Per Se: Luxury Cars and Four Stars

After a deeply enjoyable lunch at Per Se recently, I started thinking about what it means to be a four-star restaurant.

I

Most of us can’t afford a Rolls Royce, a Jaguar, or a Maserati. Yet, most of us respect those cars. They captivate us. If offered a free ride in a Rolls, wouldn’t we all jump at the chance?

Not so with four-star restaurants. There’s a large sub-culture that finds these bastions of luxury actively worse — who wouldn’t care to visit them, even if they were free, and who certainly don’t find the stratospheric sticker prices remotely worthwhile.

Luxury restaurants coddle you. Some diners are stubbornly resistant to coddling. It’s not just that they’re willing to pay less, in exchange for the same food with worse service. They actually prefer it that way. Frank Bruni captured the ethos of the new generation in his first review of Momofuku Ssäm Bar:

Ssam Bar answers the desires of a generation of savvy, adventurous diners with little appetite for starchy rituals and stratospheric prices.

They want great food, but they want it to feel more accessible, less effete.

These comments captured the false dichotomy. If you don’t join them, you’re un-savvy and effete. Good service is a “starchy ritual,” a religious ceremony repeated endlessly for no logical purpose.

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Nougatine

Nougatine is the casual front room at Jean-Georges, the analogue of such companion places as the Bar & Lounge at Daniel, the Lounge at Le Bernardin, the Bar Room at The Modern, or the Salon at Per Se.

These companion rooms vary widely: some are separately reservable, others are not. Some are far more casual than the multi-star restaurants they’re attached to; others don’t vary much at all. Some serve a completely different menu; others serve an à la carte version of the main dining room menu.

Nougatine is separately reservable, has a completely different menu, and is much more casual than its four-star companion. Of course, the word casual must be taken in perspective, on a menu where a $19 cheesburger shares the stage with $72 Dover sole. Most of the entrées, though, are in the $24–38 range that defines New York’s “upper middle,” while appetizers range from $12–23.

The space, originally a lounge for the adjoing Trump International Hotel, was long an afterthought, seldom professionally reviewed. Nougatine received its first New York Times review in late 2012 (Pete Wells, two stars), a mere fifteen years after the flagship next door received four stars from Ruth Reichl right out of the gate.

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Center Bar

When chef Michael Lomonoco signed the contract to open Porter House New York at the Time-Warner Center, he agreed not to open any other restaurants for a certain number of years—five, I believe. It was a substantial commitment, especially in a genre (the steakhouse) that doesn’t offer much compass for originality.

That commitment finally expired, but Lomonoco’s second effort remains close to home: Center Bar, a lounge and small-plates restaurant on the fourth floor of the Time-Warner Center, just steps away from Porter House.

The photo above, taken from the website, shows Center Bar in broad daylight when no one is around. The one below shows Center Bar as you’re likely to find it in the early evening—say, at 7:30 pm on a Friday. It’s an after-work, shopping, tourist, and perhaps pre-concert crowd, but not many of the latter. Reservations aren’t accepted, but we waited only about 20 minutes for a table.

The design team has done the best they can with the space. Admirably, in fact. But unlike Per Se and Masa, located on the same floor, you can’t go inside and forget where you are. There’s no escaping that you’re in a shopping mall, albeit a very upscale one.

The menu consists entirely of small plates suitable for sharing. Aside from caviar ($95; American sturgeon with blini), the plates range from $11–21, and a party of two will need four to six of these to make a full meal. There’s also charcuterie ($5 for one; $22 for a platter) and cheese ($5 for one, $24 for a platter).

 

The Foie Gras Parfait ($18; above left) was excellent. A few tiny Lincoln log-shaped pices of toast were nowhere near enough, but the staff quickly produced more, when asked. A Red Romaine Salad ($14; above right) was competently done, but we found only two of the promised anchovies.

 

Halibut ($17; above left) is an especially good deal, nearly entrée sized, served with tapenade, lentils and a Moroccan spice dust. I’m not sure if the Wagyu beef ($21; above left) is worth it. Although rich and tender, as Wagyu should be, you get only five small slivers of meat, which comes out to $5.20 a bite.

The house cocktails are decent, though on the expensive side, ranging from $15–22. I would avoid the Maxim ($19) with Ketel One vodka and wasabi-caviar stuffed olives, which came with no caviar that I could detect. (Earlier, the staff delivered the wrong cocktail, for which I wasn’t charged.) The wine list is minimal, but I suspect they have use of the Porter House wine list, for high rollers who may wish to indulge.

Aside from the cocktail snafu, the staff are on top of things in Center Bar’s early days, but your server may disappear for long intervals. There was no attempt at upselling and the plates came out in a reasonable sequence, neither of which you can count on at a “small plate” restaurants.

The food here is generally competent. It will probably stay that way and might even get better, if the experience of Porter House is any guide. At the price, you have plenty of better options for a full meal in the neighborhood. I’d visit again for a drink and a snack.

Center Bar (10 Columbus Circle, Time-Warner Center, Fourth Floor)

Food: Small plates, attractive and usually pretty good
Service: Generally good, but perhaps more servers are needed at busy times
Ambiance: An upscale hotel lobby, transplanted to a shopping mall

Rating: ★
Why? A lot better than your average shopping mall

Auden

Auden is the new restaurant in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel on Central Park South, in the space that used to be BLT Market, and before that Atelier. The name is Old English for “old friend,” and has nothing to do with the poet W. H. Auden.

The new décor, from starchitect David Rockwell, is in the muscular, country club style that he has deployed all over town. It’s a comfortable, upscale but not fancy space, more suited to a business meeting than a romantic night out.

The chef, Mark Arnao, comes from a career of hotel gigs. The menu trumpets a commitment to local produce, in a fashion that is now so commonplace that it’s old hat.

This is the Ritz, and you’re going to pay a premium for the privilege of dining here. Appetizers are $18–23, entrees $32–46, side dishes $10–12. Cocktails are $18, and you’ll pay north of $60 for most bottles of wine.

What you’ll get is standard American bistro cuisine. Though not at all inventive or adventurous, the food is well prepared, as it ought to be at these prices. But in other neighborhoods, without the Central Park premium, you can find similar quality for $20–30 less per person.

The meal begins with an excellent bread service, a tray of warm rolls (above left).

 

The Flatbread ($22; above left) is made with heirloom tomatoes, Buffalo mozzarella, crushed olives, and fried capers. It’s an enjoyable dish that two could easily share. I didn’t try my friend’s Duck Confit and Chicory Salad ($23; above right), but he wasn’t especially impressed with it.

 

We both had the barbecue beef short ribs ($36; above left) in a roasted shallot sauce, a good enough dish if only you can forget how expensive it is. For reference, Il Buco Alimentari offers a better short rib dish for $38, and theirs serves two. However, Il Buco doesn’t serve it with the Auden Frites (above right), which are excellent.

Little pieces of chocolate on lollipop sticks (right) are what pass for petits fours.

The service was polite, friendly and efficient—as it ought to be. Really, there’s nothing much to complain of at Auden. There’s a steep price premium for dining on Central Park South, but you’ll pay that at any of the various hotels in the area.

Auden (The Ritz-Carlton Hotel, 50 Central Park South at Sixth Ave., West Midtown)

Food: Expensive American bistro cuisine
Service: Crisp, efficient, competent
Ambiance: A masculine, clubby hotel setting

Rating: ★
Why? If you must spend Central Park prices, you might as well do so here

Porter House New York

Note: Porter House renovated in early 2016. The restaurant is now branded Porter House Bar & Grill. The decor is now lighter, resembling an upscale tavern. The review below pre-dates the renovation.

*

You know the backstory, right? Michael Lomonoco, the executive chef at Windows on the World, fortuitously ran an errand to pick up a pair of eyeglasses, and missed the conflagration at the World Trade Center, where he would most assuredly have perished.

Five years later, he opened Porter House New York at the Time-Warner Center, replacing V Steakhouse, Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s failed attempt at the same genre. Frank Bruni gave it just one star, comparing it to Outback Steakhouse. In a blog post three years later, he found it much improved, though not to the point of granting it a full re-review. The Post’s Steve Cuozzo is one of the few critics who continues to return to it, most recently in September of this year.

I’ve written about Porter House three times (here, here, here), and have paid other visits periodically. I continue to vacillate about where it stands in the NYC steakhouse pantheon. It has probably the loveliest dining room of any NYC steakhouse, with priceless views of Central Park. The service and the wine list are truly top-notch.

Yet, the steaks are often just a shade below what the best steakhouses deliver. Not way below, and not bad by any means. But not what they could be. Take the porterhouse itself ($51pp, below right). It’s sliced a hair too thin, and it doesn’t have the deep char that Minetta Tavern and Peter Luger have on their specimens. This is not rocket science. This is correctable.

Full disclosure: I was recognized, and the kitchen sent out a considerable amount of free food. We had not ordered appetizers, but we received the Wild Italian Arugula Salad (normally $16) and the Baby Scallops (normally $20; both above left) at no charge.

We ordered a side of Brussels Sprouts ($10; below left), and in addition the kitchen sent out the onion rings (normally $10; top of porterhouse photo, above right) and the mixed carrots with honey, dill, and ginger (normally $10; below right), all excellent.

So, you can go ahead and call me compromised, if you’d like, but Porter House ought to be the city’s three-star steakhouse, if only they could make some very correctable corrections to their steaks.

The menu has evolved considerably over the last five years. Where it once had “porterhouses” of beef, lamb, veal, and even monkfish, the standard beef porterhouse is now the only one offered. There remains a wide variety of beef cuts, including the excellent skirt steak at just $32, along with a small selection of seafood entrées (fewer than in the past) and the now-obligatory private-blend burger, for $26. The prices are reasonable for the location.

I’m afraid I don’t recall the wine we ordered off of the 500-bottle list, but I do recall that the sommelier steered me to a slightly less expensive one that he said was better, and then decanted it. This is a first-class operation.

Chef Lomonoco’s deal to open Porter House stipulated, among other things, that he would not open another restaurant for a significant period of time. I am not sure if that restriction has expired, but I’ve seen him on the floor just about every time I visit. This continues to be his only focus, as far as I can tell. (He is planning a wine bar in the adjacent space, on the top floor of the Time-Warner Center, which sounds like a complement to the restaurant, rather than a truly new venture.)

Unlike V Steakhouse, Frank Bruni’s one-star review did not hurt Porter House. I remember finding it near-empty during the dark days of the economic collapse, but on a recent Thursday evening it was full. Good for them, and good for New York.

Porter House New York (Time-Warner Center, 10 Columbus Circle, 4th floor)

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

A Voce Columbus

Note: A Voce Columbus closed in August 2016, after a judge approved its petition for bankruptcy. Eater.com has a lengthy backgrounder, which states that the restaurant was $4 million in debt, and had been losing money since 2011. The review below was written when Missy Robbins was the chef; she left the restaurant in May 2013. The sister restaurant, A Voce Madison, remains open; one has to wonder how long that’ll last.

*

If you want to know what luxury dining in the city has come to, wrapped in one package, you might as well have a look at A Voce Columbus. The restaurant is clearly intended to appeal to high rollers, with its entrées mostly in the $30s and wine bottles that go as high as five figures. It was intended to earn a Michelin star (which it did) and three Times stars (which it did not).

But it remains punishingly loud, as it was when I visited two years ago. Its predecessor in the space, the failed Café Gray, shared the same drawback, and then some. As of today, the only improvement in the ambiance is that there are frequently empty tables, and hence, fewer human beings contributing to the cocophany.

Not that A Voce Columbus will be going out of business, but prime-time tables are now available at short notice, any night of the week. Thirty minutes in advance of my 7:30 p.m. reservation on a Wednesday, the staff seated me without a moment’s hesitation, once I spied that there were no vacant perches at the bar. By the time we left, the dining room was about two-thirds full.

The menu is expensive if you order the traditional four courses; on the other hand, if you order a pasta as your entrée (as my girlfriend did) and skip dessert (as we both did), A Voce becomes a pretty good mid-priced Italian restaurant.

The house-made bread with riccota cheese and olive oil (above right) remains a highlight, as it was two years ago.

The food is improved over my last visit. The menu emphasizes uncomplicated pleasures, but chef Missy Robbins does a good job in the niche she chooses to occupy. A perfect example is the Escarole Salad ($10; above left) with warm pancetta vinaigrette, a soft boiled egg, and pecorino romano.

I somewhat struggled with the point of Cassoncini ($11; above right), with a pile of prosciutto di parma, alongside a bowl of soft, swiss chard and crescenza cheese-filled pockets of warm dough—both wonderful on their own, but lacking any relationship that I could discern. My ignorance, perhaps.

Brodetto ($22; above left) with mussels was an excellent example of the chef’s skill with pasta. Lamb Chops ($38; above right) had a thick char and rich flavor, but discs of lamb sausage were too salty. If you check in on foursquare, they comp a side dish. We tried the broccoli rabe (below), normally $8, but it was also too salty.

The wine list is a 68-page marvel that can appeal to bargain-hunters and the super-rich alike, with bottles ranging from $25 to $18,000 (1900 Château d’Yquem; hurry up, only one left). There are pages upon pages of expensive Barolo and Brunello verticals, but the website says that over half of the 2,700 bottles are under $90. Indeed, there is plenty below $50, including the 2004 Alturio ($46; above right), one of the more enjoyable bottles we’ve had in a while at that price range.

For a restaurant this expensive, you’d like to see an amuse bouche and better petits fours than just a couple of sticky marshmallows (right)

Service was reasonably attentive. This isn’t the sort of restaurant where you just twitch an eyebrow to get a server’s attention, but they stay on top of things, and the sommelier circled back several times to ensure we were taken care of.

I remember when people joked about putting high-end restaurants in a shopping mall, but the location is ideal, served by subway lines on three avenues, convenient to Lincoln Center and the midtown business district.

I wish the space wasn’t so unpleasant, but if one wants to dine out, this is increasingly what we must accept nowadays.

A Voce Columbus (10 Columbus Circle, Time-Warner Center, 3rd floor)

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

Landmarc at the Time-Warner Center

On a recent Sunday evening, a friend and I dropped in on Landmarc at the Time-Warner Center.

In a neighborhood where most of the food is extremely expensive, Landmarc remains one of the few places where two people can dine under three figures. Not that it’s easy, even here: most of the entrées, other than salads, are north of $25. Steaks can take you close to $40. Appetizers hover around $15. Still, if there’s such a thing as inexpensive dining at Columbus Circle, this is it.

Now in middle age, by restaurant standards, Landmarc has grown lazy. Chef/owner Marc Murphy, once a pioneer of casual upscale dining, is content to trot out an unchallenging and unchanging menu. You find it (the menu) when you sit down, folded neatly on top of your napkin. But unlike years past, they can’t even be bothered to print fresh ones. Those at our table were dog-eared and torn.

The food was routine and forgettable: a Mediterranean Salad (above left); frisée aux lardons (above right), both $19 in entree-size portions. Competent, nothing more.

If anything saves Landmarc from a demotion to no stars, it’s the wine list, with seven pages of half-bottles, an amenity very few restaurants offer. We took advantage of it to share one half-bottle (we were going to the movies, and wanted to remain alert). It works equally well for solo diners or those who want to sample more of the list.

Now if only Marc Murphy were serving food as interesting.

Landmarc at the Time-Warner Center (10 Columbus Circle, 3rd floor)

Food (and especially Wine): *
Service: *
Ambiance: *
Overall: *

Asiate

You are not going to believe this review. I am writing from experience. Publish a favorable review of a restaurant totally off the media radar, and people say, “It just can’t be that good. This blogger doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

Say it all you want, but I’m sticking to my guns. For a certain type of elegant, special-occasion dining experience, Asiate in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel is superb. It does not warrant the 3½ stars I improvidently awarded it 5½ years ago. But neither does it deserve the one-star slam Amanda Hesser dumped on it in 2004. The argument is where in between Asiate should go.

No one, I think, will dispute that the room is beautiful, and the panoramic view over Central Park is perhaps the city’s best. Asiate is perennially at the top of the Zagat rating for décor, with 29 out of 30 points. (It gets 24 points for food and 25 for service, both well above average.)

But it is completely off the food media radar. Asiate doesn’t even try to get attention. Between hotel guests and those lured by lofty Zagat ratings, the restaurant doesn’t need any help: it was close to full on a Tuesday evening.

After the initial round of reviews in 2004, Asiate received practically no media mentions I’m aware of, aside from a review eighteen months ago by Alan Richman in QG. He was peeved—as I certainly would have been—when he requested a window table, called back to confirm he’d be getting one, and was still not seated near the window. (Besides that, he thought Asiate “in some ways . . . excellent.”)

Nothing like that happened to us: we were offered the choice and chose the window. Who wouldn’t?

The name—pronounced AH–zee–ott—suggests a vaguely Asian theme, translated as Western produce with pan-Asian spices and accents. Once upon a time, it would have been called Asian fusion, before that term went out of fashion. The opening chef is long gone. Brandon Kida is the current chef de cuisine. Although he’s been there from the restaurant’s inception, the menu is much changed from the one I wrote about in 2005. There’s no sign of the nouvelle cuisine that Amanda Hesser hated.

Asiate charges three-star prices: $85 for a three-course prix fixe, or $125 for an eight-course tasting menu. The tasting menu, which we had, is the better deal, in that it includes three dishes that normally carry supplements, albeit smaller portions of them.

It’s almost evil to plop down a dozen warm gougères (above left) in front of two hungry people. The bread service (above right) is very good, but the butter was cold.

The amuse bouche (above left) is a dainty fruit sphere, which explodes in your mouth. The first course (above right) was a quintet of tartares and crudi.

“Buckwheat and Eggs” (above left) is, I assume, a miniature version of an appetizer with the identical description that carries an $85 supplement on the prix fixe menu. It was also the evening’s best dish: soba noodles, Osetra caviar, and uni cream, all in superb balance.

Balance, indeed, torpedoed the next dish (above right), with a scallop, blue prawn, and crab meat. The individual ingredients were well prepared, but there was no idea that brought them together.

Sea Bass (above left) was beautifully done, complemented by a lovely ginger consommé. Butter poached lobster (above right) was slightly tough, and the accompanying vegetables had a grab-bag quality. (Compare the version of it that we had at Ai Fiori, which was much better.) But the same dish has disappointed me at Per Se, too.

Wagyu beef tenderloin (above left) can always be counted on for default luxury, and it was indeed excellent—perfect, really. The vegetables, again, had that grab bag quality.

Why serve one dessert when you can serve five (above right)? They were all good (if unremarkable), perhaps topped by the carrot cake (top left in the photo). And as it was my friend’s birthday, an extra piece of cake was on the house.

The wine list is a hefty tome and would repay repeated visits, if for no other reason. A 1981 Eitels Riesling was $95, which struck me as a very good price. (Afterward, I saw the 1990 vintage on the web at $60.)

Service in the dining room was excellent, once we were seated. But as Richman reported two years ago, the staff seem to have trouble finding you in the adjoining bar, even when you’ve checked in and told them you’re there. Service at said bar is too slow, bearing in mind the $19 tariff for a cocktail. But I loved the one I had, the Baby Buddha (Hendrick’s gin, fresh cucumber, cilantro, sake).

A tasting menu that offers Asiate’s greatest hits might not be typical of the average diner’s experience, ordering off of the prix fixe. But this was certainly a very good meal, one I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend.

Asiate (Mandarin Oriental Hotel, 80 Columbus Circle at 60th Street, 35th floor)

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

Jean Georges

It took me a while to become a fan of Jean Georges. It’s not that I disliked it; but I didn’t quite get the case for four stars. After my fourth visit, last night, I’m smitten. It’s not that every course was uniformly superb: a couple of items wobbled a bit, and wouldn’t earn four stars on their own. But the experience on the whole is among the best that New York City has to offer.

Although no one goes to a four-star restaurant seeking bargains, it’s worth noting that the four-course prix fixe at Jean Georges ($98) is lower than that of Daniel (three courses, $105), Le Bernardin (four courses, $112), Eleven Madison Park (four courses, $125), or Per Se (nine courses, $275). And Jean Georges was available on OpenTable at 8:00 p.m. on a Tuesday evening with under a week’s notice. The others weren’t.

Vongerichten’s cuisine at its best, interpreted nowadays by Chef de Cuisine Mark Lapico, marries sweet and sour flavors in ways that make you smile. It’s not that no one else has a good crab cake, but no one pairs it with a pink peppercorn mustard and exotic fruits that make such a vivid impression.

I was gratified to see a smattering of wines under $50 — not a ton of them, but you often don’t see any at a place this expensive. At a restaurant like Jean Georges, you are pretty much assured that nothing they serve is plonk. A 2006 Trousseau Lornet from Jura was only $46, and it was one of the most enjoyable wines we’ve had in quite a while. The Jura wines are practically always worthwhile, and because few patrons order them, they’re usually a bargain.

I’m going to keep the food comments to a minimum, and let the photos do most of the talking.

First up was a trio of amuses-bouches (above left) — I believe a black truffle fritter (12:00), fluke sashimi (4:00) and a hot cucumber soup (10:00). Our appetizers were the Santa Barbara Sea Urchin (above right) with jalapeno and yuzu on black bread; and a Jean Georges classic, the Foie Gras Brulee (below left) with fig jam.

As it was my birthday, we sprang for the White Truffle Rissoto ($35pp), which was as intense as any truffle dish I’ve had.

The fish courses were perhaps the best examples of the kitchen’s talent for flavor combinations: the Turbot (above left) with château Chalon Sauce; and the Crispy Crab (above right) with pink peppercorn mustard and exotic fruits.

Parmesan Crusted Organic Chicken (above left) with artichoke, basil, and lemon butter, was just a shade on the dry side, but nevertheless very good. Maine Lobster ($15 supplement, above right) came with perfect black truffle gnocchi and a fragrant herbal broth.

Jean Georges may have the best dessert program of the four-star places, given that each dessert is actually a quartet. We had the Late Harvest (above left) and Chocolate (above right).

The “birthday cake” (more like a flan) was obviously a comped extra; but beyond that was a blaze of petits fours and house-made marshmallows that a party double our size couldn’t have finished.

We were seated at one of the two alcove tables, which the restaurant generally reserves for VIPs or special-occasion guests (I think we were the latter) — clearly the best place to sit, if you can get it. Service was superb.

Jean Georges (1 Central Park West at 60th Street, Upper West Side)

Cuisine: Modern French with Asian accents, beautifully executed
Service: Elegant and luxurious
Ambiance: A comfortable room in soft biege with views of Central Park

Rating: ★★★★

Sea Urchin and Steak at Marea

I went back to Marea last week to sample two of the dishes mentioned in Sam Sifton’s three-star love letter.

I don’t know how Marea’s menu will evolve, but there is one item that will never come off. Not after this:

The very first item on the menu at Marea is ricci, a piece of warm toast slathered with sea urchin roe, blanketed in a thin sheet of lardo, and dotted with sea salt. It offers exactly the sensation as kissing an extremely attractive person for the first time — a bolt of surprise and pleasure combined. The salt and fat give way to primal sweetness and combine in deeply agreeable ways. The feeling lingers on the tongue and vibrates through the body. Not bad at $14 a throw — and there are two on each plate.

Well…I had it. Yes, it is very good. But no, it isn’t as good as a first kiss. My body did not vibrate in deeply agreeable ways.

Then came the steak, or perhaps I should say, the “Creekstone Farms 50-day dry-aged sirloin,” which according to Sifton, “would do epic battle with the beef at any steakhouse in town.”

Yes, it is an excellent slab of meat, served on the bone for good measure. What Marea lacks is the 2,000 degree ovens the better steakhouses have. So there is no exterior char, just the faint hint of cross-hatching. It’s a decent escape-hatch dish for the non-fish-eater in your party, but for $47 you’ll do better at restaurants that make their living at steak.

I’d thrown my diet to the wind anyway, so I figured one last cheat wouldn’t do much harm. Affogato ($13) doesn’t do much calorie damage—or so I imagined. It’s zabaglione gelato, espresso, and amaro: dessert and coffee combined in one glass.

I dined at the bar, where service is friendly. The bartenders told me they’d had plenty of laughs over Sifton’d description of the sea urchin toast, but everyone at the restaurant was relieved to have their three stars.

At some point I’ll be back to sample more of the pastas and fish. Sifton’s idea of visiting for the steak is just nutty. For now, we stand by the two stars we’ve awarded on two prior visits.

Marea (240 Central Park West between Seventh Avenue & Broadway, West Midtown)