Marble Lane

Note: This is a review under chef Manuel Treviño, who left the restaurant in May 2013. It later closed entirely and re-opened in January 2014 as Bodega Negra, a Mexican street food spot.

*

I’ve been trying to reduce my percentage of wasted restaurant meals—the places (usually newer ones) that I try, “just because they are there.” But some odd impulse last week brought me to Marble Lane at the Dream Hotel, a venue I should easily have guessed would be terrible.

The clues of a big-time fail are abundant, from the location slightly north of the Meatpacking District, to the heavy breathing from Eater’s Scott Solish when it opened. In charge are the same folks who created the money-printing machine (and culinary mediocrity) Tao, following it up with the even more dreadful Lavo.

As chef, they hired Manuel Treviño, who was famous for fifteen minutes on Top Chef (Season 4: eliminated after four episodes); then ran the now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t restaurant Travertine; and then moved to the aforementioned Lavo, where Sam Sifton goose-egged him. If you’re running Marble Lane, he’s just the guy you want. Right?

There’s a vaguely steak-focused “international menu,” and Grub Street tells us: “each steak will have its own twist.” Oh, dear. Prices are are in a wide range, but high, with appetizers $10–22, non-steak entrées $21–28, steaks (aged prime and “American Kobe”) $30–65, and sides $9–10.

On the wine list, it’s hard to do business below $60 a bottle. Cocktails, ranging from $14–16, are also on the expensive side. It all adds up, and before you’re done you’ve spent $100 or more a head for mediocre food.

Calamari ($18; above left), served as an appetizer, were rubbery.

Entrée portions are ample. If they aren’t great, they aren’t bad either: Loup de Mere ($25; above left), Romanian Skirt Steak ($39; above right). The latter is the same cut they serve at Sammy’s Romanian, but better quality (claimed to be American Kobe). It was an enormous portion I couldn’t finish. In a nicer room, I wouldn’t have minded it.

But Sammy’s at least has personality. Marble Lane is a cookie-cutter hotel restaurant, looking for a party that hasn’t started yet, and probably never will. Reservations are available any day, any time. The dining room was empty when I arrived, but it didn’t stop the hostess from administering this cold greeting: “Let me know when your guest is here and I’ll have you guys sat.”

There were no seats at the bar, so I trundled off to the charmless lounge, where I waited (and waited) for a server to notice me. Attractive twenty-somethings in tight black dresses walked by, skipping the restaurant and headed for one of the hotel’s various lounges.

Later this fall, the Spanish chef Miguel Romera is planning to open a restaurant in this same hotel, where he’ll charge $245 for a prix fixe tasting menu. I have no idea whether his food is worth that much. He earned two Michelin stars in Spain, so I give him the benefit of the doubt. But among those who are willing to drop that much coin on a meal, who would do so at this dismal hotel? I wish him good luck with that.

Marble Lane (355 W. 16th St between 8th & 9th Avenues, in the Dream Hotel)

Food: Satisfactory
Service: Fair
Ambiance: Poor
Overall: Fair

Del Posto

Del Posto isn’t a four-star restaurant. You already knew that, right? Sam Sifton of The Times is the only critic to have made that claim. Of the city’s  four-star restaurants, Del Posto has the fewest supporters.

Bloomberg’s Ryan Sutton gave it just two stars, which errs in the opposite direction, but Sutton recognizes an an essential truth: a four-star restaurant needs to make you say wow! Not after every bite (which would be impossible), or even every dish, but at least sometimes.

There wasn’t much wow in our meal at Del Posto, which is not a complaint, just a reflection of where Del Posto stands, when soberly assessed. Almost every dish we tried, with exceptions I’ll note later on, was extremely well prepared. A careful, competent craftsman is at work here: chef Mark Ladner. Not many Italian kitchens in New York could produce a meal like this.

But a four-star restaurant needs to be a “category killer,” and the food at Del Posto is not. It is roughly on par with the better three-star Italian restaurants, like Marea and Babbo. Del Posto, of course, differs from them stylistically, but the gustatory pleasure it delivers is about the same.

What sets Del Posto aside are the atmosphere and service. Critics may sniff that the grand dining room feels like it belongs in Vegas, and even in Italy itself one probably wouldn’t encounter such a setting. No matter. For an elegant Italian meal, there’s nothing in the city more comfortable, or more relaxing, than Del Posto.

The service, too, does a passable imitation of high-end French models, with its armies of runners, sauces poured tableside, purse stools for the ladies, and so forth.

The wine list is superb, as it is at all of the Batali–Bastianich restaurants. The sommelier steered me away from the $115 Barolo I had chosen, to another bottle he considered a better choice, that cost $10 more. Decide for yourself if that counts as upselling, when you’re already on the hook for half a grand.

But he ably performed the whole decanting ritual far too seldom encountered in these days, and his recommendation was indeed very good.

Del Posto was always very expensive, and it has gone up considerably since Sifton gave it the fourth star. Almost immediately, the à la carte menu was dropped. A five-course prix fixe (now the least expensive option) jumped from $95 to $115, the tasting menu from $125 to $145.

Reservations, which were once plentiful, are now a bit tougher to come by. Four weeks in advance, I could do no better than 6:15 p.m. on a Friday evening. They don’t rush you, though: we were there for over three hours.

There was a trio of amuses bouches (above left). I don’t remember them individually, but they were very good. Bread service (above right) came with two spreads, the latter (on the right) made from lard (pig fat).

On the five-course menu, which we had, each diner chooses an antipasto, a secondo, and a dessert. Of the appetizers, I was more impressed with Lidia’s Lobster Salad (above left) with tomato and celery, which had a good, spicy zing. In comparison, an Abalone Salad (above right), with grilled asparagus and ramps, tasted flat.

I believe our first pasta was the Ricotta Pansotti (above left) with black truffles, probably the best dish of the evening. But that was offset by the evening’s only dud, a Lobster Risotto (above right), which was too soupy and over-salted.

Both entrées struck me as uncomplicated, although skillfully prepared. I thought that Sliced Duck Breast (above left) was sliced too thin, but my friend loved the dish. I had no complaints at all with Grilled Pork (above right), served with a hearty accompaniment of smoked whey, white asparagus, fava beans, and pickled cherries.

The desserts were superior. This being a birthday, the kitchen sent out cake, then wrapped it up for us to enjoy the next day.

I’m afraid we didn’t take note of which desserts we ordered (above), but we loved them. They were the strongest part of our meal at Del Posto. I believe the one on the right is the Butterscotch Semifreddo.

The evening ended in the usual blaze of petits fours (above left) and a wonderful chocolate sculpture (above right) that I felt quite guilty about not finishing.

No other Italian restaurant in New York can deliver an experience like Del Posto—assuming that its full-on embrace of unabashed luxury is your cup of tea. Many diners today find such meals oppressive. If it’s just the food you are interested in, you will eat about as well at Marea or Babbo, at Ai Fiori or Felidia, all of which offer à la carte menus that put you in much greater control over how much you want to order, and how much it will cost.

We werent’ really wowed by anything we tried. The best dishes were certainly excellent. Maybe I would give four stars if there were another one or two dishes as good as the pasta with truffles and the desserts; and if there were no duds like the lobster risotto; or flat-tasting dishes, like the abalone salad.

I’m glad that the owners, Mario Batali and Joe Bastianich, gave a four-star Italian restaurant their best shot. It is certainly much improved over our first visit, when I gave it 2½ stars. It doesn’t quite deserve four, but New York is better with Del Posto in it.

Del Posto (85 Tenth Avenue at 16th Street, Far West Chelsea)

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

Brats & the Little Cheese Pub

Note: Brats closed in May 2011, and the Little Cheese Pub expanded into the space. The Little Cheese Pub has since been sold.

*

Brats and the Little Cheese Pub, though technically separate restaurants, might as well be discussed together. They have the same chef, occupy adjacent Chelsea storefronts, and opened within three months of one another.

And they share a theme seen a lot lately, common to places like Macbar, the Meatball Shop, and Crif Dogs: a narrow focus on many versions of just one dish: wieners and sausages at Brats; cheese at the Little Cheese Pub. The chef, Daniel Angerer, has a serious, full-service restaurant, the Austrian-themed Klee Brasserie. I found it underwhelming, but that was four years ago, and much may have changed since then.

That Angerer would open a cheese pub is ripe with irony, as he is best known for putting a recipe for breast milk cheese (his wife’s) on his blog. After the story was picked up in the Post, the health department told him to take the human cheese off the market. He later denied he had served it in his restaurant, but Gael Greene got a private tasting:

Surprise. It’s not the flavor that shocks me—indeed, it is quite bland, slightly sweet, the mild taste overwhelmed by the accompanying apricot preserves and a sprinkle of paprika. It’s the unexpected texture that’s so off-putting. Strangely soft, bouncy, like panna cotta.

If you’re not paying close attention, you could easily walk into the Little Cheese Pub expecting Brats, or vice versa. Indeed, I’d already taken a seat, and had to ask the server why the Cheese Pub menu seemed to have none of the wieners I was looking for.

The Little Cheese Pub resembles a conventional wine/beer bar, with its dark wood faux rural chic décor. There are several long communal tables and a number of two-tops with bar stools. You can order composed cheese platters, cheeses à la carte, or one of a half-dozen varieties of mac & cheese. The French Man Mac ($13; below left), served in a hot skillet, is better than it looks, with morbier cheese, balsam onions, and a hefty duck meat ball.

At Brats, there are eight sausage and wiener entrées, all house-made, $6.95–10.95, from a conventional bratwurst to a French duck sausage. An entertaining illustrated menu shows photos of the dogs, alongside models in seductive poses, with balloon quotes showing “wiener” double ententres.

The server said a similar menu is on the way for the milkshakes, which include such flavors as vanilla with bacon confetti, PB&J with honey popcorn, and the Volcano (not for children), infused with tobacco.

I ordered the Dragon (above right), a pork sausage with pickled kimchee cabbage, pea shoots, and a spicy sriracha mustard—not your standard hot dog, but I enjoyed its slow, tangy burn.

There’s a variety of side dishes (none of which I tried), and a generous selection of wines and beers. They’re all under $10, which makes sense, bearing in mind that this is basically an upscale hot dog stand. Most of the seating in the narrow space is at the bar.

Brats (362 W. 23rd St. between Eighth & Ninth Avenues, Chelsea)
The Little Cheese Pub (362½ W. 23rd St. between Eighth & Ninth Avenues, Chelsea)

Donatella

Note: We weren’t impressed with Donatella, and neither was anyone else. The place closed in January 2014. The space is now Heartwood.

*

Donatella and DBar are the latest creations of Donatella Arpaia, the restaurateur and chef wannabe. The former is a pizzeria, the latter a cocktail bar. A passageway (not open to the public) connects the two, so that the same pizza can be served in both places.

Ms. Arpaia first came to notice in 1998, when she gave up her law practice and invested her whole trust fund to open the restaurant Bellini. Five years later, she supplied the financial backing for the hugely successful David Burke & Donatella on the Upper East Side. There followed a series of restaurants with the chef Michael Psilakis—in each case, Ms. Arpaia running the dining room while leaving the cooking to others more qualified.

Over the last couple of years, her partnerships with Messrs. Burke and Psilakis dissolved, and at Mia Dona (formerly a Psilakis collaboration) she took over the kitchen herself. In the Times, Sam Sifton knocked the former two-star restaurant down to zero, calling it “exactly the sort of decent, middlebrow, red-sauce Italian restaurant you’d relish if you found it in a town near the town where you grew up in the suburbs of New York.”

Ms. Arpaia, no longer content to be a restaurateur or a cook, is now a brand. Her proven inexhaustible talent is naming restaurants after herself: David Burke & you-know, Dona, Mia Dona, DBar, and Donatella. She is wonderful to look at, and in case you didn’t know, there’s a magazine featuring 45 glossy photos (and not much else) across just 15 pages. If there’s such a thing as over-exposure, Ms. Arpaia doesn’t seem to think she has reached it.

At Donatella, she imported a gold-clad word-burning oven from Naples. To ensure that the customers wouldn’t be in doubt about the name of the restaurant, she added “Donatella” in big white letters on the outside of it. That’s probably as much as you’ll see of her, unless one of the employees sends an alert that a big-whig is in the house, in which case she’ll rush over to blow the critic an air-kiss. We weren’t graced with her presence—not that we expected to be.

Ms. Arpaia’s absence wouldn’t matter if the staff running the place were on top of things. We found, instead, that drink orders weren’t taken, silverware had to be asked for, and at least one of the bathrooms didn’t have soap.

In addition to pizza, there’s a range of salumi ($9–10), antipasti ($12–15), fritti (9–12), insalate ($10–13), pastas ($15–18), and griglieria ($23–24). There’s only three or four items in each category, which at least suggests that the menu has been edited down to what the kitchen can do well.

Indeed, that proved to be the case. I liked the Arancini ($9; above left), rice balls with peas and sausage. The Zuppa di Cozze ($12; above right) did not have much of the tomato stew that was the basis for calling it a soup, but my son thought the mussels were excellent.

Ultimately, Donatella must deliver on its signature item, the pizza, and this wasn’t the case. There are seven kinds ($12–20) starting with a basic Marinara and building up to more complicated creations. The name of the most expensive one won’t surprise you: Donatella, with Piennolo del Vesuvio Tomatoes, Stracciatella, Rocket, and Basil.

They come in one size that is too much for one person, unless you have a very large appetite.

We shared the Enzo ($16), with smoked mozzarella, pecorino, sausage, and rapini (i.e., broccoli rabe). The crust was too floppy, the sausage tasted store-bought, and the broccoli was too over-powering. It was sloppily sliced into four unevenly-shaped pieces, which were two fewer than it needed. I did like the slightly musky flavor of burnt wood, but it was not enough to make this pizza worth trying again.

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

Bar Basque

Note: Bar Basque closed in April 2012: yet another Jeffrey Chodorow place that folded after a brief, undistinguished run. At some point, you’d think the guy would stop wasting his money.

*

For a Thursday evening dinner with out-of-town friends whom I hadn’t seen in a year, I took a grave risk: I booked a Jeffrey Chodorow restaurant, sight unseen, which has (as yet) been reviewed by no one.

Bar Basque’s concept intrigued me. Basque cuisine is not exactly over-represented in Manhattan, and the chef, Yuhi Fujinaga, has worked at some serious places, including Eighty One, Alain Ducasse, Lespinasse—and of course, in Spain. But this is a Chodorow restaurant, so you know it will be weighed down with gimmicks, the service will be terrible, and in all likelihood it’ll be irrelevant or closed within a couple of years.

I took a shot anyway, and my predictions were right on most counts. The food wasn’t bad (nor was it great); the concept is weighed down with gimmicks, and the service is terrible. For the record, the Chod himself was in attendance, entertaining guests at a six-top.

Bar Basque is in the Eventi Hotel, which is home to another Chodorow gimmick-fest, FoodParc—basically, a shopping mall food court with the mall omitted—which the Village Voice has already slammed with a scathing review.

Both FoodParc and Bar Basque were designed by futurist Syd Mead, who is supposed to have “called science fiction ‘reality ahead of schedule’.” He is best known for such films as Blade Runner, Tron, Aliens, and Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

Mead’s all-red vision of the future looks like it could have been designed ten years ago. Given the crimson overload at The Lambs Club and and Nuela, both recently opened, Bar Basque is like the third girl showing up to party in the same dress.

More importantly, what does it have to do with the Basque theme? Answer: nothing. If this restaurant fails (as most Chodorow restaurants do), he can quickly substitute the cuisine of some other nation, and re-open with the same, equally irrelevant décor.

Even the name, Bar Basque, seems passé. A couple of years ago, every other restaurant was Bar This or Bar That, even without being bars in the strictest sense. “Bar Basque” is so 2008. Then again, look across Chodorow’s portfolio, past and present: Hudson Cafeteria wasn’t a cafeteria; Kobe Club wasn’t a club; Tanuki Tavern isn’t a tavern.

The service was Chodorrific, meaning not great. I arrived five minutes early; naturally, the hostess would not seat me, even though (at 6:00 p.m.) the restaurant was practically empty, and at no point in the evening would it be full. I ordered a cocktail, and just moments later my friends (who do not drink) arrived. Naturally (this being a Chodorow place) they would not transfer it to the table. That would make too much sense.

About that cocktail, by the way: there’s a Gin & Tonic section of the menu, offering half-a-dozen versions of the classic with different gins, a multiplicity of tonics, and various additives. I can’t really complain, since I’m a G&T guy from the dark ages, but it isn’t exactly a fashionable drink, so I couldn’t help but laugh to see a cocktail menu with six of them. The server pours tonic water from a screw-top bottle on top of gin already in the glass, so I cannot say they are being carefully measured and mixed.

We were seated and menus arrived. They’re in folders nearly big enough to be cheap bathmats. You can’t open them comfortably without knocking something over. We were still studying them, and the server arrived, intent on upselling us into Pintxos (tapas) to start. No menu for these had been supplied, but the server knew which ones we ought to have (hint: the most expensive), and “I’d be happy to put in an order right away.” We demured. Having checked the website afterwards, it appears she was trying to add another sixty bucks to the bill.

When we placed our order a few minutes later, she seemed quite dismayed: “So, you’ve decided not to order the Pinxtos?” Negatory.

Upselling quite this brazen is not a characteristic of New York restaurants, in general. It has to be carefully taught—in this case, at the University of Chod, where the first required course is how to upsell, deny seating to incomplete parties, and refuse to transfer the bar tab—all mandatory subjects in the practicum before graduation. Successful students are guaranteed placement in one Choddy restaurant or another.

Bread service came after a delay, but at least it was fresh.

All of this, mind you, was in the first fifteen minutes, whereupon we were feeling foul about Bar Basque, no matter how good the food might be. While we waited for our food, I narrated for my out-of-town friends the legend of the Man Named Chod, all of his failed restaurants, and how there is invariably something crass about them, even when the food is successful.

The menu is on the expensive side. Sharing plates come in a wide range, $4–34 (the high end being the Iberian ham); appetizers $12–19; entrées $28–39; side dishes $7–9. More than half of the twenty entrées are in a sub-section captioned “From the Grill,” a distinction that (one quickly learns) means they come with no accompaniments, and you will need a side dish if you want more than just protein on a plate.

I started with the Crispy Farm Egg ($12; above left), with olive oil crushed potatoes, peppers, Serrano ham, and cheese broth. It is hard to go wrong with a runny egg and Serrano ham, although I thought the egg was slightly over-cooked.

The restaurant plans to feature the menus of guest chefs every other month. Through the end of October, Daniel Garcia of Zortziko in Bilbao, Spain, is on hand. His entire six-course meal is $89 (it’s a special insert to the menu), but the components are also available à la carte. I couldn’t resist trying the Squab Five Ways (above right), although it will be offered for only another week. The breast was very good (a bit like duck in miniature), but the other four ways were forgettable, particularly a mousse (right-hand edge of the photo) that was served without anything to spread it on. I believe the squab was supposed to be $32, but I didn’t realize until I got home that it was left off the bill. I am fairly certain that it was not a deliberate comp.

I didn’t photograph or taste my friends’ choices, which they found underwhelming: beet salad, monkfish, cod, a side of grilled vegetables.

The main dining room is on a terrace with a retractable roof (it was closed on this occasion) and a view onto a courtyard, with a jumbotron screen that displays soothing graphics having nothing at all to do with, really, anything. But that terrace is actually a very nice place, with tables widely spaced, and mercifully free of the overbearing all-read décor inside. If the whole restaurant had been designed with the same taste, it might have been a lot better than it is.

Perhaps I’ll return in a couple of years, on a nice summer day, when the roof is open. By then, Bar Basque will probably be Swedish. Or something.

Bar Basque (839 Sixth Avenue at 29th Street, in the Eventi Hotel, Chelsea)

Food: Satisfactory
Service: Chodorrific
Ambiance: Ten Years Too Late
Overall: Satisfactory

Socarrat Paella Bar

We’ve had our eye on Socarrat Paella Bar ever since Frank Bruni awarded an enthusiastic star in October 2008. A pesky no-reservations policy gave us pause. When we plan an evening out, we generally want to count on a table at a time-certain. Many a restaurant that we’d love to patronize is buried well down the list for that reason, and that alone.

Socarrat Paella Bar closed the sale when it added a wine bar this spring in the adjacent storefront. We’d still have to wait for a seat, but at least we’d wait in comparative comfort, well fed and well lubricated. But be forewarned: even after effectively doubling their space, the wine bar, empty at 6:00 p.m., was standing-room-only by 8:00 on a Friday evening.

The wine bar serves mainly tapas, though you can order paella for parties of five or more. While we waited for two of the prized stools next door, we had the cheese plate ($15; above left) and the empanadas gallega ($8; above right), both very good.

Where most Spanish restaurants might have two or three versions of paella, Socarrat has eight, ranging from $22–24 per person (minimum of two people). The one shown above, Paella de Carne, was first-rate, with chunks of pork, chicken, duck, chorizo, and mushroom soffrito.

Socarrat, by the way, is the word for the burnt, sticky, but irresistible clumps of right that cling to the bottom of the pan. Near the end of your meal, a server comes along and helps you scoop it up (it takes some elbow grease, but is well worth it).

As the name implies, Socarrat Paella Bar is a bar, and a narrow one at that. You won’t have much room, and this isn’t the place for an intimate conversation. But sometimes it pays to be great at just one thing.

Socarrat Paella Bar (259 W. 19th Street between Sixth & Seventh Avenues, Chelsea)

Food: ★★
Service: ★
Ambiance: ★
Overall: ★★

Colicchio & Sons

Note: Colicchio & Sons closed in September 2016 after six years in business. Tom Colicchio did not state his reasons, but he told The Times that “the last couple of years had been difficult for the restaurant.” Oddly, he also said that this was “the first restaurant I actually opened and closed,” having forgotten Craftsteak, the previous restaurant to occupy this space.

We did not think Colicchio & Sons deserved the three stars that Sam Sifton gave it.” To be fair, Tom Colicchio is good at running restaurants, and the place may have improved over time. Either way, Colicchio & Sons had been out of the media conversation for the last several years. It would not surprise me to learn that bookings were down.

*

I have often said that steakhouses are practically the most fool-proof restaurant concept that there is. Well, practically. Tom Colicchio proved that even a smart guy can botch a steakhouse, when he opened Craftsteak in 2006. Reviews were not good, and Colicchio was charging at least $10 a steak more than the going rate in Manhattan. A steakhouse can get away with those prices, as the BLT franchise has shown, but the steaks have to be great. Craftsteak’s often weren’t.

Late last year, Colicchio closed Craftsteak, and after the briefest of make-overs, re-opened as Colicchio & Sons. The majority of a $400,000 renovation budget was spent on a new wood-burning oven where the Craftsteak raw bar used to be. The format is startlingly similar to Gramercy Tavern, where Colicchio was founding chef. There’s a casual front room, where reservations aren’t taken, and a more expensive formal dining room—although it is not that formal, as anyone who has been to Craftsteak will recall.

The name is a bit of a dodge, as Colicchio’s sons are too young to work in a restaurant kitchen, or indeed anywhere. He has explained in various interviews that the restaurant is an attempt to get back to his culinary roots. Here, he serves composed plates, as he did at Gramercy Tavern, rather than the à la carte family-style dishes of the Craft restaurants.

The food in the dining room is expensive, with appetizers $12–22 and entrées $27–36. (The more rustic “Tap Room” has dishes ranging from $9–23.) That’s less than you would have spent at Craftsteak, but still well above mid-priced. At this tariff, the food needs to be terrific. As so often happens, our appetizers lived up to the hype, but the entrées didn’t.

Our meal began with excellent parker-house rolls served in a cast-iron skillet, a feature wisely held over from the Craftsteak days. White Bean Agnolotti with Chorizo, Pork Belly and Octopus ($19; above left) and Foie Gras Torchon with Persimmon and Walnuts ($22; above right) were just about worth what we paid for them.

Chicken “Pot au Feu” ($34; above left) reads well on the menu, but it was a disaster. We noted that an nearby table had ordered this dish, and it arrived cold. Sure enough, ours did too. The fault seemed to lie with the consommé poured tableside. When we complained, they whisked the plate away, but they just put it under a warmer and brought it back to us, this time with no consommeé added in our presence. After all that, the chicken was still lukewarm, and frankly it would not have been a $34 dish even if it were done perfectly. Padma and Gail would have told Tom to pack up his knives and go.

Roasted Rabbit ($32; above right) was at least done correctly, but I’d say there was a $5–10 “Colicchio premium” in the price. Entrées north of $30 need to rise above the routine that just about any chef or restaurant could do. This isn’t a dish that would win Top Chef.

The wine list features an inventory for high rollers held over from Craftsteak, with plenty of bottles in three and four figures. But the sommelier told us that they have been adding less expensive choices. I found a wonderful Douro at $44, obscure enough that most restaurants wouldn’t even have stocked it.

The service was better than you would expect for a three-week-old restaurant, though we assume that most of the staff was retained from Craftsteak. However, there was an uncomfortably long pause between the appetizers and the entrées.

We assume that Colicchio still fancies himself a three-star chef. For now, at least, Colicchio is in the house most evenings, along with Craft chef de cuisine, Damon Wise, and the former Craftsteak chef de cuisine, Shane McBride. That’s a lot of talent in the kitchen. Now they just need to deliver.

Colicchio & Sons (85 Tenth Avenue at 15th Street, Chelsea)

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

Tipsy Parson

 

Tipsy Parson is the encore restaurant from the same team that scored such a big hit at Little Giant on the Lower East Side. It hews to the earlier restaurant’s comfort-food roots, but a bigger kitchen allows a more substantial menu. Where the Little Giant is limited to just half-a-dozen apps and just as many entrées, the menu here offers a wider variety of starters, salads, oysters, charcuterie, entrées, side dishes, and bar snacks.

The space is nearly double the size of the Little Giant, which made me worry whether the owners would be able to scale up to the challenge. Those worries are borne out by the inconsistency of the food, but if they can clear that up, this is a cuisine we would happily eat any day of the week.

I arrived early and ordered a snack—figs stuffed with chestnuts and topped with bacon (left). This is perfect bar food, but for some reason the chef served three of them, an odd choice for a dish that will be frequently shared. In all fairness, many chefs have made that error, as if there is a mystical perfection in the number three, no matter what the customer may require.

Cocktails were not such a happy experiment: both of those that I tried were too sweet, including a champagne sidecar that seemed to be nearly all champagne.

The industry has changed since Little Giant opened in 2004. Back then, places were showing how cool they were by not taking reservations. Some restauranteurs would even have the chutzpah to claim this was what the customer wanted: it meant one could always drop in and be sure of getting a table, provided one was willing to wait long enough. In reality, this was pure selfishness on the owners’ part: it meant they didn’t have to bother keeping track of who was coming, and they didn’t have to deal with no-shows.

A few hugely successful places have clung to this model (Boqueria, Momofuku, Spotted Pig), mainly because they could, but many of these no-resy places wound up taking them later on, including Little Giant. Tipsy Parson was on OpenTable from Day One. They could no doubt survived a while on walk-in business alone, given the inevitable curiosity that attends any new restaurant. Instead, they sensibly decided to court reliable repeat business instead, and recognized that many diners want the assurance that they can eat at a time certain.

I know we wouldn’t have been there without a reservation. The restaurant kindly accommodated us, even though my friend was a half-hour late.

 

We suspected that the entrées would be large, so we shared a salad of warm spinach, which was wonderful, as were the house-made Parker House rolls.

 

Both entrées suffered from execution failures. A pork shank was enormous, but over-cooked. Duck was perfectly cooked, but the portion was (by comparison) on the small side, and the vegetables accompanying it were too bitter.

 

A side of Brussels sprouts was terrific. Macaroni & cheese was just fine, but didn’t erase the memory of the even better version of it served at Little Giant.

Early on, the service seemed just a bit anxious, as if they were eager to get our table back. Later on, the server disappeared for long intervals. Just about all of the restaurant’s 75 seats were full when we left, and it appeared there weren’t quite enough staff to handle the rush.

The décor tries to capture the homespun rustic chic that so many restaurants aim for these days, but at least they got it right. The noise level wasn’t bad, but as we were seated at a corner table with no one nearby, that might have been atypical.

Tipsy Parson doesn’t quite have its act together yet, but the menu is extremely appealing, and when the kinks are ironed out this should be a fun place to visit.

Tipsy Parson (156 Ninth Avenue between 19th & 20th Streets, Chelsea)

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

Sueños

Note: Sueños closed in March 2014.

*

We don’t make a habit of following Frank Bruni around the city, but he caught our attention last week when he recommended Sueños, chef Sue Torres’s modern Mexican restaurant in West Chelsea. Unusually for us, we didn’t have other plans, and Sueños was available.

Torres moved up the NYC restaurant ladder, working at La Grenouille, “21”, and Arizona 206 (among many others) before becoming head chef at the Rocking Horse Café at the tender age of 23. In 2003, she moved to Sueños, where she is both chef and owner. In the Times, William Grimes awarded one star. Aside from a brief fling with Los Dados in the Meatpacking District in late 2007, Torres has kept her focus on Sueños, and that’s probably a good thing.

The space is delightful, making the best of an oddly shaped layout. To get in, you pass over a gang plank that passes between two buildings. Initially, you’re in an ample bar area, where the margaritas are wonderful.

There are two dining rooms, where the exposed brick is painted in bold, saturated colors. They wrap around a courtyard decorated with a fountain and scrub brush. It allows natural light into a space that would otherwise seem claustrophobic. We were in the smaller of the two rooms, a glass-enclosed porch that appears to have been manufactured out of the gap between two buildings.

We had no trouble getting a reservation the day of our visit, but the restaurant was mostly full. The server said that Frank Bruni’s blog post was certainly helpful, but that they’d been doing well anyway. (He also said that Bruni was not recognized on any of his visits.)

The inexpensive menu has appetizers priced from $6–10, entrées $17–25, and side dishes $5. A five-course tasting menu is $50. It’s a concise document that fits on just one page.

Every table gets home-made bean dip with corn bread (above), which is a wonderful way to start a meal.

Both the Shrimp Stack ($10; above left) and the Chicken Chilaquiles ($10; above right) featured the bright, forward flavors and the balanced seasoning that Torres is known for.

Pork Tacos with warm apples ($18; above left) and Hanger Steak Tacos with queso and black beans ($19; above right) showed that same excellent sense of balance, but neither one could be eaten as intended. The pork tacos were too messy and too hot to pick up, while the steak tacos quickly leaked through to the outside of the soft tortilla shell.

The wine list had plenty of options in the right price range. We settled on a $29 Spanish red that was just fine, though I haven’t noted what it was. Service was smooth and unobtrusive. We lingered both at the bar and at the table without ever feeling rushed.

Non-formulaic Mexican food is hard to find in the city. Based on the sample we had, I get the feeling that the farther you stray from Mexican classics, the more interesting Chef Torres’s food becomes.

Sueños (311 W. 17th Street, west of Eighth Avenue, Chelsea)

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

The Pork Chop at Hill Country

It’s enormous. ’Nuff said.