mŏkbar

We’re in a Ramen moment—no doubt about it. In the Times, Pete Wells filed a massive Ramen survey a year ago, and no doubt half-a-dozen more slurp shops have opened since then.

If Wells had written a few months later, perhaps he’d have included mŏkbar (“eat bar”), which specializes in Korean ramen, hearty soup with Japanese noodles and Korean flavors. It occupies a diminutive stall in Chelsea Market, opposite a taco stand. Like many ramen bars, there’s not a ton of room—and what there is, fills up at peak times.

Mŏkbar is the improbable brainchild of Esther Choi, a New Jersey-born twentysomething of Korean descent, who went to Rutgers as a pharmacy major, got a corporate job, hated it, and went to culinary school.

The usual ending to such stories is a lifetime of dicing carrots in anonymity, but Choi persevered, finding steady work as a buyer for Food Network and as a sous-chef at La Esquina.

When a fried chicken stall went out of business at Chelsea Market, Choi jumped at the chance, beating out dozens of other chefs, including more established names, for the right to open her little Korean ramen concept.

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Mulino a Vino

At Mulino a Vino, the new Italian wine restaurant in Chelsea, there’s good food hiding behind a really dumb gimmick:

Here, the wine comes first. Diners select their bottle or glass from a list of 50 options divided into nine categories like white-light, red-medium, and red-full, before they see the dinner menu.

I checked multiple news stories, to make sure one website didn’t get it wrong. Sure enough, all the pre-opening publicity describes it that way.

Nevertheless, this is not what the restaurant does. When you sit down in the quiet subterranean dining room, the staff distributes both the food and wine menu. You are not told to choose the wine first, and food afterward.

Vestiges of the original concept remain. On the wine list, the reds and whites are sub-divided into light, medium, and full, with descriptive headings like “dry, powerful, flavorful, and intense,” and followed by a list of “suggested pairings.” Hence, you are invited to think about foods that pair with a particular class of wines, rather than the opposite. This isn’t entirely practical, as the list of dishes in the printed menu doesn’t quite agree with the separately printed food menu. Here lies the path to confusion.

There are fifty bottles on the list, and all are available by glass—even the $2,000 Masseto or the $600 Sassicaia. The staff use the Coravin liberally (that’s the device that can pour from wine bottles without uncorking them), even on inexpensive names that wouldn’t seem to call for it. There’s plenty at the lower end, for those who prefer it: a 2011 Sangiovese (left) was $40.

A serious chef is in charge: Davide Scabin of Combal.Zero, a Michelin two-star restaurant in Torino, Italy. He is not moving here permanently, and the publicity does not suggest how often the menu will change—if ever. For now, the the staff left behind is executing his concept with skill and precision.

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Barchetta

These days, the usual career path of successful chefs is to open a second restaurant, and then a third; in fact, to keep going until the public says “Enough already!” And sometimes even past that. See the dictionary entry under “English, Todd”.

Not so, David Pasternack. Despite the accolades rained upon his Hell’s Kitchen Italian seafood restaurant Esca, the chef has been surprisingy slow-footed about growing his personal brand. Aside from the short-lived Bistro du Vent (2005–06), Pasternack has resisted expansion in New York. (I don’t know for sure, but you’d have to think there’ve been offers before now.)

Pasternack finally got the proverbial offer he couldn’t refuse, partnering with LDV Hospitality (Scarpetta, American Cut) to open Barchetta (“little boat”) in the space that was last home to Alain Allegretti’s La Promenade des Anglais. This site has had trouble holding onto restaurants. Located in West Chelsea, close to Tenth Avenue, it is not convenient to mass transit. It needs to make a passionate case for our attention.

The immediate impression is that this is a cheaper and more casual version of Esca: an Esca without tablecloths. At the flagship, you won’t find an entrée for less than $30; here, they hover mostly in the $20s. Servings of crudo, the Italianesque sashimi that Pasternack introduced to New York, are similar to those served at Esca, but a couple of dollars less. You can order spaghetti with lobster at Esca for $30, or fettucine with lobster at Barchetta for $28.

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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)

Montmartre

Note: This review is under chef Michael Toscano, who left the restaurant in November 2014 for an opportunity in Charleston, South Carolina. Montmartre closed in March 2016. The owner Gabe Stulman, changed the concept over and over again, but couldn’t find a formula that worked.

*

If Montmartre were an operating system, what version would it be? Best I can tell, we’re on Montmartre v3.0.

The restaurant opened 13 months ago with ex-Momofuku chef Tien Ho serving classic French bistro cuisine. After just five weeks, Tien and owner Gabe Stulman tossed the menu in lieu of the Asian-inflected Vietnamese cooking that the chef was known for. This was a remarkable turn of events: the restaurant was busy, and none of the pro critics had reviewed it yet. But Stulman apparently smelled a rat before the critics told him what was wrong. When Pete Wells awarded two stars in June 2013, he found v2.0 much improved over version he had beta tested.

It is less clear what went wrong after that, but Tien left the restaurant in October 2013, and Michael Toscano (Stulman’s partner at Perla) was appointed executive chef and co-owner. Strangely enough, v3.0 reverted back to the plan of v1.0, with a classic French bistro menu. It’s a bit like the failure of New Coke: Coke Classic was better, after all.

The new menu is not quite full-on French. Under a heading like Coquillages, you’ve got an offering like Shrimp Cocktail ($15), which basically could be served anywhere. Likewise, under Salades, a choice of Winter Greens ($11) with blood orange vinaigrette. But there’s also escargots ($15) and cassoulet de cochon ($29.50), so there’s enough French for those who want it, along with classic bail-out dishes like a dry-aged burger ($19) and a straight-up roast chicken ($28).

Appetizers and salads are $11–17, entrées $19 (the burger) up to the oddly priced steak frittes ($35.25). There are a lot of prices ending in .25 or .95, which I have to think is a joke, as it is not consistent, and none of Stulman’s other restaurants—all with a similar vibe and price range—are priced like that.

Despite the humble, and for the most part inexpensive, bistro cuisine, Stulman price-gouges on the wine list, as he always does. There are hardly any reds below $60, and the bottom end is mostly over-priced vins de pays. He really ought to be ashamed of himself. The 2012 Gravilas we ordered was fine, for what it was; it just shouldn’t be $52 (it’s about $17 retail).

 

We began with country bread, served with soft butter. The amuse bouche (above left) was a butternut squash velouté with hazelnuts. We made the boring but enjoyable choice for our appetizer, a dozen oysters (Wellfleet, Beau Soleil, and Malpeque).

The menu’s obligatory large-format dish is a hulking braised Short Rib Bourgogne pour deux ($60), served with carrots, onions, lardons, and fingerling potatoes. It’s fabulous, and three could easily share it.

 

Desserts were first rate, a chocolate fondant ($12; above left) and a pineapple clafoutis ($12; above right).

 

The meal ends with cookies served in an old Camel cigarette case.

The space is resolutely casual, like all of Stulman’s restaurants. The dining rooms on two levels are packed with tables, to what I assume is the legal limit: there was barely room for the food, and we might as well have been in our neighbors’ laps.

Montmartre takes reservations (only by phone), which may indicate some weakness, as historically Stulman has preferred strictly walk-ins. We did exactly that at 7:15pm on a Saturday evening and were seated immediately: they were doing decent business but were not full.

I wish we could have tried more, but the fraction of the menu we were able to sample was excellent. If accompanied by a sensibly-priced wine list, Montmartre might be one of our better French bistros.

Montmartre (158 Eighth Avenue between 17th & 18th Streets, Chelsea)

Food: Excellent Americanized French bistro classics; an over-priced wine list
Service: Good
Ambiance: A charming, if over-crowded, Francophilic dining room on two levels

Rating: ★½

Willow Road

Note: Willow Road closed in November 2014. It turned into a private event space for Toro, its nearby sister restaurant.

*

Willow Road has been open since early December in the old John Dory space, sandwiched between Colicchio & Sons and Del Posto. Why the Dory failed here remains a mystery to me, but the venue stood vacant for more than three years.

The new owners, coming from a nightlife background, have decidedly modest ambitions. They brought in Todd Macdonald, a former chef at Cru, and Grayson Schmitz, a former Top Cheftestant, to serve a bunch of comfort-food dishes that look like Quick Fire challenges. Open till 3:00 am, it’s a boozier, less elaborate Stanton Social.

The menu is organized around “Bites” ($6–9), Small Plates ($12–18), Large Plates ($15–34), and Side Dishes ($8). The server pushed us to over-order, but we held firm at two small and two large plates, which was enough for us, but might not be for you. I suspect many of the guests here will be visiting more than one dining/boozing location in an evening. Two plates a person is probably enough.

 

The Spiced Lamb Burger Bites ($12; above left) are excellent, and were gone far too quickly. As always, these sharing establishments send out three pieces for a party of two. I’d much rather have a second order of those than the very dull Duck Confit Salad ($16; above right).

 

Buttermilk Fried Chicken ($18; above left) is coated in an appealing crust of jerk spices and orange blossom honey. The plate looks small in the photo, but there are three pieces there. Mac N’ Cheese ($15; above right) is deceptively named. The noodles are more like half-length penne tubes, with an appealing mix of sweet sausage, lemon, fennel pollen, and parsley. It’s probably too cloying to order for yourself, but very good to share.

Three out of four items were just fine, bearing in mind the restaurant’s low aims. The menu is fairly small, with just nine “bites” and small plates, and just eight of the larger ones. It’s not upscale, but it’s not entirely cliché either, as such places often can be.

They’ve redone the space admirably, with reclaimed wood, subway tile, and a terrific hand-painted mural depicting the neighborhood by James Gulliver Hancock. We were seated at a two-top, but there’s also an ample bar and at least one long communal table. The scene is louder than I’d like, but the oldies sound track was palatable.

The staff paid plenty of attention to us; coats were checked and reclaimed efficiently. Although the “sharing plates” meme feels outdated already, at least the food was sent out in a logical order, and not all at once. You can never take that for granted at these establishments.

I can’t imagine what would bring us back to Willow Road, but for its intended audience it’s pretty good. The space was hopping on a Wednesday evening. If the management can keep people coming back, they might have something going.

Willow Road (85 Tenth Ave between 15th & 16th Streets, Chelsea)

Food: Stoner cuisine, re-imagined
Service: Attentive and well managed
Ambiance: A gastro-bar, with the emphasis on “bar”

Rating: ★
Why? Satisfies a need for the area; not worth going out of the way

Jeanne & Gaston

Jeanne & Gaston is an under-the-radar contemporary French bistro on the southern edge of Chelsea. It’s in the upmarket casual idiom that, for Italian cuisine, has become so common that another one opens every week. But as it’s French, Jeanne & Gaston is a far scarcer breed, and therefore worthy of some attention.

This is the second restaurant for chef Claude Godard, whose first spot, Madison Bistro, opened in 1998. The two places are extremely similar, though the careful eye might detect a few slightly edgier dishes at Jeanne & Gaston (named for the chef’s grandparents), which opened in December 2011.

Budget-conscious diners will smile at either establishment, where the three-course prix fixe is just $40, with about a dozen choices of both appetizers and mains, and half-a-dozen desserts. (A few items have $2–3 supplements.) If you prefer to order à la carte, most appetizers are $13, mains $26, desserts $10.

The menu offers a mix of classic French bistro cuisine, specialties from the chef’s native Burgundy, and a few of his own inventions. It is very good for the price point.

The restaurant’s hidden ace is a delightful 40-seat outdoor garden with its antique sculptured limestone fountain, cloistered between two residential buildings and closed off with a wood fence. You should by all means dine there if the weather permits. And if not, there is always the 32-seat dining room, which is charming and unobjectionable, but could be faulted for a lack of personality.

We dined at the publicist’s invitation and did not pay for our meal. The chef served a five-course tasting menu with portion sizes adjusted, for which I believe he ordinarily charges $55.

 

Baguettes (above left) are made in-house and were served warm. The charcuterie plate (above right) came with prosciutto, garlic sausage, and chicken liver mousse. I’d give it a pass next time, as cured meats of comparable quality are available all over town.

 

The dish of the evening was the Napoleon (above left), which the chef says is his own creation. It was certainly new to me: a tower of wafer-thin pasty discs with crabmeat salad sandwiched in between and an avocado mousse around the edge of the plate.

I also enjoyed the sea scallops (above right) with “Tarte Tatin” Provençale. The scare quotes are on the printed menu, so I assume irony is intended, perhaps because tarte is usually a dessert.

 

The chef serves Duck Magret (above left) at both of his restaurants. Uptown, he serves it with potatoes; here with vegetables tempura and a mango emulsion. “Magret” refers to the force-fed ducks that produce foie gras, so you know it will be fatty and flavorful. I was not fond of the vegetables, which were a hair too greasy.

We finished with a duo of desserts (above right), a chocolate soufflé and the chef’s interpretation of that old classic, the floating island. You won’t go wrong with either one.

The price point at Jeanne & Gaston is both a strength and a limitation—the latter because there’s only so much you can do for forty bucks. But. Seriously. Forty bucks for three courses or $13/$26 for appetizers and entrées à la carte? If it were served in a garage in Brooklyn, they’d be lined up out the door.

Jeanne & Gaston (212 W. 14th Street between 7th & 8th Avenues, Chelsea)

La Promenade des Anglais

Note: As of September 2012, the restaurant is was renamed  “Bistro La Promenade,” serving straightforward French bistro fare. That shift did not improve its fortunes, and it closed in January 2014. Dave Pasternack, chef of the popular Hell’s Kitchen seafood spot Esca, will be opening an Italian seafood restaurant in the space called Barchetta.

*

Let’s go ahead and call it Allegretti 2.0, chef Alain Allegretti’s second attempt at a midscale French Mediterranean restaurant. I loved Allegretti 1.0, but the public and a number of critics disagreed. Frank Bruni gave it a respectful two stars in The Times, but in New York, Adam Platt compared it to “eating out with my grandmother in Westchester.”

Bruni wrote the more accurate review, but Platt had the more accurate prediction of the public response. They tried removing the tablecloths and offering various specials, but it was to no avail. Two years later, Allegretti “closed for renovations,” never to re-open. The chef consulted briefly at La Petite Maison while he waited to open a new place in far west Chelsea, in the old Bette space.

At La Promenade des Anglais, Allegretti has the particulars right. The tablecloths are gone, there’s a bustling bar, and the entrées top out at $30. (They went as high as $38 at Allegretti 1.0, and that was three years ago.)

V2.0 is not as good as V1.0, but the man has to make a living, and this is the food that a French chef not named Boulud, Ripert, or Vongerichten, can serve in New York these days.

The make-over is quite attractive, including the hard surfaces New Yorkers inexplicably favor these days, making it loud when full. Two months in, the crowds are thronging. Reservations at prime times are hard to come by.

The cuisine casts a wider net than V1.0 did, ranging across the Mediterranean. The chef’s well known Provençale Fish Soup has made the journey, but there’s also a selection of pastas and other Italian classics. The menu is on the safe side, but you can’t blame the guy.

The wine list runs to about seven pages, with good choices in a wide price range. (The 2008 Domaine Poulleau Père de Fils Côte de Beaune was $52. I can’t find a comparison price online, but that struck me as fair.)

Vitello Tonnato ($18; above left) was a happy re-imagining of the classic dish, with veal sweetbreads, sushi-grade blue-fin tuna, and romaine hearts. Ratatouille Raviolini ($19; above right) stuffed with Manchego were in a spicy chorizo tomato sauce.

A salad “Mille Feuilles” ($12; above left) was another re-imagining, with the Gorgonzola crostini taking the role of the puff pastry in the traditional preparation. It was a competent, forgettable salad.

Arctic Char ($25; above right) was beautifully prepared, but I didn’t at all enjoy the clash of ingredients underneath it: duck fat potatoes, endive marmelade, and pomegranate citrus jus. The endive marmelade seemed bitter, and the potatoes undermined the lightness of the fish.

The service was more attentive than I’d expect for a restaurant this busy. I suppose it says something about modern restaurant culture that I didn’t expect it to be very good—and it was.

The Post’s Steve Cuozzo was the first of the professional reviewers to file, awarding two and a half stars. That was my rating for Allegretti 1.0. This version isn’t as good, and although the space will never be an improvement in my book, the cuisine might get there someday.

La Promenade des Anglais (461 W. 23rd St. btwn 9th & 10th Avenues, Chelsea)

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

Coppelia

Coppelia, as critic Robert Sietsema observed in the Village Voice, is what the average New York City diner might have been, if the tradition had been founded by Latinos instead of Greeks. Or the Walt Disney version, at any rate. It could transfer to the Cuban pavilian at Epcot (if there was one), and chef Julian Medina wouldn’t need to change a thing.

Medina is in his moment now, with three outposts of his Mexican place Toloache, two of his pan-Latin restaurant Yerba Buena, and now Coppelia, which is billed as Cuban, but isn’t really anchored to any national cuisine.

Coppelia is the least ambitious of the three, but as diners go, you’ll be happy it exists. Located strategically at the midpoint between Chelsea’s clubland and the Meatpacking District, it’s open 24/7, serving the perfect food for soaking up alcohol after night on the town. At 8:00 p.m. on a rainy Saturday evening, it was nearly deserted. My son wondered how it could stay in business. “The crowds come later,” I explained.

If you come in sober, what you’ll find is decent, inexpensive (for Chelsea), pan-Latin cuisine. Entrées are $13.95–17.95; burgers and sandwiches $6.95–7.95; starters and salads $2.95–10.95; breakfast dishes, served all day, $4.95–9.95. The food is slightly better than you are entitled to expect at those prices.

Fish tacos ($9.95; above left) offered crispy flounder and guacamole, topped with a rich chipotle cole slaw. Arroz con pollo ($15.95; above right) could feed a family. The chicken was tender, the rice sweet and sticky, and there was an abundance of peas, peppers, and scrambled egg.

But Ropa Vieja ($15.95; above left) was dull. The shredded beef both looked and tasted like traditional diner food, and a side of beans (above right) was too watery.

There is no liquor license yet (the staff says it’s a week away). A lime soda imported from Mexico wasn’t bad at all, though at $4.50 is a bit expensive in relation to the menu. Service was attentive, as it ought to be when the ratio of staff to customers is nearly one to one. I’ve no doubt they get a lot busier later on.

I wouldn’t want to over-hype Coppelia, but it’s the kind of restaurant you’re glad to have around.

Coppelia (206 W. 14th St., west of Seventh Avenue, Chelsea)

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

Salinas

Spanish cuisine is enjoying a resurgence in New York, with newcomer Tertuila as perhaps the most successful example this fall. After two mediocre meals there (which I have not yet written about), I was eager to have another data point.

Enter Salinas, with chef Luis Bollo, whose much-admired Soho restaurant Meigas (which I never visited), closed in 2008, a victim of the Great Recession. Bollo decamped to Connecticut for a few years, waiting for the opportunity to return to Manhattan, which he did in July of this year. The Times didn’t review Salinas, but The Post’s Steve Cuozzo filed a rave, and Esquire’s John Mariani pronounced it one of the best new restaurants in America in 2011. New York’s Adam Platt had (predictably) the least reliable review, giving it two stars for the food, but minus one (for a total of one) for “ the pokey, vaguely suburban surroundings.”

I wonder which suburbs have restaurants like this? There’s a small bar up front, leading to two dining rooms with exposed brick and bare, dark-wood tables. The back room has a retractable roof, now closed for the season. Chairs and banquettes are in an understated, plush soft blue.

The menu is in four sections: tapas ($7–20), starters ($11–19), entrées ($24–44), and side dishes ($8–9). In most of those categories, there’s one or two items much more expensive than the others. For instance, all of the entrées are below $30, except for the porcella (roast suckling pig), which is $44.

The menu doesn’t really encourage you to build a meal from tapas alone, as there are only nine of them, several of which are just breads and charcuterie. But all the dishes we had, even the main courses, lent themselves to sharing.

Coles e Coliflor ($9; above left) is a dish that could convert even Brussels sprouts and cauliflower skeptics. They’re served deep fried, with citrus zest, mint yogurt, and pimentón de la vera, the spicy Spanish paprika that polka dots the top edge of the plate. (A second comped plate of this was sent out later.)

We also liked the Chorizo special ($14; above right), sliced thin, with a runny quail egg on top. Puncture the egg, and you have a late breakfast.

A short ribs special ($29; above left) was rather pedestrian. Served on the bone, it was a generic short rib entrée that you’ll find all over town. Pollo Otoñal ($26; above right) was considerably better, a grilled local organic chicken in a Granja bean and green onion sauce, Swiss chard, baby carrots, garlic, and lemon emulsion.

The room is dark, and on the loud side when it fills up. Service was fine once we were seated, but the hostess insisted I wait at the bar until my guest arrived. The sense they’re trying to attract a scene, rather than build a following, slightly undermines the accomplished cooking.

Salinas (136 Ninth Avenue between 18th & 19th Streets, Chelsea)

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