Bara

 

David Chang’s Momofuku empire now spans a dozen restaurants in three countries. But how many restaurants outside of that empire are run by chefs boasting “Momofuku vet” on their bios? I’ve lost count.

One thing’s for sure: it’s a brand that chefs want on their resume these days, and it’s the calling card at Bara, which opened in the East Village in December, boasting two Momofuku alumni. Chef Ian Alvarez worked at Noodle Bar, and later at French Louie in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn. GM Kyle Storm worked at Má Pêche, and later ran the bar at French Louie.

The website notes coyly that “the word bara has many meanings,” without stating any of them. Apparently, it literally means “rose” in Japanese, but it is also short for Barazoku, a Japanese gay men’s magazine that shut down in 2004; or more generally, Japanese slang for a genre of homoerotic media. There are a few other meanings: bara means “bread” in Welsh, “coffin” in Italian, “puddle” in Serbo-Croatian, and “mainland” in Swahili. But if you Google the term, the gay context dominates the search results, so this must be the the one that was meant, for reasons that aren’t at all clear. I was unaware of this until I looked it up.

The restaurant claims to be a mash-up of the Japanese izakaya (a drinking establishment that serves food) and the Parisian wine bar. Frankly, it doesn’t remind me of either. It’s just a casual local restaurant that fuses the two cultures, starting with the place setting: silverware and chopsticks, a combo we’ve seen before. Very little of the food really requires chopsticks, so their presence is mainly to set a mood.

The compact (and inexpensive) menu, which changes daily, features about a half-dozen apiece of “1st” ($6–12) and “2nd” ($18–22) courses, with four sides ($2–9). Many of the dishes could easily be imagined at a Momofuku restaurant, with their eclectic mix of local and Asian ingredients, and predominantly Western cooking techniques.

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Huertas

Note: As far as we know, Huertas is still a great restaurant; however, it no longer offers the tasting menu described in the review below. The restaurant nixed that in April 2015, in favor of a broader Basque à la carte menu.

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What does a restaurant have to do to get reviewed in this town? Huertas in the East Village has been open for nearly six months, and the only professional review I can find is by Robert Sietsema in Eater: three stars.

Our sample size is smaller than Sietsema’s, but we share his enthusiasm: Huertas is shout-from-the-rooftops good. Imagine a Basque Torrisi Italian Specialties, as it was originally, before the Torrisi sensation went viral.

You might have predicted success, when a couple of Danny Meyer alums are in charge. Chef Jason Miller has worked at Chanterelle, Gramercy Tavern and Savoy, before joining the opening team at Maialino, where he was sous-chef. After leaving Maialino, Miller did an apprenticeship in Northern Spain—hence the Basque connection. His partner and General Manager is Nate Adler, who was beverage director at both of Meyer’s Blue Smoke locations.

Huertas is two restaurants in one. In the front room, there’s a bar and high-top tables where you can order a variety of pinxtos ($4–12 each, passed around dim sum style), cheeses, cured meats, and larger plates (raciones).

In the 24-seat back room, there’s an astonishingly good deal: a reservations-only five-course prix fixe menu for $55 (a few months ago, it was $52 for four). It changes daily, and if you book on OpenTable, they email it to you in advance. Wine pairings, which are generous, are an additional $30.

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Nerai

In what other age could one of the best high-end Greek restaurants in New York, open and go almost totally unnoticed?

That is the perplexing question at Nerai, which opened in May 2013 in the old Oceana space, and has attracted no professional reviews that I can find, except from John Mariani in Huffington Post, who posted a rave three months ago.

The opening certainly was publicized, although perhaps not as well as it could be. Did it begin so poorly that the first critics to visit found it not worth writing about? Or did they just assume that a white tablecloth restaurant on East 54th Street is unimportant by default? I fear it could be the latter.

I am not going to pronounce Nerai the best modern Greek restaurant in New York. That judgment would require more visits and deeper exploration than my time and money will allow. But after one visit I can certainly pronounce it a candidate.

Admittedly, there’s not a lot of competition since Michael Psilakis’s Anthos bit the dust. Molyvos is reliable, but not the standout it once was, although it has the city’s best Greek wine list. Milos could be better, but I’ve never been (GQ’s Alan Richman posted a rave in 2010). Thalassa is an old favorite of mine, but it gets very little critical attention; it is still very good, but below its peak.

Which brings us back to Nerai, which feels immediately cozy and elegant. A series of rooms in the bi-level space is decked out in soothing, vaguely nautical themes. In the room we were in, on the ground floor, the walls are lined with white muslin gauzes, pleated to resemble sails.

You won’t get out cheaply. Starters and salads range from $15–27, composed entrées $26–56 (just one dish under $30), sides $10. There’s also whole fish and seafood, $33–60 per pound, a notoriously tricky format, as you don’t quite know what you’re paying until the bill arrives.

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La Fonda del Sol

Whatever happened to La Fonda del Sol? Not Joe Baum’s 1960 masterpiece, but its reincarnation six years ago? It got the deuce from both Frank Bruni and Adam Platt—favorable reviews by their standards—but quickly fell off the media map.

Opening chef Josh DeChellis left after two years, as anyone who knew his background would’ve expected. Chris DeLuna has been there since 2012, though you wouldn’t have known it from any of the websites that report on New York City restaurants. The owners, Patina Restaurant Group, seem utterly innocent of the word “marketing”.

I was drawn back by a Valentine’s Day prix fixe of just $55. That’s a bargain, on an evening when mediocre restaurants attract three-figure sums for mass-produced, dumbed-down versions of their regular menus. La Fonda del Sol did the opposite, serving (as far as I could tell) a better menu than their everyday norm. You quickly see why they couldn’t charge more: the place was only about half full.

The food hasn’t lost a step since we visited in March 2009. I’m sure the menu has changed many times since then, but it still seems to be basically the same kind of upscale Spanish cuisine that DeChellis served, although without the petits fours, which at the time were some of the most luxurious I’d seen in New York.

The 20-page wine and spirits list has one of the better selections of Spanish and Portuguese wines in town, including the 2007 Douro we enjoyed ($65; above left). It was a romantic evening, and I didn’t take detailed notes on the food. The photos after the jump (not my best, in low light) give a general idea of the style of the cuisine and its presentation.

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Enduro

Note: Enduro did not endure. As of August 2014, the space is BV’s Grill, owned by the same people.

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Welcome to Enduro, a handsome new West Midtown spot owned by the heir to the Junior’s restaurant chain.

The name won’t mean very much to the rest of us: the owner’s grandfather ran a string of “Enduro” restaurants in the 1920s. It’s also a type of off-road motorcycle racing, in case you were wondering. But the owners get plenty of mileage out of the name. On the corridor leading to the restrooms, there’s a bunch of fake ads for fictitious products called “Enduro.”

They dropped some coin to build this place, spending $7 million to renovate a former Outback Steakhouse. The dining room is spacious and masculine, with heavy wood tables and big horseshoe banquettes, dominated by a large rectangular bar in the center of the room.

Enduro claims to be a classic American grill, a sufficiently malleable description that allows the chef to serve almost anything. On a rotisserie grill, prominently visible in the partially-open kitchen, you’ll find pork loin, chicken, and rotating whole fish specials.

The dinner menu offers snacks ($4–16), salads ($10–24), appetizers ($10–17), mains ($16–49), and side dishes ($8–12). Those are wide ranges. You could get out cheaply with the burger ($16), or not so cheaply with the ribeye steak ($49).

The all-American wine list offers 13 choices by the glass, and 2½ pages’ worth by the bottle, with reds ranging from $40–600, and a decent selection under $60. I didn’t see many bargains, but it was clearly a list with a point of view, and not just the generic stuff that most new restaurants serve.

 

Pretzel Bread ($4; above left) is baked in shiny round balls, with creamy mustard that delivers a potent kick. Chicken Liver Spread ($8; above right) is a great starter, but it needed to come with twice as much bread. Extra bread came along later, at no charge, but we had to wait for it.

 

I didn’t taste my companions’ dishes, but there were general nods of approval for Linguini with clams, garlic, and olive oil ($17; above left), and Striped Bass with brown butter and bok choy ($28; above right).

 

Berkshire Pork Loin off the rotisserie ($24; above left) had a great smoky flavor, but it could have used some crisping at the edges for textual contrast. A side of thick-cut bacon ($8; above right) was a hit at our table; it won’t put Peter Luger out of business, but it’s well worth ordering.

You worry that it could get noisy here, but tables are generously spread out, and the high ceilings dissipate the sound. It was about 80 percent full on a Friday night, with a multi-generational crowd ranging from baby carriages to geriatrics.

Managers and servers seemed to be on top of things in the dining room, but it was a challenge to get a bartender’s attention. There were other minor service lapses: the long wait for a second helping of bread; entrées served with sauces on the side, but no serving spoons.

But the food is good enough for this type of place, the room friendly and welcoming. Enduro is located on the edge of Midtown, where there are plenty of business lunches to be had, with plenty of housing stock to the east, where there’s always demand for a place like this.

Enduro (919 Third Avenue at 56th Street, East Midtown)

Food: American grill standards
Service: Enthusiastic but not yet polished
Ambiance: A large corporate space where you can relax

Rating: ★

The Four Seasons on Valentine's Day

In the restaurant industry, they call Valentine’s Day “amateur night.” I call it a challenge. Any restaurant worth visiting is going to charge more money than usual—perhaps a lot more. The game is to find one that’s still worth it, despite the premium. Yes, they do exist.

Strictly as an economic proposition, you could dine another evening, and pay a lot less. But Valentine’s Day isn’t strictly about economics, is it? Sometimes, a romantic occasion is what’s wanted. Not just any old day, but a specific day.

If cost were all that mattered, you could skip flying home for Christmas, and visit Mom instead on a random Tuesday in January, when airfares are a lot lower. You’re not going to do that, are you? How about skipping Thanksgiving dinner, and waiting till they run a supermarket sale on turkeys? Obviously not. Some occasions only make sense on a particular day.

It’s anyone’s prerogative to declare that dining out on Valentine’s Day just isn’t worth it, and I’m not going to tell you they’re wrong. But they’ve got no business telling me that I’m wrong for wanting a romantic occasion on a romantic day, and being willing to pay for it.

For this Valentine’s Day, I chose the Four Seasons. No one with an ounce of common sense would deny the romantic elegance of the iconic, landmarked space. Every day is a romantic occasion here. I figured that the food might not be any better than their usual performance, but it was unlikely to be much worse.

It has been three and a half years since the Four Seasons’ executive chef, Christian Albin, passed away suddenly. The owners, hoping to bring back culinary relevance after The Times’ Frank Bruni took away the restaurant’s third star, hired the Italian chef Fabio Trabocchi, who’d earned three stars at Fiamma.

I was skeptical of the Trabocchi experiment: there’s something about star chefs in pretty spaces that just doesn’t add up. He lasted just three months before getting the boot. He and the owners cited “philosophical differences.” Simply put, Trabocchi wanted to install his own menu, but its well heeled regulars didn’t want it to change.

After Trabocchi’s left, the owners promoted Pecko Zantilaveevan and Larry Finn, two of Albin’s former deputees, and the Four Seasons just kept doing what it has always done. No one in recent memory has accused the Four Seasons of setting any culinary trends. It does what it does, either well or badly. My last visit, in 2007, was a mixed bag.

The Valentine’s Day menu, undeniably expensive at $150 per person, was surprisingly clever for a place not known for innovation. There was a choice of about twenty appetizers, fifteen entrées and a dozen desserts, all with double-ententre names, such as: Peek-a-Bouillabaisse, Not that Kind of a Dungeoness Crab Salad, and Fluttering Heart Beet Salad. Sure, they were groaners, but just try to come up with better ones on a nearly fifty-item menu.

We sampled only a fraction of it, but the food was uniformly good. For a restaurant bent on preserving its traditions, all you can ask is that they deliver on their proffer—and they did.

(On the normal à la carte dinner menu, the appetizers average about $30 and the entrées about $50, and I am not sure what they charge for desserts. In round numbers, the Valentine’s Day premium was at least $50 per person or more, depending on which dishes you ordered.)

The bread, served cold, was the evening’s lone disappointment. The amuse bouche (above left) was a bracing potato leek soup with baked potato and salmon roe, served on a plate decorated with little hearts.

 

The appetizers were both first-rate. The first, to give its full description, was Dreamy Hamachi Sashimi (above left) with va-va-voom vegetables and i love you-zu remoulade. A lobe of seared foie gras (above right), or should I say, Frisky Foie Gras, was perched atop proposal pear and let’s take a napa cabbage. There might not be a lot of skill in searing foie gras, but it was one of the better specimens I’ve had in a while.

Truffle-Roasted Orgasmic chicken for two (above) was an absurdly luxurious dish, with truffles, vegetables, and more foie gras. Of course you can pay less for chicken, but that is hardly the point.

 

The desserts, also excellent, were the Poached Perfect Pear (above left) and the Elderflower Girl Cheescake (above right), followed by petits fours (below right).

The fifteen-page wine list has not many bottles that could be called bargains, but in the context of a restaurant this expensive, it is fairly priced, with an adequate number of bottles in the $80–100 range, along with many that cost a lot more. The 1999 “Le Roi” Burgundy at $95 stood out as an unusually good deal.

Pool Room has always been the more romantic of the Four Seasons’ two contrasting spaces, but the Grill Room, where we were seated, looked lovely, with its shimmering gold curtains. The service was a bit slow, perhaps because they had to roast the chicken from scratch, but you don’t visit the Four Seasons on Valentine’s Day because you’re in a rush. The table was ours for the evening.

I won’t deny that you can have bad meal here, given that my own previous experience here was less than stellar, especially at the price. But when they pull it together, as they did on this occasion, the Four Seasons is extraordinary.

The Four Seasons (99 E. 52nd St. between Park & Lexington Ave., East Midtown)

Food: New American, dating from the era when it actually was new
Service: Elegant but not opulent; occasionally careless
Ambiance: A landmark, and deservedly so

Rating: ★★★

Mint

 

I was invited recently to a press dinner at Mint, an under-the-radar Indian restaurant in East Midtown. I dined there once, years ago, but have very little recollection of the meal, except that I liked the space and didn’t mind the food.

Whether you’d like the space now is a matter of taste. It’s far more comfortable and pleasant than the average neighborhood Indian spot, but the backlit minty-green interior is very much a product of its age. It may also reflect the sensibilities of its chef and owner, Gary Sikka: a new branch in Garden City is quite similar, except that the dominant color is lavender.

As a civilized place to enjoy classic Indian cuisine, free of the usual decorative clichés, I still like it here.

The menu offers most of the usual Indian specialties: your kebabs, paneers, naans, samosas, tikka masalas, and vindaloos. It also veers off the beaten path occasionally, and is more worthwhile for doing so.

Prices are modest by midtown standards, with soups and salads $6–10, appetizers $7–14, breads and rice $4–8. Entrées are in a wide range, with most in the low $20s, but vegetarian dishes are as low as $12, fish and tandoori dishes mostly in the high $20s, and one lobster dish is $36.

Everything we tried was done well, bearing in mind the context of an arranged visit. The fish and vegetarian dishes, it seemed to me, are the ones where the chef rises above the merely routine. (Prices below are from the menu; we didn’t pay for the meal.)

 

There’s the usual assortment of bread, but for this meal the kitchen sent out the simplest of them, the Roti ($4).

 

We all liked the Vegetable Samosas ($7; above left). I believe the chicken appetizer (above right) was the Malai Kebab ($12), marinated in herbs and spices, more tender and flavorful than that dish usually is.

 

The Aloo Methi Tikka ($9; above left), a spicy potato cake with chickpeas, tamarind and mint chutney, did not make any particular impression on me. But the “Chilly” [sic] Fish ($14; above right) was the hit of the evening, a spicy preparation of black sea bass.

 

The Bombay Masala Pao ($7; above left), a blend of tomato, herbs and spices on bread, could pass for Indian pizza. Fish Tikka Masala ($26; above right), marinated overnight in yogurt and garlic, was another of the evening’s highlights.

 

I’d also heartily recommend the Saag Paneer ($16; above left), a spinach base sautéed with Indian cheese, or the Yellow Tadka Dal ($12; above right), a preparation of yellow lentils with herbs and spices.

 

But Chicken Tikka Masala ($19; above left) was somewhat bland and forgettable, as was a Lamb Shahi Pasanda ($22; no photo).

The lone dessert was a Paneer cheese pastry puff with honey and rose water syrup (above right). I practically never order desserts at Indian restaurants, but my dining companions said that this was a very good exemplar of this well known dish.

If the chef is eager to to raise the restaurant’s profile, he might want to start with the beverage program. The cocktails are mostly sweet, vodka-based “–tini” drinks. The publicist recommended the wine program, but none of the wines on the by-the-glass list included the vintage, which I do not consider a good sign.

Mint is located in the San Carlos Hotel, although it is independently owned. Like any hotel restaurant, it has to offer safe and familiar dishes that can appeal to a wide variety of weary travelers. My sense of the place, on this limited sample, is that the farther the chef gets from the routine dishes that 1,000 other Indian restaurants serve, the better he does. You won’t go wrong here, but the fish and vegetarian dishes are especially worthwhile.

Mint (150 E. 50th Street between Lexington & Third Avenues, East Midtown)

Le Cirque

There’s a tradition at Le Cirque not quite like any other in town. Sirio Maccioni, the patriarch of the family business, still holds court, as he has done since 1974, and before that at the fabled Colony, which once defined elegant high society dining in Manhattan.

Ironically, Mr. Maccioni conceived of Le Cirque as a more hip, casual alternative to The Colony. As William Grimes explained, in a New York Times obituary of Jean Vergnes, the restaurant’s founding chef:

Le Cirque, as the name implied, would dispense with the fussiness of the old-style haute cuisine restaurants and incorporate some of the pizzazz that Mr. Maccioni had observed at Maxwell’s Plum, Warner LeRoy’s wildly popular restaurant for swinging singles.

Today, with The Colony and others of its ilk long gone, Le Cirque is practically the last surviving example of the very formality that Maccioni had sought to replace. Once progressive, it is now the old guard.

Le Cirque is now in its third location, and as of four months ago, under a new chef, Olivier Reginensi (left). To be exact, he is Le Cirque’s ninth executive chef—so the website tells us—the rare example of a restaurant that wants to remind you how many names have passed through the kitchen’s revolving door.

It’s an impressive list. At a 35th anniversary dinner in 2009, the chefs who came back to cook included Alain Allegretti, David Bouley, Daniel Boulud, Iacopo Falai, Craig Hopson, Michael Lomonaco, Pierre Schaedelin, Pierre Poulin, Dieter Schorner, Alex Stratta, Bill Telepan, Jacques Torres and Geoffrey Zakarian (see photo below).

If you expand the list to include those who’ve worked for a chef who formerly worked at Le Cirque, you’ve got a Who’s Who of the NYC culinary universe, including many who now cook in idioms far removed from the classics Le Cirque is best known for. What the city’s dining scene would have been, without Le Cirque, is difficult to imagine.

Management realizes there’s a delicate balancing act between playing up the old tradition and developing a new one. As a Eater.com reported when Chef Reginensi was appointed:

The Le Cirque team is hoping the new push will bring the brand to new diners while reminding current and former clients that they haven’t been put out to pasture. “It will show people this is not your dad’s Le Cirque any more.” says Carlo Mantica, Le Cirque’s co-general manager.

The perception that Le Cirque is strictly old-school is difficult to efface, so pervasive has it become. By today’s standards, it is comparatively formal, with one of the most expensive à la carte menus in town, and jackets required in the main dining room. (The adjoining café is less formal and less costly.)

How to attract a new generation? Sirio’s three sons, who now run Le Cirque and its sister restaurants day to day, are alive to the problem. The hipsters dining on park benches in Bushwick won’t be coming here anytime soon. But the recent success of premium menus at places like Brooklyn Fare and Atera, to say nothing of the continuing appeal of the traditional four-stars, shows that there are still plenty of diners willing to spend big in restaurants.

Mauro Maccioni invited us recently to sample Chef Reginensi’s new menu as his guest at the chef’s table, just inside the kitchen. All of the usual caveats about a comped meal apply: we experienced Le Cirque as few do. Restaurants can adjust the service for VIPs, but the food is what it is—and at Le Cirque it’s excellent.

The cuisine has always been difficult to classify. Its roots are French, but the owners are Italian, and a spaghetti primavera is a fixture on the menu. And there is ample room for a chef’s individual expression on the flesh of the restaurant’s classic French bones.

 

The amuse bouche (above left) was a tweak on traditional escargots, with Burgundy snails, parsley, and croutons, baked in tiny, half-eggshell ceramic bowls. Here they’re lighter and sweeter than usual, and not as garlicky.

Then came a duo (above right) of very good octopus with white bean and tomato confit; and a langoustine on a bed of spring vegetables (carrots, snow peas, leeks, and red peppers).

 

Next came a very rich rabbit porchetta (above left), similar to a roulade or a ballotine, mixed with vegetables, one of the more technically impressive dishes on the menu. We were also quite pleased with asparagus (above right) with a poached egg and morel mushrooms.

 

I believe we were served two pastas, one of which we neglected to photograph. Fresh peas, ricotta gnocchi, and morel mushrooms (above left) were wonderful, even if the morels were repeated from the previous course.

I also made note of ravioli stuffed with vegetables, braised romaine lettuce, prosciutto, and mozzarella. It was difficult to make out all of those ingredients, but it was the hit of the evening: “like eating oysters,” my girlfriend said.

Sole Florentine (above right) was another techical achievement, with spinach, crayfish, and a red and white sauce unfamiliar to me, which the chef described as a sauce cardinal.

 

Duck (above left) was comparatively pedestrian and slightly overpowered by olives, though the pairing with turnip was better than I would have expected.

Romina Peixoto, Le Cirque’s first female pastry chef, deserves to be better known. Baked Alaska (above left), was flambéed tableside. This was followed by Rhubarb (below left), a lemongrass panna cotta, pistachio financier, and rhubarb sorbet; and a Tropical Vacherin (below right), with mango sorbet, pinapple forzen yogurt, tropical cilntro salsa.

 

 

We concluded with an embarrassment of petits fours, the last of these presented in a small upholstered jewelbox.

Some of my readers will no doubt believe that a comped review is compromised—although I’ve been here twice before on my own dime, and also to the same owners’ Italian place, Osteria del Circo, so clearly this is cuisine and an atmosphere I am predisposed to like. Those who find Le Cirque old-fashioned, may fail to appreciate how many careers it has launched, and just how progressive it originally was.

Keeping Le Cirque in the conversation is a tall order. I’m glad I can watch as a fan.

Le Cirque (151 E. 58th Street between Lexington & Third Avenues, East Midtown)

Vitae

After nearly two unpublicized decades—working at the likes of Bouley, Gramercy Tavern, and various corporate gigs—chef Edwin Bellanco decided he was ready for his own place: Vitae, meaning life.

Based on an admittedly small sample—one visit—I’d say Bellanco was ready for his own place. The food was excellent, some of the best I’ve had this year in this concededly over-worked idiom, slightly upscale “user-friendly Euro-American fare.”

He’s allied himself with some serious talent: General Manager Emily Iverson came over from Lincoln. The striking modernest décor by Studio CMP cannot have come cheap.

Yet, there are perplexing blunders at Vitae, starting with the name. Google it, and you find it’s easily confused with several other restaurants with a similar (or indeed the same) name. Not until the middle of the second search page is there a lonely link to this restaurant, along with many others to the wrong ones. And with so much expense lavished on the build-out, why is the website out-of-date?

Vitae is clearly designed to appeal to the midtown business crowd, both at dinner and at lunch. That makes sense, given the location. But the proffer is a familiar one—“approachable contemporary cuisine,” “seasonable contemporary American,” etc. Those phrases, so often bandied about, don’t really entice the dining public these days (assuming, for argument’s sake, that they once did). They promise a blank slate, onto which the chef can write whatever he pleases.

There’s not a single thing on the menu—not one blessed thing—that will look unfamiliar to anyone who dines out frequently in Manhattan. The chef can therefore offer only excellence, which he absolutely does.

The menu, priced firmly in the upper-middle, is reprinted daily and is sensibly edited (both encouraging signs), with eight appetizers ($12–18) and nine entrées ($24–28; plus a Creekstone Farms ribeye, $45). Pastas, listed as entrées, are also offered as appetizers for $12; side dishes are $8.

There’s a thousand-bottle wine wall with about a hundred choices in a wide price range, from $30 to $1,050. The host offered to decant even the rather modest Cotes du Rhone we ordered (Alain Voge, Les Peyrouses 2009; $42).

The cocktail list is a mix of classics and house recipes. I don’t normally shoot beverage photos, but did here, to show how little $14 gets you.

 

A Painkiller (above left) was a great drink, but nearly all ice; while a bourbon sidecar (above right) tasted watered down and filled less than two-thirds of the glass.

 

Matters improved significantly when the food arrived, including warm, house-baked bread (above left), which we learn from Dame Greene is slathered in duck fat; and a bracing celery root soup as amuse bouche.

 

There’s a four-course “chef’s tasting” for $65. Everything offered is on the regular menu, but the chef sent out different items to each of us, so we wound up tasting eight dishes, far more than I normally would in one visit.

I loved both appetizers, the Poached Egg (above left) with sunchoke, bacon, and black truffle sauce; and the Seared Diver Scallop (above right) with cauliflower, golden raisin, cashew, and a Thai curry sauce.

 

We enjoyed both pastas, but we give the nod to the Chestnut Agnolotti ($12 as appetizer; above right) with prosciutto and parmesan broth. Ricotta Gnudi ($12; above left) are somewhat hackneyed. This was a decent version of the dish, with walnut pesto, chorizo, and parmesan.

 

Pan Roasted Cod ($24; above left) is bathed in a smoked razor clam chowder with fingerling potatoes. I admired this dish, although my girlfriend thought the chowder a bit overwhelming. Duck ($28; above right) was impeccable, with both the breast and confit of leg, endive marmelade, Brussels sprouts, and parsnip.

 

For dessert, a Chocolate Fondant ($8; above left) with Espresso Crème Anglaise and whipped creme wasn’t bad, but for sheer pleasure was surpassed by an Apple Tart Tatin ($8; above right) with Mascarpone. (The only other desserts on the regular menu are Crème Brûlée or a selection of cheeses.)

The décor is in my opinion stunning (better in person than the photos suggest), though just about anything that opens these days is criticized as outdated unless it’s distressed chic. At dinner time, they do need to lower the lights a bit; this isn’t an airport. The spacious, upholstered bar stools are the most comfortable I’ve experienced in quite a while.

The dining room was perhaps one-third full on a Friday evening, the predictable consequence of opening in a business neighborhood that doesn’t attract leisure diners. The staff was extremely attentive, the predictable consequence of not having enough customers to worry about. But this was only the first week in business, far too soon to pass judgment.

The chef is obviously talented. Let’s hope his business partners can operate a website and get the word out.

Vitae (4 East 46th Street, near Fifth Avenue, East Midtown)

Cuisine: Contemporary Seasonal American
Service: Attentive and experienced; impressive for a week-old place
Ambiance: A striking, modern, comfortable, somewhat upscale room

Rating: ★★

Brabant

Brabant Belgian Brasserie opened in mid-February on an East Midtown side street. Belgian restaurants aren’t a great rarity in New York, but most neighborhoods don’t have one. If you’ve a hankering for Moules Frites and other classics, and a beer menu longer than most places’ wine lists, Brabant might be for you.

The owners here have taken a bet on size. The restaurant seats 120, but it’s divided into several rooms, and doesn’t quite seem that large. There’s a long antique white marble bar (which serves food too), casual seating nearby, and a vaguely rustic dining room in back.

Still, that’s a lot of seats to fill. The populist prices may help. Small plates are $7–12, soups and salads $5–18, appetizers and “sharing plates” $8–21, mussel pots $22, burgers and sandwiches $14–16, other entrées mostly $16–28 (except for the steak: $36), side dishes $6–9. That’s at dinner; they also serve lunch, weekend brunch, and a shorter late-night menu until 2:00 a.m.

The cuisine is broadly traditional, with some nods to contemporary taste. I doubt that the “Sharing Plates” menu category came over from Brussels, and a few dishes seem to be there because New Yorkers much on them at the bar: fried calamari, chicken wings, and of course the burger (a short rib and brisket blend). They even tick the locavore box, with nods to North Fork duckling, Ashley Farms free-range chicken, a Tom Cat Bakery brioche, and so forth.

The wine list—about 25 by the bottle, 10 by the glass—is merely adequate, but inexpensive, with most of the bottles under $50. There are almost 70 beers (eleven on tap), an impressive selection not many restaurants can rival.

The chef here is Armand Vanderstigchel, a Chicago native who was raised in New York and the Netherlands. His website describes him as a cookbook author, media chef, spokesperson, restaurant consultant, TV and radio host, instructor, writer, corporate chef, food judge, and food stylist. That’s not the complete list.

So a year from now, it’s a safe bet you aren’t going to find him in Brabant’s kitchen. There’ll be underlings executing his recipes, perhaps not as well as they do now. In the early days, though, Brabant is about as good as a casual Belgian Brasserie could be.

 

Bitterballen ($7; above left) are traditional, but the menu translates: “a Benelux happy hour snack of sirloin-filled round mini croquettes.” It’s a comfort food, really well done.

The Mini Croque Monsieur ($8; above right) is a re-interpreted classic for the bar crowd: four quarter-sandwiches with Ardennes ham, Gruyère, and Béchamel filling, on a brioche. The photo doesn’t give an adequete sense of scale. Many nights, this could be dinner for me.

 

There are five versions of the Mussel Pot, all $22. My girlfriend had the simplest one, with white wine, garlic, and leeks. I didn’t try any of them, but I did try the fries, which I found a bit mushy.

 

The Ragout of Ardennes Wild Boar ($20; above left), served in a ceramic bowl, resembled a cassoulet at first. I wondered if the boar would be chewy, especially at this price point, but it was rich, fatty, and tender, almost resembling pork belly. The housemade chive spätzle that came with it (above right) seemed pedestrian, but you can’t argue with the amount of food you get for twenty bucks.

The place seemed slightly under-staffed, but service was mostly attentive and helpful, and the server’s ordering advice was spot-on. The owner introduced himself: a gentleman I’d not met before, for whom Brabant is the first restaurant on his own. The space was between one-third and half full on a weekday evening, which is not bad, considering the size of it. You want nothing but success for this guy.

Brabant (316 E. 53rd Street at Second Avenue, East Midtown)

Cuisine: Classic Belgian, with a few tweaks for the New York audience
Service: A shade under-staffed, mostly very good
Ambiance: A typical rustic (though large) Brasserie, spread out over several rooms

Rating: ★