Knickerbocker Bar & Grill

Knickerbocker Bar & Grill is one of those restaurants you walk by, year after year, and think, “I really ought to try that sometime.” You would have had plenty of chances to say that: the Knick has been on the same Greenwich Village street corner since 1977, remarkable longevity in a town where five years is a long run for a restaurant.

Knickerbocker has an old-skool look (Hirschfeld caricatures, vintage advertising posters) that would seem kitschy if it debuted today, but after almost forty years, they’re entitled. It’s alleged to be a celebrity haunt, though we didn’t spot any.

It’s a very good second-tier steakhouse. You won’t see it on any top-10 lists, as they serve U.S.D.A. choice beef, not prime—priced accordingly. Their signature dish is the t-bone, served like a Luger porterhouse, pre-sliced in portions for one, two, or four guests.

There’s also a 48-ounce long-bone ribeye ($85), along with humbler cuts (filet, shell steak, skirt steak), and a full menu of non-steak dishes. Every non-steak entrée is below $30, appetizers generally in the mid-teens.

There’s live jazz on Friday and Saturday evenings, starting at 9:45pm, for which there’s a whopping $3.50 cover charge. I think you can afford that. They must take it seriously, as the website lists the featured acts (different each weekend) for the next two months.

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Claudette

Claudette arrived in Greenwich Village several months ago, as welcome as a burst of sunshine after a rain storm. It’s a lovely Provençal bistro, in a city that can never have enough of them.

This is the third act for co-owner Carlos Suarez (Bobo, Rosemary’s). Wade Moises, who runs the kitchen at Rosemary’s, has come along for this venture as executive chef, along with chef de cuisine Koren Grieveson, who spent over a decade at the respected Chicago restaurant Avec.

I liked the food Rosemary’s, but it’s loud and perpetually packed; at the bar, you can barely move. I feared that Claudette would be more of the same, but it turns out to be surprisingly civilized. Suarez has created a warm, inviting room. There aren’t a ton of tables. The ample marble bar attracts a dinner crowd, not a party. It does get a tad loud, but not punishingly so.

This address has not been kind to restaurants, but there is nothing wrong with the location. I vaguely recall a place here called Washington Park, years ago. The reasons for its demise escape me, but it later became Cru (felled by the recession), and then the short-lived Lotus of Siam (a terrible idea, doomed before it began). Claudette ought to last a while.

The menu is fairly brief, but it appears to change frequently. There are choices in four categories, with headings printed in French, but the dishes described entirely in English. There’s a quartet of salads under du Jardin ($8 each; $30 for the set); six Hors d’Oeuvres ($13–18), nine Entrées ($22–34; or grilled ribeye, $46); and four Garnitures, or side dishes ($8).

A few dishes are lazy: that Pat LaFreida ribeye that seems to find its way onto every menu in town; a hanger steak, just because; a cavatelli for diners who want a recognizable pasta option. But mostly, the chefs stick to their chosen Provençal and North African theme.

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All'onda

Welcome back! It’s been far too long since Chris Jaeckle earned three stars at Ai Fiori, and since Chris Cannon ran what were arguably the best Italian restaurants in New York. Mario Batali and Joseph Bastianich might disagree with me about that last statement, but if it comes down to pistols at dawn, I’ll take Cannon’s side.

Jaeckle and Cannon have now opened All’onda (named for a style of soupy risotto served in Venice) in a smart casual space near Union Square. The cuisine is dubbed Venetian, although most diners won’t know the difference. Early publicity mentioned Japanese influences (Jaeckle once worked at Morimoto), which have since (quite sensibly) receded.

For the record, restaurateur Jeffrey Chodorow is an investor here, but his China Grill Management does not operate it, which is why it doesn’t suck. Let us all say a prayer that Chodorow will never operate another restaurant again.

To recite the history just briefly: Cannon was in partnership with the chef Michael White at two terrific Italian restaurants, Alto and L’Impero (later rechristened Convivio). At the height of the Great Recession, they brought in high-roller Ahmass Fakahany as an investment partner and opened Marea, taking a big bet on fine dining at a time when everyone else was running the opposite way.

Soon, they were rolling in dough and opened two more Italian restaurants, Ai Fiori and Osteria Morini. At about that time, and for reasons that have never been fully explained, Fakahany and White ditched Cannon, who was left with just his two original restaurants, Alto and Convivio. Shortly thereafter, both places closed suddenly—on the same day, in fact—and Cannon headed home to New Jersey.

For more than three years, Cannon didn’t say a word about the split, and a recent interview with the Village Voice still leaves many questions unanswered. It ought to be noted that Cannon is no stranger to culinary divorces, having suffered a similar split with the chef Scott Conant.

Jaeckle left Ai Fiori (which Cannon had helped open) in November 2011, and it wasn’t difficult to guess that he wanted his own place. All’onda was announced in September 2012, with Cannon on board as a consultant while his newest project, Jockey Hollow, remained under construction at the Vail Mansion in Morristown, New Jersey.

Originally announced for a November 2012 opening, All’onda endured all of the usual delays, and finally served its first risotto in early January 2014. A photographer with a tripod was shooting the space when we visited, so the first pro reviews will probably start to appear within the next week or so.

All’onda, as Chris Jaeckle told the Times, is “the most casual restaurant I’ve ever worked in.” That is probably almost true for Chris Cannon as well, at least since he became famous: except for Osteria Morini, opened in his dying days with White and Fakahany, he’s known almost exclusively for fine dining.

They probably could have aimed higher. With the Torrisi boys serving $30 pastas and $50 veal parmesan to packed houses at Carbone, All’onda is a steal, with no pasta above $19 and no entrée above $29.

The ten-page wine list, Cannon’s specialty, has plenty of drinkable bottles below $50, and about 90% of the list is below $100; they serve it in the right glassware. In a town where $15 cocktails are commonplace, and the Torrisi team gets $20 at ZZ’s Clam Bar, they’re just $12 here. I enjoyed the Basil Gimlet (photo above; with gin, lime, basil syrup), and they transferred the tab to our table. I splurged just slightly on the wine (a 2007 Travaglini, $65), ordered an after-dinner drink, and still kept the bill below $200 (before tip).

For a restaurant of this quality, All’onda is remarkable. Of course, if the reviews are as favorable as I believe they will be, these prices won’t last. They never do.

 

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Umami Burger

The California-based Umami Burger chain opened its first New York City branch three weeks ago, backed by a chorus of heavy panting by the usual sources. All that excitement for a burger joint, and an imported one at that?

You can see why. They serve a very good burger, named for that indescribable taste sensation common to such foods as aged beef, cheeses, and shellfish.

The whole menu consists of a handful of salads, starters and side dishes, and eight—count them, eight—kinds of burgers. That last castegory includes items like turkey, tuna, and duck burgers, in addition to traditional ones.

There are eight beers on tap and sixteen in bottles, nine wines (most available by the glass or bottle), and fifteen house cocktails ($12 each). That’s not the typical beverage list for a burger joint. If you’re teetotaling, there are the obvious sodas and odd ones too, like Mexican Sprite (whatever that is). I visited in the early afternoon, so I drank just lemonade.

I ordered the Truffle Burger with Fries ($12.50), and — what more is there to say? It was a great, thick burger, cooked to a perfect medium rare, and with an ideal patty to bun ratio. I didn’t detect much truffle flavor, nor did I care. But if you prefer the smash technique, perfected (should I say ruined?) at places like Bill’s Bar and Burger, then this place isn’t for you.

The fries are thin and crisped, excellent specimens of the style.

You’d call the bi-level space “bare bones” if it were anything but a burger joint. For a burger joint, it’s upscale. There are bars and free-standing tables on both levels, plus a row of banquettes on the ground floor.

A host seats you. Service is very good. There was no wait to get in, but I visited at an odd hour, although even at 1:30pm, well past the lunch rush, the place was about half full.

I don’t want to over-sell Umami Burger. It’s a burger spot, and a good one.

Umami Burger (432 Sixth Avenue at W. 10th Street, Greenwich Village)

Food: Burgers are the focus
Service: Very good, even excellent, for a burger joint
Ambiance: A comfortable bi-level restaurant with two bars

Rating: ★

The Greenwich Project

The owners of The Greenwich Project, a new restaurant in Greenwich Village, must be commitment averse. Their corporate name is The Project Group, and all of their restaurants are The ______ Project. With names like that, you can do anything. All options are open. 

They have a candidate for the world’s worst restaurant website, which cannot be bothered to transmit basic information like hours of operation or menus.

Their facebook pages are slightly more informative. Slightly. As I gather, The Mulberry Project, in Little Italy, is known mainly as an inventive cocktail den. The Vinatta Project (in the former Florent space), is a cocktail and comfort food spot. Or perhaps I’m mistaken. It’s hard to tell.

The Greenwich Project aims higher. There’s talent in the kitchen: Carmine di Giovanni, a former chef de cuisine at Picholine and David Burke Townhouse. Those places aren’t cheap, and this one isn’t either. With appetizers $15–21 and entrées $28–39, you’re going to drop some coin to dine here.

There’s no doubt Manhattanites will pay those prices at the right restaurant, but there’s not much margin for error. They’ll need a cavalcade of strong reviews and word-of-mouth to keep the place full.

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The Library at the Public

Andrew Carmellini is one of those chefs who can do anything, and get coverage. No doubt the Public Theater realized that, when they invited him to open a new restaurant in their newly-renovated building, the former Astor Library.

The theater gave him a gorgeous, cloistered space, dimly lit with dark paneling and comfortable seating. Once you’re inside, it doesn’t look at all like a restaurant attached to a performing arts center. It’s open most days till midnight, Thursdays to Saturdays till 2:00am — hours clearly intended to attract more than just a pre-theater audience.

What’s missing is a reason to go. The food is competent, of course, as you’d expect at any Carmellini place. But it feels phoned in, as if Carmellini spent fifteen minutes on it before turning his attention to the next project.

The menu is divided in three “Acts,” with various snacks ($6–13), appetizers ($12–15) and entrées ($17–27). Perhaps they were worried about pushing the metaphor: desserts are labeled, simply, “desserts” ($7–9). All of it is fairly obvious stuff.

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Neta

Note: This is a review under founding chefs Nick Kim and Jimmy Lau, who left the restaurant in October 2013 to open their own place called Shuko. Sungchul Shim, one of their chefs de cuisine, replaced them.

*

The entrance at Neta could easily be missed. Like many sushi restaurants, it’s an inconspicuous storefront on a side street and does little to command attention.

That’s just fine for Neta, which is not meant to attract walk-ins, or those who just happened to stumble upon it. Everyone there, comes with a purpose.

Sushi aficionados have been packing Neta since March last year, when two former Masa acolytes fled the mother ship, and opened this much humbler joint in Greenwich Village.

All this is relative. At Masa, you’ll drop $450 per person before drinks, tax, and tip. At Neta, the omakase options are $95 or $135, or you can order à la carte (much like Masa’s sister restaurant, Bar Masa).

When you pay 70 percent less, obviously there is a difference. Neta is crowded and loud, even on a Tuesday evening. It serves mostly local fish species. The textural contrast between fish and rice is more blurry, less clarified. A piece of toro doesn’t bring the waves of unctuous flavor that it does at Masa.

But you’re paying $135, not $450, and surely that counts for something. Practically the entire $40 difference between the two omakase options goes into a serving of Toro Tartare & Caviar, a wonderful dish early in the meal, which sells for $48 all by itself if you order à la carte.

Altogether, there are 13 courses. The first half of this procession is more impressive. A Szechuan peppercorn spiced salmon stands out, as does a serving of grilled scallops and sea urchin; likewise, spicy lobster and shrimp. Among a sequence of sushi and rolls, a flight of fluke, soft-shell crab, and grilled and marinated toro was the highlight.

Sushi chefs in the U.S. send out desserts as if by obligation, though they haven’t much to say. Still, Neta has improved on Masa with a serving of peanut butter ice cream. I’m not sure I’d be happy if I’d paid $8 for it (the à la carte price), but at the end of a long omakase it felt just about right.

The service is far less formal than at classic sushi spots, but still reasonably good. We were seated at a table (the bar was full), and that makes for a less personalized experience. I frequently had to ask for dishes to be described a second time, when the first couldn’t be heard over the din.

I wouldn’t put Neta in the upper ranks of the city’s best sushi restaurants, a category that certainly includes Masa, along with Sushi Yasuda, Kurumazushi, Soto, Sushi of Gari, and 15 East. Neta’s not in their league, but it’s certainly very worthwhile.

Feel free to click on the slideshow below, for photos and descriptions of all the dishes we were served.

Neta (61 W. Eighth Street, east of Sixth Avenue, Greenwich Village)

Food: Sushi and Japanese small plates
Service: Informal but attentive
Ambiance: A sushi bar and cramped tables, in a space that’s too loud

Rating: ★★

Carbone

  

Periodically, the New York food media anoints a new chef-god — a creature (usually young and previously unheralded) who is, for a while, infallible. The blogs and critics drool and pant at every move he makes. What it is, doesn’t matter. Broccoli? Brilliant!!

Right now, the god du jour is two-headed: Rich Torrisi and Mario Carbone, the chef-savants behind Torrisi Italian Specialties and Parm. Up to this point, the exact reason for their deity status was beyond me. At the first restaurant, I found a $50 prix fixe menu (since hiked to $75) severely overrated. At Parm, Pete Wells awarded two stars for a meatball hero, and not much else.

If you haven’t guessed, when the boys opened their latest spot, an old-school Italian–American joint called Carbone, I didn’t join the heavy breathing, although Eater.com and the notorious Torrisi shill, Kate Krader, did enough for all of us combined.

Having invested several years of deep skepticism in the Torrisi phenomenon, I was prepared to hate Carbone. To my surprise, I loved it. Will you? It depends.

Carbone is very expensive. Antipasti are $15–34, soups and salads $15–21, pastas $19–32, mains $29–53, side dishes $10. My bill for one came to $145 before tip. I drank modestly and by no means over-ate. Tabs over $200 per head won’t be uncommon here.

Much of the menu is straight out of the classic Italian–American playbook: Shrimp Scampi, Linguine with Clam Sauce, Veal Parmesan. There’s an insulting term for that style of cooking, which I refuse to use. It conjures images of machine-made pasta out of a box and tomato sauce out of industrial-size cans.

This has led to the perception that the genre is inherently simple and seldom worthwhile. But does Italian–American cuisine have to be that bad? Or is that merely a consequence of it being so popular? Have Olive Garden and streetside hucksters in Little Italy warped our perceptions of what the cuisine could be, when done well?

There’s also a perception that the genre is a mongrel interpretation of the cuisine that unsophisticated immigrants brought with them from Italy and then modified, so it’s not really Italian, and therefore is illegitimate.

So that’s the dilemma. If you think Italian–American cuisine is a bastard genre that requires no skill, Carbone’s $50 Veal Parmesan will seem to you an exercise in craven cynicism—a $25 dish that costs double due to the chefs’ outsized reputations. You’d be wrong, but I’m not going to talk you out of it. Just don’t go to Carbone. You’ll hate it.

When I look at Carbone, I see a beloved genre impeccably recreated, treated with respect, and then improved. They get almost everything right, but they make you pay. Oh boy, do they make you pay.

The cocktail list (above left) offers straightforward classics at $17 a pop, but like the food, they’re exactly right. A Gibson on the rocks was served with one of those two-inch-square ice cubes that the high-end cocktail bars use, so that it won’t dilute the drink.

Wines by the glass are just as expensive. Most reds are above $20 per glass; three out of seven are from California, a blunder that needs to be corrected. Prices by the bottle are in a wide range, with most over $65.

 

No one will call Carbone a bargain, but but the pre-meal extras are generous: a slice of parmesan (above left), American smoked ham (above center) and warm “gramma” bread with tomato (above right), served on one of the most vibrant china patterns I’ve seen in a while.

 

Pickled vegetables in olive oil (above right) didn’t do it for me: they reminded me of a failed dish at Torrisi Italian Specialties. Then came three more kinds of bread (above right): imported breadsticks, garlic bread (needed to be warmer), and sesame.

 

Asparagus Genovese ($16; above left) in a pool of warm stracciatella wore a cloak of prosciutto: a classic impeccably done.

Although not indicated on the menu, the kitchen will prepare half-orders of pasta. I decided to try the most cliché of them all, Spicy Rigatoni Vodka ($11.50; above right). The preparation was elevated by the crunch of shaved breadcrums (along with pecorino romano). I also liked the heft of a large meatball ($6; below left).

 

Veal Marsala ($52; above right) was the best damned veal chop you’re going to find, coupled with the best mushroom orgy you’re going to find.

The meat dishes appear to be uniformly good. Lamb chops ($49), which I saw at the next table over, were massive. The server showed me an uncooked 60-day dry-aged t-bone ($53), which looked to be about an inch and a half thick.

 

The pre-dessert (above left) was a pastry with powdered sugar. The server brings around a dessert cart, just like the old-fashioned places; the choices are obvious classics. A cheesecake with blueberry compote ($12; above right) was superb, with the consistency of soft butter.

The décor and ambiance have received so much fawning coverage that there’s hardly anything to add. You’ve seen it before—except, not quite. What other Italian–American spot has contemporary artwork “curated” by Vito Schnable, and vintage tuxedos “designed” by Zac Posen? The sound track consists of softies and oldies: “Puttin’ on the Ritz,” “That’s amore,” “Mr. Sandman,” “Stand by me.”

Servers reel off daily specials, and they’ve been trained to upsell. But they do keep an eagle eye on the proceedings, and many dishes are portioned or finished tableside. Whoever runs the front of house has trained them well.

Carbone occupies the space that was formerly Rocco’s, an old-school joint, of the sort Carbone is meant to pay homage. The bar is so tiny that they don’t even have room for stools, and it can get crowded. Reservations have been tough to come by; calls to the published telephone number often go unanswered. I walked in at 5:30pm on a Thursday evening and was seated immediately, but an hour later that probably wouldn’t have worked.

Some people, without question, will find the concept offensive: tired old standards at double the price, as one message-board poster put it. If that’s your perspective, Carbone isn’t for you. But if you like the idea of the classic Italian–American restaurant lovingly reacreated and improved, Carbone is brilliant.

Carbone (181 Thompson St. between Houston & Bleecker Streets, Greenwich Village)

Food: Italian–American classics, impeccably done
Service: Classic and correct
Ambiance: Old-school Little Italy, not exactly as you remembered it

Rating: ★★★

Perla

 

Note: This review is under founding chef Michael Toscano, who left the restaurant in November 2014 for an opportunity in Charleston, South Carolina. Later still, Perla moved to a new space at 234 W. 4th Street, where it is now called Perla Cafe. Despite the similar name, it is now more casual, and is both less expensive and less fancy than it was when I wrote this review.

*

I’ll admit it: I went to Perla with a poison pen in hand, ready to hate the place on the slightest provocation. I was annoyed by the presumption of its hideously over-priced wine list and its self-serving no-reservations policy.

Why go at all? The reviews were rapturous, and the chef, Michael Toscano, had impressed me at Manzo, where he cooked a meat-centric menu for Mario Batali and the Bastianiches at Eataly.

Two dinners later, I’m a fan. More than any restaurant since Locanda Verde, Perla has rustic Italian cuisine nailed. And unlike Locanda, the chef—at least for now—is in the kitchen, and not distracted by running other restaurants. And what else is there, quite like Perla? Peasant perhaps?

As I’ve noted in the past, Italian restaurants are the most over-saturated genre in New York. Perla isn’t the best one, but in the niche it occupies—casual, rustic, and hearty—it is just about perfect.

The managing partner, Gabe Stulman, has become reigning savant of “The Way We Eat Now.” Just 31 years old, he has opened six restaurants in six years, and has yet to fail.

Stulman hated that his first two places, The Little Owl and Market Table, took reservations:

Little Owl really became its own beast. As it got more attention from reviews and stuff, it turned into the kind of place where you had to make dinner reservations a month in advance, which started bringing in a different crowd. Who plans where they’re going to eat dinner a month in advance? Tourists and people who have assistants to book things for them. It wasn’t a neighborhood place anymore with real regulars. It’s hard to tell friends who stop by that they’re going to have to wait two hours and you can’t even offer them a barstool to wait on. I realized I wanted a change.

(He had a nasty split from his Little Owl partners; one gets the sense that there’s more to this story.) Not taking reservations has become practically a religion to him:

I like no reservations way more. There’s less expectation and there’s less sense of entitlement from the guest. I think that when people make a reservation a month in advance, there is more of a sense of an expectation of the meal or, ‘this shit better be awesome and you better live up to that.’ That’s an awesome challenge and I embrace that, but with no reservations it’s way more casual and, I think, more fun.

He told The Times, “The less accessible you make your place to a wider audience…the more accessible you make it to a local audience.” This is a dodge, and surely Stulman knows it. The restaurants are packed because they’re destinations. No single restaurateur could open six restaurants in six years in a few blocks’ radius, and survive on local diners alone.

High-minded justifications for not taking reservations often wither when reality sets in. Having never failed, Stulman hasn’t confronted this possibility. But it would be nice if he’d just admit that the policy is more for his convenience than the customer’s. In an otherwise glowing review, Pete Wells called him on the hypocrisy of it. From the man who complained that his friends had to wait two hours to get into The Little Owl, what do we have?

Currently only six tables can be reserved; the rest are first come first served, a policy that is easier to take at an ambitious bar than at a restaurant where you are encouraged to order antipasti, primi and secondi, and where a roast chicken for two costs $65.

Dining at Perla takes a significant commitment of time and money. The restaurant should make a reciprocal commitment, rather than force customers to stand around near the bar — not at the bar (stools are reserved for dining at peak hours), but near the bar. By 8 p.m. the mob gets thick and the wait can be two hours.

You wonder how much he’s losing? From 4:30pm till about 7:00, there are empty seats at Perla. Those who’ve heard about the punishing waits may be staying away, not realizing that the place is wide open and available.

It must be noted: Perla’s informal rusticity is only skin deep: dinner will easily run you $100 a head, and it could go much higher than that, depending on how much you drink.

Leaving aside Stulman’s nauseating sanctimoniousness, he hires good people. Many of the staff are fellow University of Wisconsin grads (he even calls his four-restaurant empire “Little Wisco”). They’re all friendly, gregarious, and eager to please.

The menu is in the standard four parts (antipasti, primi, secondi, contorni). It changes frequently, and prices are edging up: just two weeks ago, the most expensive pasta was $21. Today, it is already $25. The entrée average is around $30; soon, it will no doubt rise.

 

But the food is great. On my first visit, I started with the Tramezzini ($8; above left), a snack resembling a peanut butter & jelly sandwich, with foie gras, pistachio mint jelly, and cherry jam. Crostini (above right) with ricotta, honey, and black pepper, were on the house. (The usual bread service is a country bread with olive oil.)

 

I then ordered two dishes that Pete Wells raved about (and has saved me the trouble of describing), the Vitello Tonnato ($16; above left) and the Guinea Hen ($28; above right). Both are wonderful.

 

On a second visit, we started with a simple salad of Field Greens ($14; above left), followed by the Cavatelli with Duck Ragù ($25; above right), onto which the server shaves flakes of frozen foie gras. (The chef, it must be noted, has a foie gras fetish: it shows up in numerous dishes.) I didn’t get much foie taste: perhaps I got fewer of the shavings than Wells did, but the dish is fine without it: hearty, rich, and bursting with flavor.

 

Beef Tongue ($24; above left) is close to the bottom end of the entrées, but the chef does a brilliant job with it. The tongue tastes like a very rich pastrami, with textural contrast from a crisp, oaky char on the edge; but te bed of cannelini beans on which it was served contributed little. We finished up with a serving of Fiore Sardo ($5; above right), a hard, funky sheep’s milk cheese, along with a shared glass of the intense house-made ginger grappa ($13).

The staff splits dishes and even drinks without complaint: for instance, the tongue was presented on two plates, the grappa in two glasses, even though we’d ordered just one. I ordered an inexpensive red wine (a 2006 Odoardi), practically the cheapest they have, and the server nevertheless decanted it, a courtesy most places reserve for the expensive end of their wine lists.

The space is lovely for what it aspires to be, with wooden beam sealings, brass fittings, soft banquettes, an exposed kitchen, and a wood-burning brick oven. There’s a drinks bar at the front and a “chef’s counter” at the back, where I sat both times, and would again.

Perla, in short, is a restaurant about which it is impossible to complain, even if it damn well ought to take reservations.

Perla (24 Minetta Lane near Sixth Avenue, Greenwich Village)

Food: Rustic Italian
Wine & Spirts: Some good stuff here, but bargains are hard to come by
Service: Friendly, gregarious, eager-to-please
Ambiance: A cozy, sun-drenched, casual Italian spot

Rating: ★★½

Minetta Tavern

I’ve written about Minetta Tavern before (here, here), and as far as background goes, I have little to add. I keep wondering if quality will suffer, given that it is perpetually packed and could probably float on reputation for years to come.

In four visits, I’ve only sat at the bar. Walk-in tables are never available at the hours I’ve gone, nor is it reservable at the times I want to eat. But the bar is really just an extension of the dining room: most people seated there order food.

The food remains excellent. If they’re capable of serving a bad dish, I haven’t seen it yet. The main menu is fairly static—except for the prices, which keep going up—but there is a printed specials menu that changes reasonably often. On a Monday evening a couple of weeks ago, everything we ordered was from that menu.

At $18, a Brussels Sprouts salad (above left) was no bargain, but despite the humble-looking photo, it’s studded with bacon and egg, a dream of a dish.

 

Sea Bass ($36; above left) seems to be the default fish that every restaurant must offer (having apparently replaced salmon and swordfish). This version of it was just about perfect.

But the dish I’ll remember for a long time was the Calves Liver ($34; above right), so thick and hearty it could be a steak, with a charred skin as if it were a steak. This was the best liver dish I can recall, anywhere.

The formula here remains what it was: deceptively simple things that they knock out of the ballpark. Our food bill was $88 for two entrées and a shared salad. Most of the entrées are above $30, but you can eat for less. The Minetta Burger is still just $17 and worth every penny; the Tavern Steak, at $26, although it is not the best steak they serve, still puts many other places’ steaks to shame.

Wine will plump up the bill, no matter what you do. It’s a good diverse list, but with very little below $60 a bottle.

There are a lot of Minetta dishes still on my bucket list — I’m still looking for an occasion to try the côte de boeuf for two (now $134), and the roasted bone marrow looks incredible. That’s for another day.

Minetta Tavern (113 MacDougal Street between Bleecker & W. 3rd Streets, Greenwich Village)

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