Nuela

Note: Nuela closed in February 2012. The space re-opened in June 2012 as Raymi, under chef/restaurateur Richard Sandoval.

*

The pan-Latin American restaurant Nuela opened last month in the Flatiron District, after an agonizing two-year wait. Douglas Rodriguez, the original chef (and Top Chef Masters alum) withdrew, leaving his one-time assistant, Adam Schop, in charge.

Wear your sunglasses and bring your earplugs. The all-red décor will assault your eyes, while the blasting sound track will bludgeon your ears. It is not a pleasant place to eat. The owners took over the huge space that had been Sapa, but I don’t remember feeling like I was in an airplane hangar, as I did here.

The menu offers sixty items in a dozen categories. There are so many ceviches that a separate menu must be printed to accommodate them. One’s eye is naturally drawn to the entrées for two: ribeye ($90), chicken ($48), duck ($60), or whole fish ($58). Suckling pig is served by the quarter ($65), half ($130), or whole ($250). Solo entrées are $25–32, ceviches $10–22, small plates, soups and salads $3–12.

The bread service (left) was wonderful: cheese bread and cornmeal, with honey-doused mascarpone for dipping. Matters turned quickly south when the appetizers arrived.

 

Oxtail Empanadas ($9; above left) had a strangely flat taste. Mixto Ceviche ($14; above right) had such a muddy taste, and was swimming in so much sauce, that I couldn’t even make out the octopus, shrimp, and crabmeat it allegedly contained.

The quarter suckling pig ($65; above) was just fine, but the degree of difficulty was low. The pig was served as a random pile of oddly-shaped pieces. Nothing much was done with it, except for baking the creature in its own fat and hacking the carcass apart. (There was an unidentified tangy dipping sauce, along with scallion pancakes and a superfluous helping of rice.) It came on a wooden board that didn’t quite fit on the small table, very nearly pushing our plates off the edge.

The wine list was expensive. The dull $56 Tempranillo we had came to the table warm. After pouring two half-glasses, the server volunteered to chill it. Twenty minutes later, it came back hardly changed.

You can probably cobble together a good meal here: with 60 items on offer, some of them have to be good. We aren’t at all interested in trying any more of them. We hated our appetizers, and there are plenty of places in town that serve a great suckling pig in a much nicer space.

Nuela (42 W. 24th Street between Fifth & Sixth Avenues, Flatiron District)

Food: Satisfactory
Service: Satisfactory
Ambiance: A noisy red airplane hangar
Overall: Satisfactory

ABC Kitchen

For years, Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s has been the “love ’em and leave ’em” of chefs, opening new restaurants at a vigorous clip and abandoning them after the reviews are in. He claims to remain in charge, but you never see him there again.

So when we heard that Vongerichten was opening two restaurants in the space of a month—first the Mark (which we visited last week), then ABC Kitchen—we were more than a little skeptical. Much to our surprise, ABC Kitchen turns out to be the better restaurant, and it just might remain worthwhile long after Vongerichten’s attention wanders elsewhere.

ABC Kitchen is part of the department store ABC Home. There have been other restaurants in this space, though none I have visited. The space fits the sparse ABC aesthetic, with its off-whites and exposed beams.

At first, the concept sounded like a big bore: yet another environmentally conscious haute barnyard with organic, locally sourced ingredients and an herb garden on the roof. We’ve heard that song before.

But ABC Kitchen takes it farther than just about anyone else, with tables made from reclaimed wood, vintage dessert plates and flatware purchased on eBay, coasters made from corrugated cardboard, soy-based candles, and even organic cleaning products.

None of this would matter if the food didn’t deliver, but we liked almost everything we tried. Chef de cuisine Dan Kluger has worked at Union Square Café and Tabla, and more recently at the Core Club. At a restaurant where the menu, by definition, will need to change constantly, we assume that the food is really his, and not Vongerichten’s. That gives us some confidence that the place might avoid falling to the static torpor that dooms most Vongerichten places..

Prices are reasonble, with snacks and appetizers mostly $12 and under, pastas and whole wheat pizzas $12–16, entrées $22–35 (only steak and lobster above $30), and side dishes $5–8.

I started with a plate of crudités ($10; above left) at the bar with a terrific anchovy dip. Bread seemed to be house-made, served—we are told—in hand-made baskets “by the indigenous mapuche people of patagonia.”

It’s not often that a roast carrot and avocado salad ($12; above right) is a highlight of the meal, but we loved its bright, forward flavors. A pork terrine ($12; below left) was the evening’s only dud. It tasted mostly of the grease that was used in the deep fryer.

A Four Story Hills pork chop ($24; above right) was perfectly done. Crispy chicken ($21; below left) was also very good. We also liked the baked endive with ham and gruyère ($8; below right), not your typical side dish.

ABC Kitchen was doing a brisk business on a Friday evening. The crowd seemed to be drawn from the neighborhood, and not from the adjoining store. (It could be very different at lunch.) Hard surfaces and tables packed close together make for a loud space, but not unpleasantly so. For such a busy place, servers are well trained and reasonably attentive.

We can’t say whether ABC Kitchen will avoid the downward spiral that has spoiled so many of the Vongerichten restaurants. But if the farm-to-table haute barnyard concept appeals to you, right now this is one of the better versions of it.

ABC Kitchen (35 E. 18th St. between Broadway & Park Ave. S., Gramercy/Flatiron)

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

Gramercy Tavern

For the legions who regularly run the gauntlet for a coveted reservation at Gramercy Tavern, I have some good news: you won’t have to compete with New York Journal for a table. After our visit there last Friday, we believe we are finished with Gramercy Tavern.

It’s not that we had a bad meal here (far from it), but we think there are far, far better ways to spend $86 per person—that’s the current prix fixe, the cheapest ordering option in the dining room. For all that, Chef Michael Anthony serves unmemorable, timid food that resembles an average night at his original restaurant, the less-expensive Blue Hill.

Our last visit to Gramercy Tavern was truly disappointing, with one of our pasta dishes served cold. To the restaurant’s credit, the general manager emailed me to follow up, and after we spoke on the telephone, sent us a $150 gift certificate. That’s about as generous response to a mishap as you can ask for, and typical of Danny Meyer’s empire: they truly want to please you.

But when you have a meal without any obvious mistakes, what are you left with? I cannot tell you that Michael Anthony is doing anything wrong. We don’t particularly mind that the menu is uninventive: there are no greater fans than we are, of classics done well. But to us, Gramercy Tavern is a big bore, the flavor profiles unchallenging and bland.

The trio of amuses-bouches was very good: a small lobster salad (above left), a potato puff with olive tapanade (center), and a cauliflower custard with sea urchin (right).

But we found muted and under-seasoned flavors in Whole Spelt Spaghetti with cauliflower and broccoli rabe (above left) and Lamb Pappardelle with olives, lemon confit and swiss chard (above right).

Entrées were served in ridiculous frisbee-sized plates with only a tiny amount of food in the center. The server informed us that lobster (above left) would be served medium rare, whatever that is supposed to mean. Some things just aren’t meant to be al dente. This flimsy, flaccid imitation of lobster should be dropped from the menu.

Venison Loin (above right) had a hearty flavor, but the casing on the accompanying sausage was too tough, and once you got inside the flavor payoff wasn’t there.

Curiously, the potato pancake that came with the venison (left) was much heartiier than any of the appetizers or entrées. It had the rich flavor that so much of the food lacked.

Things improved markedly when we got to dessert. Pastry Chef Nancy Olson’s desserts are all classics, but they grab you in a way the savory courses fail to do. The pre-dessert, if I recall correctly, was a mandarin orange jelly with mascarpone (not pictured).

We then had the Pineapple Upside Down Cake with frozen yogurt (above left) and the Slow Roasted Apples with pecan crumble and vanilla ice cream (above right). Both were excellent. The petits-fours were very good as well, and we were sent home with complimentary muffins, also from Chef Olson’s pastry kitchen. She really should branch out on her own.

A cup of cappuccino had to be sent back (not enough whipped cream), and a cup of espresso tasted like motor oil.

The service? Well, this is a Danny Meyer place overall. We remain annoyed that neither bread nor canapés are served until after you have ordered, which the GM informed me is a deliberate choice. But it does mean that if you want to relax over a drink, you have nothing to nibble on in the meantime.

We do not expect our review to affect Gramercy Tavern’s overwhelming popularity, and it shouldn’t. If you’re one of those to whom this cuisine appeals, we wish you well. We’ll be dining elsewhere.

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

SD26

In New York City, what happens when your landlord demands a $600,000 rent increase? If you’re father-and-daughter restaurateurs Tony and Marisa May, you spend $7 million on a super-sized, glitzy replacement thirty-three blocks south. That would be new and hip SD26, just steps away from Madison Park, replacing dull and dowdy San Domenico, on Central Park South.

The old place carried two stars in the Times, but we gave it zero two years ago, after a $300 dinner where almost everything went wrong. We’re sure that San Domenico was capable of serving better meals, but clearly the restaurant was no longer part of the culinary conversation, and hadn’t been for a long time.

Tony May probably wouldn’t admit that his restaurant had become irrelevant, but the name change is significant. Bouley, Aureole, and Oceana all moved within the last year, while keeping their old names. “San Domenico” no longer had the same cachet. Perhaps it had become a liability. SD26 keeps the initials, but in the new neighborhood it’s a tabula rasa.

If the Mays wanted contrast, they’ve achieved it. Massimo Vignelli’s design is stunning. Although the space is more than double the size of San Domenico, it is divided into several smaller sections: a wine bar, a casual café, a large dining room with smaller alcoves, and a soaring balcony with intimate tables overlooking the action.

The menu, still under chef Odette Fada, received a long-overdue facelift. Prices are lower, and most items (even mains) are available in half portions. There is no longer a chintzy $2.50 sharing charge. Tony May told the Times that the average check size will be $20 less than at San Domenico. The wine list, too, has plenty of bottles below $50; uptown, I struggled to find anything below $75.

The Mays have embraced technology, perhaps to a fault. The wine bar has a high-gloss wine dispenser, which accepts a “smart card” and dispenses pours one, two, or four ounces at a time. A sommelier told me that it’s the latest thing in Italy, but I am not sure that New Yorkers will be fond of it.

The wine list comes on a wireless electronic tablet that resembles a small notebook computer. Tony May told the Times, “People don’t know what to do anymore with those big leatherbound books. So an electronic wine list on a computer you hold in your hand will tell you as much about the wine as you want to know. It’s intuitive. The idea is to make it so simple that even a computer illiterate can operate it.”

I quickly figured out the user interface, but found it frustrating. On a traditional wine list, I can flip through the pages quickly, getting an instant sense of its breadth and depth. A small screen that shows only a few bottles at a time is disorienting. You have no idea what you’re not seeing. It’s probably a lot, given an inventory of 1,000 bottles. Response time isn’t bad, but turning a page is a lot faster.

At least no one can accuse the Mays of resting on their laurels. Both were in the house on Saturday evening, and it appeared they were stopping at every table to say hello. The crowd was a mix of former regulars who followed the restaurant downtown, and the younger generation the Mays covet.

Even Tony May himself is now business casual. At an adjoining table, we heard one of his long-time customers say, “I’ve never seen you before without a tie.” The lovely Marisa May got a makeover too, though unlike San Domenico, she did not need one. Formerly a blonde, she became a brunette.

The menu offers a long selection of cured meats and salumi, ranging from $7.50 (most) to $19 apiece. We tried the Pancetta (cured pork belly with garlic, spices, and freshly ground pepper), Sopressata (spicy salami with pepper and garlic) and Lard (pork fat cured with herbs, salt, and pepper).

At least, that’s what we thought we had. When the bill arrived, all three had different prices, even though they were listed at $7.50 apiece on the menu. After a conference, the bill was adjusted, though I am still not sure whether we were served the right items—many of them are similar—but the top-right photo is definitely the lard.

Anyhow, it’s an impressive selection, and well worth sampling, but sliced meats shouldn’t have taken 20 minutes to come out.

Pappardelle with Wild Boar Ragu ($25; above left) was a lovely dish—carried over from the old place, if I recall correctly. Boar is a lean meat, and it needed more seasoning to bring out the flavor. The long, loopy noodles were a bit unwieldy, and we thought the kitchen should divide the portion for us, instead of leaving that task to us.

According to the website, the menu at SD26 has been designed to consider “today’s nutritional values.” Perhaps that is the reason why both entrées felt a bit like spa food. Red Snapper ($29.50; above right) was simply prepared, without any sauce. Smoked Lobster ($35; below left) with porcini mushrooms and orange segment was equally simple. Though I can’t find fault with the cooking, we felt that at these prices there ought to be more excitement on the plate.

Deconstructed Tiramisu ($9; above right) was certainly not an improvement on the more familiar version.

We were seated at a quiet corner table that Marisa May told us was her favorite spot in the restaurant, in a bright red alcove (photo above). The bustling main dining room could get noisy when it is full. In our cosy little alcove, we had no such problems. Service, as noted, is not yet as smooth as it ought to be, though none of the little glitches detracted from our evening.

The decision to upend the old San Domenico—both physically and philosophically—cannot have come easily. The Mays abandoned everything they had known, for an expensive remake that their old clients might not follow, and that new ones might not embrace. Once they decided that the old place could not be replicated, there were no half-measures or compromises. I have to admire them for that.

SD26 is not, as yet, wholly successful. However, there is much to admire. With so much riding on the outcome, I suspect that there are good times to come.

SD26 (19 E. 26th Street at Madison Square Park)

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

Mari Vanna

The new restaurant Mari Vanna can make at least one strong claim: it isn’t a clone of a hundred other places. It did not open on the same expensive block as Gramercy Tavern and Veritas because there was huge demand for home-style Russian cooking. So I have to assume the owners actually believed in what they were doing, which is an excellent start.

The name, pronounced like “marijuana,” is apparently fictitious. We are supposed to believe we’re in Mme. Vanna’s parlor, where a privileged few feast on Russian classics like borscht and beef stroganoff. Companion restaurants in Moscow and St. Petersburg operate like private clubs, to which only the annointed are given a key. They wisely ditched that idea, but a bit of it remains. When we arrived, there was a placard on our table that read, “Reserved For Mark [sic].”

The only pro review comes from Sarah DiGregorio of the Voice, who complained of “suffering three hours of Soviet-style slow dinner service.” No one could call this a fast-food place, but we didn’t experience anything like that. And the food, if not revelatory, is certainly very good.

The menu is compact, with six appetizers ($12–25), five salads ($12–17), three soups ($10), and six entrées ($18–27). Naturally, there are vodkas: 70 of them. The wine list is a bit too expensive, with hardly anything under $50.

The décor looks like a cross between a fin de siècle Moscow parlor and an antique shop with little knick-knacks lining the shelves (photos here). There are fancy chandeliers, little doilies at every place setting, candles at every table, and lovely china that does not always match. The area near the front, where we were seated, is a bit cramped; the tables seem to be more spread out in the back.

The bread service (above left) was very good, with a house-made spread that seemed to be a mixture of butter, sour cream and dill.

We ordered two appetizers, but our server was confused, and only one came. It was for the best, as the Hachapuri (cheese pie) was more than enough for two. It resembled a cheese pizza, but richer, thicker, and heavier.

The first entrée listed is a braised duck leg. The server chided me for trying to order it. “Won’t you have something Russian?” I figured that anything on this menu was already Russian. Apparently not.

So I switched to the Rainbow Trout ($27; above left) with chanterelle mushrooms in a white cream sauce. This was a very well executed dish: a whole fish, split and filleted, with mushrooms stuffed inside. Again, it was very rich, and two could easily have shared it.

My girlfriend had the Chicken Kiev ($25; above right), which was much better than we expected for a dish so often phoned in at lesser restaurants.

The restaurant was full on a Saturday evening, with much of the clientele Russian-speaking, from what we could overhear. Service was friendly and mostly attentive—a tad on the slow side, but not bothersome, as we were in no hurry.

I don’t have much of a basis for comparison, as I haven’t tried many Russian restaurants. Okay, none. But we had a relaxing time at this somewhat unusual restaurant, and the food is certainly a lot better than it needs to be.

Mari Vanna (41 E. 20th Street between Park Avenue & Broadway, Flatiron District)

Food: ★★
Service: ★½
Ambiance: ★★
Overall: ★★

Veritas

Note: This is a review under chef Gregory Pugin, who was fired in August 2010. After remodeling, the former Tao chef Sam Hazen replaced him.

*

We’ve been eager to return to Veritas ever since Gregory Pugin took over as executive chef in the middle of last year. Pugin had been executive sous-chef at L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon, and given our high opinion of that restaurant we figured that Veritas could only get better.

Mind you, we thought that Veritas was already a very good restaurant under the previous chef, Ed Cotton. Perhaps the food alone wasn’t quite worth three stars, but it was certainly good enough when the incomparable wine list was taken into account.

We heard even better reports of Chef Pugin’s cuisine, which unlike that of his predecessors just might be worthy of a visit on its own account. The Times completely ignored the transition. We do not recall a single mention of it, even in passing, by Frank Bruni—a sad but not altogether surprising omission, given his lack of enthusiasm for this style of dining.

For a couple of weeks in August 2009—traditionally a slow month for this kind of restaurant—Veritas was offering 25% off all wines, and this was the excuse for six members of the Mouthfuls food board to pay a visit.

Pugin, unlike his predecessors (Scott Bryan and Ed Cotton), brings a classic French sensibility to the menu. It’s still prix fixe ($85, as opposed to $82 when I last visited), but the dishes seem more formal and elegant than before.

I didn’t make a mental note of the amuse-bouche, but I’ve included a photo (above left). There were something like five or six choices of house-made breads, and I enjoyed both of those that I sampled.

I loved the rich flavor of the Lobster Nage (above left). Two of my companions had the Peekytoe Crab Mille-Feuille (above right), which one of them described as “a very nice presentation of two ‘slices’ with jicama forming the bottom layer and avocado the top.”

A Degustation of Lamb (above left) might well be called a Symphony of lamb, including the loin, the chop, and sweetbread, all perfectly prepared. Another of our party had the Skate Wing (above right), which he described as “superb.”

I was mightily pleased with the Grand Marnier Soufflé with crème anglaise (above left). Two others at the table had the Sparkling Grape Consommé (above right), of which one said, “I didn’t detect much sparkle, but it was as grapy as all getout.”

The petits-fours (right) weren’t as impressive as in some three-star restaurants, but they got the job done.

Obviously wines were to be a focal point of our evening, and with six in our party it was possible to try five of them. I won’t even attempt to describe them all, but fortunately another of our party has done so.

Service was mostly attentive, but the staff seemed slow to take our initial wine order, a curious omission at a restaurant focused on wine. The dining room was no more than half full, and our six-top was the largest party.

Veritas already had one of the city’s best wine lists. With the arrival of Gregory Pugin, it now serves the kind of food that such great wines deserve.

Veritas (43 E. 20th St. between Broadway & Park Avenue South, Flatiron District)

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

Aldea

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

*

George Mendes and his investors must have the patience of saints. After a build-out of nearly two years, their restaurant Aldea has just opened in the Flatiron District. Luckily for them, it is worth the wait. Aldea may be the best restaurant that has opened this year.

Mendes certainly has the pedigree to turn out excellent food. His New York background alone includes stints at Bouley, Lespinasse, Wallsé, and most recently, Tocqueville, where he was chef de cuisine. He also staged at several Michelin-starred places in Europe.

The build-out is flat-out gorgeous, with a design by Stephanie Goto. The bi-level space is not as elegant as Corton (nor is it intended to be), but it has a similar quiet elegance. The shimmering glass walls inside and at the doorway are especially striking.

You can sit at a bar facing the open kitchen, but we sat at one of the tables, which are both comfortable and quiet.

The menu is loosely inspired by Mendes’s Portuguese heritage (the restaurant is named for the village his family comes from). It is not a long menu, and we appreciate that. We’d rather choose from the handful of things the chef is convinced he can do well, especially when he is breaking in a new kitchen

There are just four Petiscos, or small bites ($6–9), five Charcuterie ($8–15), six appetizers ($10–15), and eight entrées ($19–27). The chef would probably have been serving $34 entrées last year (and we wouldn’t have minded), but he has wisely adjusted to reality.

The wine list is realistic too. It’s just two succinct pages, most of it pitched at $50 and under.

I started with a snack of Pickled Ramp Bulbs ($7; above), with cripsy pig ears, apple, and a spalsh of cumin yogurt. If you haven’t tried pig ears, this is the dish that could turn you into a convert.

For the appetizer course, we had two of the charcuterie selections, the Rustic Pork Terrine ($8; above left) and the Foie Gras Terrine ($15; above right), both technically excellent, though neither as memorable as the pig ear salad or the entrées to come.

Pork Belly ($19; above left) comes from Bev Eggleston’s reknowned herd, and Mendes nails it. Arroz de Pato ($20; above right) is Mendes’s take on paella, with three kinds of duck (confit, chorizo and duck cracklins) on a bed of rice.

The kitchen’s execution seemed to us absolutely flawless. We suspect that Mendes has dialed down his ambitions here—an entirely understandable strategy in these price-conscious times. This is still a deeply impressive restaurant. We can only hope that his achievement will get the recognition that it deserves.

Aldea (31 W. 17th Street between Fifth & Sixth Avenues, Flatiron District)

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

The Bread Bar at Tabla

Bread Bar is the oddly named casual sibling to chef Floyd Cardoz’s fine-dining Indian restaurant, Tabla.

I say “oddly named” because bread isn’t any more prominently featured here than at any other Indian restaurant. It’s a small section at the end of the two-page menu. If you didn’t know otherwise, you’d think it’s a bar that serves bread with your cocktails, and that’s not what Bread Bar is at all.

In the fine print (a/k/a/ the website), Bread Bar bills itself as “home-style Indian cuisine,” but of the four dishes we tried, none would be encountered in the typical Indian restaurant. There are traditional dishes on the menu, like Tandoori Lamb, Chicken Tikka, and Naan, but most of the items—at least as described—seem just as novel as the upstairs fine dining restaurant.

Tabla is the the quietest member of Danny Meyer’s restaurant brood. It’s not as well known as Union Square Cafe, for which the company is named; nor Eleven Madison Park, for which Frank Bruni has such a shine; nor The Modern, where chef Gabriel Kreuther just won a James Beard award; nor Shake Shack, so adored by the burger mavens; nor the perennially booked Gramercy Tavern.

But we have no reason to doubt Floyd Cardoz is just as talented as those other chefs. We awarded three stars when we dined there three years ago, the same as Ruth Reichl in the Times a decade ago. Tabla still serves a prix fixe menu, and at $59 it’s actually $5 cheaper than it was in 2006. The Bread Bar a different restaurant, for all intents and purposes, but its only Times write-up was a 2002 rave from Eric Asimov in $25 & Under. If the paper has mentioned Bread Bar since then, I seem to have missed it.

The space is typical of the casual “front rooms” attached to fine dining restaurants. Reservations aren’t taken, and the atmosphere is very much a bar that serves food. The dishes are served family style—meaning they come out as they’re ready—and the server recommended sharing, which we did.

The à la carte menu has 6–7 choices in each of five categories: Cold ($6–15), Hot ($9–15), Vegetables ($4–24), Fish & Shellfish ($16–38), and Meat ($18–23). There are two tasting menus ($54 or $89). Breads and chutneys are $4–10 each.

Some of the prices are tough to comprehend. In the Creamed Spinach Samosa ($15), and the only other ingredients are garlic, chickpeas, and radishes. The server said that it was just a single samosa, and she was at a loss to explain why it would be the most expensive hot appetizer. Why is the most expensive seafood dish the soft-shell crabs at $38, when lobster is only $23? I’m sure there are reasons, but not that we could make out from the menu.

Family-style menus tend to induce over-ordering, but we resisted that. Two of the small plates and two of the larger ones were more than we could finish, especially as the entrée portions were ample.

It’s also hard to tell what counts as an appetizer, and what’s just a side dish. Onion Rings ($10; above left) flaked in chickpea batter were perfect, but a bit odd to eat on their own. A Sunny Side Spiced Up Egg ($13; above right) worked beautifully as a starter. My girlfriend was skeptical of the dish, but the egg contrasted nicely with arugula, applewood smoked bacon, and gingered chicken livers.

Incidentally, all of Danny Meyer’s restaurants are offering a special “egg” dish during the spring, with $2 from each sale going to City Harvest. The Feedbag’s Josh Ozersky tried them all on a single evening, demonstrating that even his legendary appetite had its limits. But this is a great dish, and it’s a pity that it will come off the menu on June 20.

The Berkshire Country Pork Pan Roast ($18; above left), marinated with apple cider, cinammon, and mustard seeds, was the better of the two entrées. The pork was tender, the seasoning well judged.

A Pulled Lamb & Mustard-Mashed Potato “Naanini,” or “street sandwich” ($23; above right) seemed far too carb-heavy. The potatoes seemed to be there, not so much for flavor, but merely as a binder to hold the lamb together. The lamb was pretty good, though. It was an enormous portion, probably 50 percent larger than it needed to be. Imagine eating three pieces of quiche at one sitting.

This is a Danny Meyer restaurant, and naturally the service is first-rate. Some of the prices seemed dear to us, but with judicious ordering you can put together a fine, inexpensive casual meal.

Bread Bar at Tabla (11 Madison Avenue at 25th Street, Flatiron District)

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

Boqueria

Note: This is a review under chef Seamus Mullen, who left the restaurant in July 2010. Marc Vidal is his replacement.

*

Boqueria is one of those insanely busy restaurants that can make its own rules without impairing the demand for its product—in this case, Spanish tapas. Since it opened three years ago in the Flatiron District, the tiny space has been perpetually packed. A second Boqueria opened in Soho, and apparently it’s just as busy.

So Boqueria doesn’t take reservations and forces all of its patrons to sit on bar stools, many at communal tables where the adjacent party is just inches away.

When I arrived at 6:15 p.m. on a Friday night, I snagged one of the few vacant bar tables, but it was missing a stool. Could this be rectified when my girlfriend arrived?

The hostess shrugged. “If we have one,” she said. Otherwise, we’d be advised to cram ourselves onto the banquette side by side.

It turned out that a spare stool was hidden in the coat-check room. Disaster averted. At the very least, her fall-back suggestion would have been awfully cramped, as we observed at other tables not so lucky.

Boqueria can get away with this, as the waves of eager diners just keep coming and coming, as they’ve done since Frank Bruni awarded the unassuming place two stars in November 2006.

The concise menu offers just north of a dozen tapas ($5–12), just three entrées ($17–29), a broad selection of cheeses ($5–6) and a half-dozen cured meats, called Embutidos ($5–6 each). There’s a list of daily specials (mercifully, in print), often including suckling pig, though alas not when we visited.

I was too hungry to wait, so I started with a plate of three Embutidos—the Serrano ham, the spiced pork sausage, and the Catalan hard pork sausage, paired with a Spanish cider practically as alcoholic as a dry martini. The meats were all good, but probably would have worked better as a shared order.

After my girlfriend arrived, we started with the seared octopus ($9) and the seared lamb ($8), both served on skewers (above left). An order of Croquetas ($10; not pictured) offered lightly breaded, creamy helpings of mushroom, salt cod, and suckling pig. Surprisingly, the mushroom croquetas tasted best, whereas the pig had almost no discernable flavor at all.

Paella ($29; above right) is the only item above $20, but it’s still a good deal, as the portion is massive. The two of us finished all of the seafood, but left quite a bit of the rice behind. I found the rice over-cooked. Two huge langoustines were plated lazily on top, and not properly integrated into the dish. The clams were perfectly done.

For a place this busy, the server was reasonably attentive. Then again, turning tables is the name of the game. After we got up to leave, it took all of ten milliseconds for another party to grab our table.

I was less impressed with Boqueria than I’d expected to be. The food was mostly good, but I wouldn’t go out of my way for it. I’d love to return for one of the trademark pork entrées that folks rave about, but you never know when they’re on the menu.

Boqueria (53 West 19th Street between Fifth & Sixth Avenues, Flatiron District)

Food: *
Service: *
Ambiance: no stars
Overall: *

The Burger at Primehouse

  

The recession has forced us to abandon steakhouses—no small sacrifice, as ribeye steak is practically our favorite dish. We make an exception for burgers. With that as our mission, we revisited Primehouse New York last week.

On our last visit, we noted that Primehouse has one of the most comfortable bar stools in the city, with a soft cushion for your derrière and firm, cushioned back. I know plenty of places where the dining room isn’t as comfortable as the bar at Primehouse.

In an era where $16 burgers are routine, the $12 charged at Primehouse must be considered a bargain. I can’t remember the last time I had a burger that cheap at a fine-dining restaurant. Although it’s the least expensive entrée (available only at the bar), they serve it with a flourish and all the fixin’s, marching to your table with the same wheeled cart they’d use if you’d ordered the $79 seafood platter.

For $12, you’re not getting a custom blend of organically-raised grass-fed Wagyu, but it’s a respectable burger I’d happily eat again. My only complaint is that the patty needed to be a bit broader, with less of a “dome” on top.

On a Tuesday evening, the dining room wasn’t at all full, but the bar was doing a brisk business. Evidently others have figured out that it’s the best way to enjoy Primehouse.

Primehouse New York (381 Park Avenue South at 27th Street, Gramercy/Flatiron)