there are cloth  napkins. Silverware was promptly replaced. Empty glasses and finished plates were promptly whisked away. My bar tab was transferred to my table without complaint. And when I asked the bartender about an unusual pear cider in one of the specialty drinks, he volunteered a free taste of it.

The food has three-star potential, but with some serious limitations. At the moment, only six savory courses and six desserts are on offer, making Tailor’s menu the skimpiest of any comparable establishment. None of the items individually is very expensive (sweets $11; savories $12–15), but as the servings are small, the costs can mount in a hurry.

Mason made a considered decision to feature cocktails, rather than wine. The cocktail menu features twelve very clever selections by mixologist Eben Freeman, but only five wines by the glass (none by the bottle). Freeman’s offerings ($12–15 each) are excellent in their own right, but they are small, and they overpowered the food.

Frank Bruni thrives on the unpredictable, but if he is unwilling to award three stars to WD–50, it seems unlikely he’ll do so here, as Tailor is in many ways far more limited. Two stars seems to me about the best Tailor could expect, unless the menu choices expand and a real wine list is added. It seems almost a crime to have such a polished service brigade, and so little to serve.

Although the dining room was empty, the staff insisted that I not take photographs. Why Thomas Keller can permit this with a full dining room at Per Se, while Mason won’t allow it in an empty one, is beyond me. Apparently he wants to keep the food a secret. I will therefore accommodate him by not describing what I had. I’ll say that there was an amuse-bouche. Of the two dishes I paid for, one was very close to the best thing I’ve had all year; the other one wasn’t.

I had planned to order more, but after the no-photography edict I decided to go home. What’s the deal with the no-photo rule? Gordon Ramsay was the last jerk to pull that stunt, and look where it got him?

Tailor (525 Broome Street between Sullivan & Thompson Streets, SoHo)

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

Dinner at Varietal

Note: A few weeks after our visit, Frank Bruni reviewed Varietal for the Times, awarding (without much enthusiasm) one star. Within days, executive chef Ed Witt was fired, and pastry chef Jordan Kahn announced that he was leaving to start another project in California. Wayne Nish (formerly of March) replaced both Witt and Kahn, but the restaurant was not able to survive, and has since closed.

*

We first visited Varietal for dessert about a month ago, having heard about pastry chef Jordan Kahn’s inventive creations. Kahn, who previously worked at The French Laundry and Per Se, is a major talent. We were smitten, and promised ourselves we’d return for a full meal.

Varietal is a restaurant that you desperately want to root for. It has no irritating vanities, such as an overwhelming décor, a globe-trotting absentee chef, or snooty staff who act like they’re doing you a favor. To the contrary, Varietal is an earnestly serious restaurant, with a service team who genuinely want you to be pleased. At least five different people, from the owner on down, asked us if we had enjoyed ourselves.

Alas, Ed Witt’s savory courses don’t live up to Kahn’s desserts. Indeed, the letdown is so great, that we struggle to imagine how it could have happened. Did we order the wrong things? Did we catch Witt’s kitchen on an off night? How can a restaurant so serious about its desserts fumble the rest of the cooking so badly?

The amuse bouche was a small spoonful of Cured Tasmanian Trout with fennel and olives. The olives were too dominant, completely obliterating the trout. At another table, my friend saw four diners grimace in unison as they tasted it.

Everything on the menu comes with a long list of ingredients, often with funky names, and usually at least one too many. We were both intrigued by Prawns with Chamomile Consommé, Baby Carrots, and Forbidden Rice. The dish consists of a few small bits of pre-sliced shrimp, flecks of rice, and a bland salty broth that could have come out of a soup can,  added tableside. The dish is entirely uninteresting. We had no idea what was “forbidden” about the rice. At $13, it was one of the lower-priced appetizers.

Entrees are expensive, with most over $30. My friend had the Roasted Pork & Cider-Tobacco Braised Pork Belly ($31), which read much better than it tasted. The roasted pork was like a dull sausage, while the pork belly was surrounded by an unpleasant layer of fat that hadn’t been fully rendered.

Duclair Duck ($34) was a bit more successful, with a deliciously crunchy exterior contrasting the tender meat. But Marcona almonds and baby turnips seemed utterly superfluous, and a small cylinder of “Medlar braised leg” (whatever that means) was far too dry. For that matter, what is “Duclair” duck?

That brought us to dessert, which seems to be the only attraction for which the restaurant can be seriously recommended. Whatever you order, it takes a while to arrive—the reason is abundantly obvious when you see the photos. They are works of art, and it seems almost a crime to bite into them. But they are just as much fun to eat, even if one cannot begin to figure out how they were made.

My friend had the Wolfberry (lime sabayon, tonka bean, broken macaroons, ketjap manis; $14) , which we had so much enjoyed when we had the dessert tasting a month ago.

I wanted to try something different, so I had Absinthe (liquid sable, black sesame, ricotta, sour apple sorbet; $12), another happy choice on a menu where one really cannot go wrong.

Service was generally excellent, with only a few minor lapses that are hardly worth mentioning. The staff dress in dark suits and ties, and comport themselves with all due seriousness. With only a little bit more polish, I could easily imagine awarding three stars for service, if only the food lived up to it.

The room might be accused of sterility, with the all-white walls adorned only with large photos of grapes. But the chandelier made of inverted wine glasses is a work of sheer genius. At the bar, there is a companion sculpture made of wine glasses tilted horozontally (not really clear in the photo below, despite my best efforts). 

You would expect a restaurant named Varietal to have a serious wine program. Indeed it does, although it may be far too over-priced for its own good. When we sat down, we were presented with a champagne menu, with no choices below $17. This seemed to us grossly excessive, when you consider that we had an excellent glass of sparkling wine last week at The Modern for just $15. The main wine list has some reasonably priced choices, along with some insanely excessive ones.

Varietal appears to be struggling. The dining room was only about half full, surely not a good sign on a Friday night. The front bar area seemed to be doing a brisk business, but it is not large enough to support the full restaurant. Most of the patrons were a lot younger than we are, and they probably won’t be choosing from the higher end of the wine list. In a dining room dominated by twenty-somethings, who will order the $500 bottle of dessert wine?

Four new reviews of Varietal are on the way. The coming week will see reviews from the New York Observer, New York Sun, and Adam Platt in New York. The owner told us that Frank Bruni has already visited three times, so his review is surely no more than a few weeks away. Varietal probably needs a couple of good reviews to pull in the crowds.

If Varietal survives, I suspect my friend and I will be back again for dessert. We would not be drawn back for a full meal unless future reviews suggest a considerable improvement over what we experienced. Jordan Kahn’s superlative desserts deserve to play on a stage with a much better supporting cast.

Varietal (138 W. 25th Street between 6th & 7th Avenues, Chelsea)

Food (savory): No stars
Food (dessert): ***
Service: **½
Ambiance: **
Overall: *

Varietal

Varietal has been open less than a month. Food blogger Augieland is already smitten, as are many of the eGullet community. The concept draws on several ideas at once, and it remains to be seen if they will gel. It is a wine bar, with some 70 selections by the glass. There are savory courses too, which have drawn mixed reviews so far.

But what has everyone raving are the inventive desserts of Jordan Kahn, who has stints at The French Laundry, Per Se, and Alinea on his resume. We dropped by at around 10:00 p.m. on a Saturday night after our dinner at Applewood, and were seated after about a ten-minute wait. The dining room was nearly full at that hour, although it had cleared out considerably by the time we left.

You’ll either love or hate the décor. The chandelier (pictured above), made from inverted wine glasses, is a work of genius. But the austerity of the stark white walls is relieved only by several undistinguished blow-up photos of grapes. The all-white theme is even more apparent in the front bar area, where there is another very clever sculpture made with wine glass stems.

We asked to share the four-course dessert tasting ($35). The server blundered, and we actually got two full orders of the dessert tasting. I did not realize this when the first course arrived—assuming that the kitchen had been considerate enough to divide the portions. But it was clear, both to us and our server, by the time the second course arrived, that we’d received twice the amount we wanted. To the restaurant’s credit, they continued with double orders of the third and fourth courses, but did not charge us for them.

The four-course dessert tasting is far more than most people will want. For the typical appetite, one portion to share is ample for a couple who have already had a full dinner. Indeed, any one of the courses would be nearly enough to be a dessert on its own. The desserts are of course enjoyable in their own right, but the artfulness of the platings almost makes you regret digging in. You just want to gaze at them, as you would paintings in a museum.

Most of the desserts have about half-a-dozen ingredients. I certainly can’t remember them all, though fortunately I think I’ve found descriptions on various Internet sites.

1) Sweet potato ice cream, yogurt, yuzu, picholine olive. The actual color was closer to orange than the photo shows. The olive was dried and shredded—you can see the crumbs at the back of the photo. An excellent starter.

2) Wolfberry puree, rigid lime sabayon, broken macaroons, tonka bean cream, soybean, ketjap manis. This was the most gorgeous of the four desserts, and probably the most successful.

3) This is the only dessert for which I cannot find a description, but we enjoyed it nearly as much as the wolfberry, above.

4) Chocolate Gel, Pear Sorbet, Mushroom Caramel, Brown Butter.We thought this one was a little too similar to the third dish. We particularly admired the cylinder of pear in the middle of the dish, which was the consistency of an egg yolk and “ran” with pear juice when punctured. But after that, we left the rest of the dish unfinished.

Although our server was no doubt chastised for sending a double order into the kitchen, she proved to be quite knowledgeable about the food, describing the complex dishes without a hitch. She recommended a lovely dessert wine to go with our tasting, which at $17 was neither the most nor the least expensive they had. The courses came out fairly slowly—no surprise there, given the complexity of the platings—but we were in no hurry.

A judgment on the savory menu must await a future visit, but for its desserts alone Varietal is a welcome addition to the restaurant landscape.

Varietal (138 West 25th Street between 6th & 7th Avenues, Chelsea)

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