By The Hudson

Restaurant names often tell you very little. What do you know, really, about The Simone, Charlie Bird, or Cherche Midi, from their names alone? In contrast, By The Hudson (BTH) makes its value proposition abundantly clear: it’s a room with a view.

Actually, that sells it short. Chef Lusianie Otero’s “Amer-ibbean” cuisine surpassed my expectations, but when a restaurant is named for its location, it’s the location that they’re selling, so let’s discuss that for a moment.

BTH is located at the far western tip of 125th Street, underneath the Riverside Drive viaduct. Tall picture windows on two sides offer gorgeous views of the Hudson. Two other restaurants share the block, but don’t have the scenery: Dinosaur Bar-B-Que and Harlem’s Floridita. The famed Cotton Club is a block away; Fairway Market is just up the street. Another restaurant with a view, Hudson River Cafe, is four blocks north.

Still, the walk from the subway feels a bit bleak, especially after dark. That’ll change, eventually. Columbia University plans to build seventeen buildings over the next quarter-century on the superblock bounded by 125th Street, 133th Street, Broadway, and Twelfth Avenue. Several are already under construction. You can’t help feeling that in five or ten years, this area will be barely recognizable.

With all of the ongling construction in the area, BTH’s timing seems to be pretty good. But the space facing the water (formerly a diner) had been vacant for seven years before BTH opened in September, so I guess it wasn’t an easy sell. The neighborhood clearly has bright prospects, provided the restaurant survives the long winter.

The restaurant is evidently still deciding how best to market the cuisine. Florence Fabricant’s Off the Menu teezer described it as “American, with hints of Italian,” but the chef hails from Puerto Rico, and our server called it “Amer-ibbean.” Osso Buco is the only dish that immediately screams Italian, and there’s a heavy dose of the safe, recognizable standards that many places serve: Shrimp Cocktail, Caesar Salad; Steak & Fries, and so forth. But where the chef does insert her personality, the dishes have a recognizably Caribbean tint.

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Mountain Bird

Note: Mountain Bird closed “abruptly” in June 2014, after just eight months in business, due to issues with the landlord. The team is said to be looking for a new space.

*

When Eater.com posted about Mountain Bird, a French restaurant in Harlem that’s “quietly killing it on 145th Street,” I was already hooked.

And that’s before I heard about New Year’s Eve, when the restaurant served a $59 six-course BYO prix fixe. Oh, that was the late seating; the early seating was just $49.

This isn’t grandpa’s Harlem any more, with luxury condos popping up all over the place. Still, it’s a little dodgy to walk around at night.

Then you arrive at Mountain Bird, with its lace curtains, distressed mirrors, and dainty little sconces. The design on the custom tile floor spells out “Mountain Bird,” and on the white bone china the letters “MB” are written in gold. Wine is served in the correct glassware. French opera classics play on the sound system (just a bit too loud).

The 19-seat space is a tight fit. Our party of three was seated at a wobbly marble table that would have been a bit cramped even for two. And make sure not to trip over the space heaters.

But let me repeat the lede: $59 for six very good courses, and that was on an evening when restaurants traditionally over-charge.

The chef is Kenichi Tajima, who trained in both Japanese and French cuisines, and at Mountain Bird serves exclusively the latter. The regular menu is mostly poultry, and Tajima challenges diners with the likes of Duck Gizzards and Chicken Combs.

The New Year’s Eve menu (click the image, right, for a full-size copy) consisted mostly of items not on the regular menu, and it was not as poultry-centric as usual. There were choices for the soup, appetizer, and maincourses—in each case a foul, a fish, and a vegetarian option.

 

The first course (above left) offered four canapés, all very good, but the chef seemed to be avoiding the “head to toe” offal that he serves his regular customers. The second course (above right) was excellent: smoked salmon, American caviar, and a poached quail egg.

 

The house bread service is a crisp, warm pumpernickel baguette (above), but the butter was ice cold.

 

We didn’t detect much foie in the Foie Gras Dumpling Consommé (above left); it was like a Chinese wonton soup. Wendy had the Cauliflower Soup with Black Truffle (above right).

 

It was tough competition between the Warm Seafood Salad (above left) and the Ostrich Steak Tartare (above right). You wouldn’t have gone wrong with either one.

 

We thought the Guinea Hen Trio (above right) was superior to the slightly pedestrian Sautéed Red Snapper (above left).

  

As I recall, there was a choice of five desserts (all house-made), and the three we tried were all excellent: tiramisu (above left), rum chocolate (center) and double cheesecake (right).

The service staff seemed quite young, but someone has trained them well. They serve wine correctly (almost) and set the plates down with the “MB” logo facing up. These are small things, but they don’t happen by accident. In time, they’ll be even better.

For the price, the food was remarkable. It wasn’t perfect, and there were a couple of slight duds, but if they’re this good on New Year’s Eve, I can’t wait to go back another time.

Mountain Bird (231 W. 145th Street between 7th & 8th Avenues, Harlem)

Food: French, with an emphasis on poultry
Service: Young servers, but remarkably well trained
Ambiance: A small town bistro in the French countryside

Rating: ★★

Domain

Remember Etats-Unis, the Upper East Side restaurant with an improbable Michelin star? I never quite bought into the star, but for what it was — straight, up-the-gut comfort food — it was certainly well above the neighborhood average.

I’m not sure why Etats-Unis closed (it was always reasonably full, in my experience), but close it did, nearly four years ago. The chef, Derrick Styczek, has resurfaced at Domain, a new restaurant in the space that was formerly Vareli in Morningside Heights, a short hop from the Columbia campus. The name might not be the best choice. Search on “Domain restaurant,” and you’re liable to get back a list of Internet domain hosting services.

There’s room to spread out here, in a roomy two-story storefront that was nowhere near full on a Wednesday evening (the Jewish holiday week, to be fair). It’s an attractive, romantic spot, with dark wood, low lighting, and acres of exposed brick. Not that you haven’t seen it before, but you haven’t seen it here.

Styczek’s cooking is more dainty and precious than I recall at Etats-Unis. There are hints of the former comfort-food style it’s not quite as pleasurable here. Prices are calibrated to the neighborhood, with only one entrée (lamb) abouve $29.

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The Red Rooster

It was hard not to be skeptical of Marcus Samuelsson’s new Harlem restaurant, The Red Rooster. The talented chef who had once served stellar Swedish cuisine at Aquavit, had bombed out twice since then, first with terrible Asian fusian cuisine at Riingo, and then with phoned-in pan-African cuisine at Merkato 55.

The list of the chef’s current restaurants is depressing: a surf & turf place here, a burger joint there. It makes you wonder if there’s anything he actually believes in, culinarily speaking. The Red Rooster, featuring American cuisine, is yet another concept that doesn’t resemble anything he has previously done.

Its prolonged gestation didn’t help. Announced last February and originally slated for an October opening, it was delayed repeatedly before finally opening in mid-December. Samuelsson gave preview dinners all over town, and actually won Top Chef: Masters, with the Red Rooster cited as his flagship restaurant, even though it didn’t exist yet, and wouldn’t for another five months.

For a while, Samuelsson couldn’t miss an opportunity to look foolish, most notably when he announced that bartenders at the new restaurant would be asked to submit “audition videos,” with the “winner” selected by a public vote. I have to assume that Samuelsson dropped that hare-brained scheme, since we never heard any more about it.

In September, the Red Rooster earned four stars on Yelp, even though it was three months away from serving its first meal. Yelp staff deleted the entry, but it was back again in November, again at four stars.

Did I have enough reasons to shun the place? Absolutely. I went anyway. Guess what: The Red Rooster is pretty good.

Samuelsson’s ambition here is modest, but he nails it. The space looks like “Keith McNally Comes to Harlem,” a breezy brasserie set-up with shelves of knickknacks, an open kitchen, a bright glass-lined liquor wall, a spacious bar, and ample communal table seating for walk-ins. He serves lunch and dinner currently, brunch on weekends, with breakfast expected later on.

The menu, with a vaguely African American slant, has a bit of everything, but the only outright pandering is Steak Frites with truffle bearnaise, which strangely finds its way into the cuisine of every nation, and at $32 is the most expensive item. The couple next to me ordered that steak, and it looked great, but you can get it anywhere.

If this is American cuisine, I’m not sure there’s any region or restaurant in America that it resembles, but that’s just fine. I’m gratified to see a menu with just nine appetizers ($9–15) and eight entrées ($14–32), which tells me Samuelsson has done a lot of editing, and everything he serves is probably going to be good.

A couple of items resemble the Swedish classics Samuelsson has served before (Gravlax with Purple Mustard; Meatballs with mash and lingonberry), but most hew to the American theme, even if his interpretation of them is unique, or at least unusual.

An appetizer of Dirty Rice and Shrimp ($9; above left) was accented with aged basmati and curry leaves. Hearth Baked Mac & Greens ($14; above right) comes out of the entrée section. The macaroni, made with three cheeses (gouda, cheddar, comté) had a satisfying crunch.

Portions are ample, and I left a lot of food behind. The couple next to me ordered a bowl of warm nuts ($4) from the “snacks” section of the menu: “This dish could feed six people,” the husband said, as he offered to share it with me. A side order of corn bred ($4) came with two thick slices: warm and buttery, it hardly needed the extra butter that came with it.

Even on a Sunday evening, the restaurant was almost full, but I was seated immediately at one of the communal tables. For a while, it seemed like the server had forgotten me—the water glass remained empty until the meal was nearly over—but the food came out promptly. The space has a lively buzz, but the ambient noise isn’t overbearing.

Samuelsson himself was in the house (and introduced himself), which I hadn’t expected on a Sunday—but then, the professional reviews have yet to appear, and you never know when a critic will drop in. I think they’re going to like this place. The food is well made, coherently thought out, and certainly a big improvement over anything I know of in the area.

Although downtowners still think of Harlem as remote, the restaurant is literally half a block from the 2/3 express train stop at 125th Street: from many points in Manhattan, it’s probably closer (by train) than many popular downtown and Brooklyn places. But Samuelsson surely knows that he’ll need neighborhood support. For food this good, and at these prices, I think he’ll get it.

The Red Rooster (310 Lenox Avenue between 125th & 126th Streets, Harlem)

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

5 & Diamond

Note: This is a review under chef David Santos, who left the restaurant in August 2010.

*

What do Tribeca, the East Village, and the Lower East Side have in common? They’re all neighborhoods that, not so long ago, were considered absurd locations for destination dining. Today, no one thinks twice about it.

Is it Harlem’s turn? That’s the bet Marcus Samuelsson is making, as he prepares to open the Red Rooster at the corner of 125th Street and Lenox Avenue. And that’s the bet the owners of 5 & Diamond have made at 112th Street and Frederick Douglass Boulevard.

The geographical barrier is more psychological than real. 5 & Diamond is just a few blocks from subway stations at 110th Street on the B, C, 2, and 3 lines. From many midtown locations, you can actually get there faster than you can get to the East Village or the Lower East Side. It just seems far away.

Without the benefit of a celebrity name like Samuelsson, the owners of 5 & Diamond decided to rent a name. Serial job-hopper Ryan Skeen was brought in to open the place, and promptly made a mess of things, as only he can. It wasn’t long before Skeen had a foot out the door. By the time the Village Voice filed its rave review, critic Sarah DiGregorio was giving Skeen credit for dishes he no longer had anything to do with.

The permanent chef is David Santos, who doesn’t bring Skeen’s press clippings, but has an impressive resume and plans to stick around. With the review cycle basically over, 5 & Diamond will need to win destination diners via word-of-mouth.

The restaurant occupies a pretty storefront; the build-out is handsome, and would fit in without apology anywhere downtown. For a place still fighting for attention, it could use a sign, and frankly a website.

Santos’s eclectic American menu is sensibly edited, with just seven appetizers ($10–16) and seven entrées ($22–32). There’s a quintet of desserts ($5). A five-course tasting menu is only $50, and as three standard courses will set you back at least $40, this is the way to go.

Our tasting menu showed great promise, but there were also some missteps. One of these was a raw Long Island Fluke with pickled rhubarb, sea beans, and chili oil. The first three ingredients were too delicate to withstand the fourth. The taste of chili oil overwhelmed the dish. (In the photo, you can see a pool of it, underneath the fish.)

But we loved seared scallops with apricot gazpacho, spring onions, and lovage (above left), as well as the grilled Portuguese Sepia with piquillo pepper puree, sherry shallots, and olives (above right). In both of these dishes, the ingredients were in the right balance.

The chef sent out an extra item not on the tasting menu, a Keepsake Farms Hen Egg (above left) with chorizo, roasted garlic, and potato foam. Like all such egg dishes, you puncture the yolk, and then have a gooey delight as all of the ingredients mix together. This was the highlight of the evening—and curiously, the least expensive savory course on the regular menu, at $10. If you order à la carte, this is perfect for sharing, as it is a very rich dish.

According to Santos, Idaho Brook Trout (above right) is one of the few Ryan Skeen contributions still on the menu. It was conceptually simpler than most of the other items we were served, but beautifully cooked.

We weren’t at all fond of the “Philly Cheese Steak” (above left). The quotes signal that it’s a deconstructed dish, with clothbound cheddar, crisp shallots, and red pepper foam on a bed of bruschetta. In our view, when you are serving 14-day aged sirloin, there shouldn’t be so many side-kicks on the plate. In addition, the bruschetta became soggy, and the fried shallots left a bitter after-taste.

We had no complaint at all with warm Brioche Doughnuts (above right). Along with the tomato rosemary focaccia served at the beginning of the meal, they showed off a kitchen with strong baking skills.

We eschewed the offered wine pairing ($35pp) in favor of a 2006 Château du Cèdre Cahors ($48). In general, the wine list struck us as slightly too expensive for the area.

While we were there, we saw at least eight people outside look at the menu posted in the window, and keep on walking. Santos needs to find ways to get them in the door, given that the restaurant was only half full on a Saturday evening.

A $5 menu offered weeknights from 5:30–7:00 is a start. We suspect that the neighborhood needs a few approachable dishes to balance the foams and the high-end French technique.

A burger ($13) is buried under a list of side dishes. We asked Santos why it wasn’t more prominent. He said that he doesn’t want people to think of 5 & Diamond as a “burger place.” But with three-star restaurants serving $26 burgers nowadays, we don’t think there’s much danger of that.

Service was very good, for the most part—certainly in line with the quality of the food Santos aspires to serve. As we know him from a food board, we are not going to rate the restaurant with “stars.” We’ll only say that it shows every promise of becoming the destination restaurant that Harlem should have.

5 & Diamond (2072 Frederick Douglass Blvd. at 112th Street, Harlem)

River Room

 
The River Room, practically deserted.

With its gorgeous unobstructed river views, Riverbank State Park would seem the ideal place for a romantic restaurant. That was the premise when Earl Monroe’s Restaurant, named for the former New York Knicks guard, opened a couple of years ago.

The park is located along the Hudson River. It’s built atop a waste treatment plant, though you wouldn’t be immediately aware of that. Designers did a terrific job turning an otherwise desolate stretch of waterfront into a gorgeous public space. Its location in West Harlem might at first seem inaccessible, but it’s only about a ten-minute walk from the 145th Street stop on the #1 train.

Earl Monroe’s drew a reasonably favorable Diner’s Journal piece from Frank Bruni in the Times. Later on, Earl Monroe severed his relationship with the owners, and they renamed the restaurant River Room. It’s on something like the third chef in two years, clearly not a sign of success.

The photo on the website (right) leads you to expect a bustling crowd. The reality (above) is quite a different thing. On a Friday night, the place was practically empty. It’s open only four nights a week. There is live jazz on Friday and Saturday nights (for which there is a $5 surcharge), but it’s not a draw.

The location isn’t the problem. A couple of weeks ago, we visited Hudson River Cafe, also located on the riverbank in Harlem, also offering have live music on Friday nights. It was packed. River Room is actually closer to the subway than Hudson River Cafe, but it’s a ghost town. The reason, I suspect, is that the food just isn’t that good. Frankly, the jazz was mediocre too.

The website describes the cuisine as as “a unique fusion of Southern, Caribbean, Latin and African influences.” It is rare that a chef trying to do so many things will produce a memorable result. Usually, it just seems like the chef can’t make up his mind.

 
Deep-fried oysters (left); Deep-fried calamari (right)

We hadn’t planned it, but both my girlfriend and I ordered deep-fried appetizers: calamari for her ($8), oysters for me ($9, as I recall). The kitchen is skilled with the deep fryer. Breading wasn’t overbearing, nor was either dish overly greasy. The oysters were great,  but the calamari came lukewarm.

Caribbean Crab Cakes (left); Mexican Spiced Duck (right)

My girlfriend’s Caribbean Crab Cakes ($21) seemed to have been deep-fried, and on their own would have been just about perfect. But they came swimming in a gloppy cole slaw that was drowned in mayonaise. Mexican Spiced Duck ($24) seemed neither Mexican nor spicy to me. It was over-cooked, though partly rehabilitated by a nice layer of crisp fat. It came on a bed of braised collard greens, which were almost inedible.

The restaurant has neither a wine list nor a beverage menu, a peculiar omission that almost certainly dampens alcohol sales. When we asked about wine, our server recited a list of two reds and five whites, and steered us to a very respectable Sauvignon Blanc at $34.

I’ve seen a lot of message board posts taking River Room to task for poor service, but we didn’t have that issue at all. Actually, we found our server quite helpful and professional. We felt rather sorry for the guy: with the place so empty, his tip income can’t be very good.

The space is attractive, and though not really apparent from the photos, the seating is quite comfortable. The view takes center stage, and while I know the old adage about restaurants with views, there’s no reason why the food couldn’t be better. With some more focus in the kitchen, this could be one of Manhattan’s truly romantic getaways. But until they bring in Chef #4, I won’t be going back.

River Room (145th Street west of Riverside Drive, at Riverbank State Park, West Harlem)

Food: Mediocre
Service: *
Ambiance: *½
Overall: Can’t Recommend

Hudson River Cafe

Hudson River Cafe caught my attention, in the first place because well publicized openings north of 125th Street are fairly rare, and in the second place, because it opened just in time for my big move uptown. It’s a beautiful bi-level space, with ample space both indoors and out. So far, it seems to be attracting mainly a local crowd. With live music on Friday nights, the bar resembles a bustling Caribbean resort, while the indoor dining room is a bit more sedate.

From the restaurant’s name, you might expect river views. But you’d be wrong. The only views are an elevated viaduct on the restaurant’s west side, and Fairway Market to the south. The architect and designer did the best they could with the hand they were dealt, but it almost seems a pity to have a restaurant with no view of the river it’s named for. We initially requested outdoor seating upstairs, where I thought we might have a decent view. Once we realized that a cement wall was all we could see, we asked to go indoors.

The only mainstream media review so far is from Randall Lane in Time Out New York, who calls it a “Harlem oasis” and awards three stars out of six. The cuisine is difficult to classify. Savory New York calls it “New American,” but Lane’s “Nueva Latina” might be nearer the mark. The menu offers several ceviches and paellas, and the choice of spices has a distinctly Caribbean feel. But there’s also an emphasis on locally sourced seasonal ingredients, like Blue Point Oysters and Bell & Evans Chicken. Some of the items are generic, like the raw bar, pastas, and steaks.

Arctic Char Ceviche (left); Crispy and Spicy Buffalo Shrimp (right)

My girlfriend started with the Arctic Char Ceviche ($12), which was absolutely spectacular—one of  the best ceviches either of us has tasted. The photo doesn’t show the depth of the serving bowl, but it was actually a quite sizable portion. We were also surprised at the bounty of Crispy and Spicy Buffalo Shrimp ($12), but the preparation was rather pedestrian and unsubtle.

Whole Branzini with Garlic Mashed Potato and Garlic Chimichurri Sauce

As one so often sees these days, the entrées are divided into composed plates ($20–34) and “simply grilled” items ($18–26), for which there is a multiple choice of side dishes and sauces. The Whole Branzini ($26) was in the latter category. It was beautifully done, and perfectly satisfying on its own; the garlic chimichurri sauce (which the server recommended) was redundant, and the garlic mashed potatoes (also a server recommendation) didn’t do much for me either. My girlfriend ordered the strip steak ($32), which was competent and unremarkable.

The beverage menu didn’t list the sangria, which is an odd omission, as it is terrific. We saw it on another table, so that’s what we asked for, and we were glad we did.

Hudson River Cafe is off the beaten path. The travel time from our Hudson Heights apartment turned out to be quite a bit longer than it appeared on the map—about 45 minutes. It’s a hike from either of the two nearest subway stops (125th Street or 137th Street on the #1 train). Some might be a bit skittish about the neighborhood, especially at night. While there’s plenty of activity in the immediate vicinity, the streets nearby are a bit desolate. We didn’t mind it at all, and will probably return, but I can’t yet call Hudson River Cafe a destination restaurant. With some judicious editing of the menu, it very well might become one.

Hudson River Cafe (697 W. 133rd Street at Twelfth Avenue, Manhattanville/West Harlem)

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