Thalassa

It almost felt like cheating to accept a publicist’s invitation to re-visit Thalassa, my favorite restaurant that no one writes about. I’ve reviewed it twice before (here, here), and visited at least two other times that I didn’t write about. The week after the publicist-arranged visit, I went on my own dime and spent almost $600 (albeit with a number of extra courses sent out).

Like many restaurants, Thalassa re-calibrated after the financial crisis. The “fish by the pound” program, which could seem daunting and confusing to customers, has been dropped. In 2006, I wrote that there were “many” fish entrées over $40. There’s now just one, the Dover Sole ($48), which is excellent. The staff no longer sends you home with a pastry for the next day’s breakfast.

The restaurant remains expensive, with appetizers $14–25 and entrées $29–47 (only one less than $32). But over six or more visits, across ten years, I’ve never had anything less than excellent. The space is refined, quiet, and comfortable—perfect for a business dinner or a romantic night out. I’ve used it for both.

The international wine list is outstanding, with over 12,000 bottles and more than 700 labels, but a list that strong ought to be available online—and it isn’t.

The account below is primarily of the publicist-arranged meal, as my visit the following week was a business event not suited to taking photos.

  

Both meals began with a light cod fritter (above left), served as an amuse. Zuchchini–Eggplant chips ($24; above center), are wonderful: incredibly light and not at all oily. However, it’s only a practical dish if several people are there to share it. There’s an assortment of dips ($10; above right) for spreading on house-made pita.

 

Octopodi ($25; above left) had a terrific, smoky flavor, served with a salad of sun-dried tomato, micro-organic greens, olive oil, and red wine vinaigrette.

Scallops ($22; above right) are a revelation, wrapped in filo dough, served with sheep’s milk butter and a balsamic reduction. I’ve had this dish before: it’s no wonder that it remains on the menu.

All of the whole fish are served basically the same way: lightly char-grilled, with a sprinkling of lemon and olive oil. The photo above is the Lavraki ($36), which appears as Branzino or Loup de Mer on some menus. The Dover Sole, the following week, was similar. The kitchen lets the quality of the ingredients speak for itself, with a minimum of interference.

  

 

The kitchen sent out practically the whole dessert menu (all $12). You won’t go wrong here, but my favorite was the Galaktobouriko–Citrus Custard layered in Filo and drizzled with honey (second row, left).

At ten years old, Thalassa is entering middle age by restaurant standards. It has survived and thrived, which is a tribute to good management. The dining room was not full for either of my mid-week visits, but there is always steady business. Thalassa is a shade less expensive than it used to be, but the quality of the food has not suffered, and the wine list is still first-rate.

I love Thalassa and always did. That none of the city’s professional critics reviewed it always puzzled me. Perhaps now, on its tenth anniversary, they’ll take a fresh look. Thalassa deserves it.

Thalassa (179 Franklin Street between Greenwich and Hudson Streets, TriBeCa)

Food: Greek, primarily seafood
Service: Elegant but understated
Ambiance: A quiet, serene room, reminiscent of the sea

Rating: ★★★
Why? Thalassa has never been less than excellent, over 6+ visits 

Jungsik

Twain said, “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.” Or maybe it wasn’t Twain—the statement has been attributed to more than one writer.

Today, I find myself making the opposite excuse. This review is shorter than it ought to be. Jungsik, the new Korean restaurant that opened three months ago in the old Chanterelle space, is excellent. It will probably be #1 on my “Best of 2011” list. But I don’t have time to write a long review, so I’ll make do with general impressions. Here is the most important one:

Go!

Jungsik is the kind of restaurant that should have a detailed and adoring review, because it will get precious few of these. Adam Platt has already given it just one star, even though he thought the cooking deserved three. That’s Platt for you. Sam Sifton was so offended that he slammed the place in his last “Hey, Mr. Critic” column.

To be sure, Jungsik faces a headwind. It’s a clone of a Seoul restaurant, and the city’s critics almost always deduct a star for imported concepts. We loved the quiet, austere space, with its white tablecloths and elegant service. But most of the city’s current crop of critics, having declared fine dining dead, cannot bear to see a restaurant that swims against the tide. (Sam Sifton compared it to an airport lounge, which makes me wonder where he’s been flying.)

Diners are not accustomed to an expensive prix fixe for Korean food, or indeed, for any Asian cuisine except Japanese. There have been adjustments. Jungsik opened with a $125 five-course prix fixe, as much as Eleven Madison Park. It’s good, but it isn’t that good. The current price is $115 for five courses, with a three-course option at $80. That’s a big step in the right direction.

The five-course meal includes a salad, a rice or noodle dish, a fish course, a meat course, and dessert, with three or four choices for each. The three-course option, which we had, includes the first two and one meat or fish course. But it comes with three flights of amuses and petits fours, making it more like a five-course meal anyway. Indeed, I was unable to finish my entrée, which was a pity, as it was the best pork belly I have had all year.

Above and below left: three flights of amuses bouches.

Above right: bread service.

Above left: Bibim with tomato and arugula sorbet.
Above right: Four Seasons with parsley, zucchini, and quail egg.

(The kitchen seems to prefer eccentric platings with all of the food at one edge of the plate. You’ll see that over and over again in these photos.)

Above left: Sea Urchin with Korean seaweed rice and crispy quinoa
Above right: Champs-Elysées with Foie gras and kimchi

Above left: Black Cod
Above right: Five Senses Pork Belly
Below left: Petits fours

Though I’ve not described the dishes in much detail, there wasn’t a dud among them. And for that much food, suddenly $80 doesn’t seem so extravagant.

The drawback is that you can’t dip into the menu selectively. I’d love to go back and order just the pork belly, but I cannot. Platt deducted a whole star for that. But you can’t order à la carte at any of the top ten restaurants in the Platt 101, nor at any restaurant that currently has four stars from The Times.

The question is whether Jungsik will be able to get away with charging as if it’s a four-star (or high three-star) restaurant. It was about 3/4ths full by 9:00 p.m. on a Wednesday evening, but December is always a good month for restaurants. The acid test is to survive the winter.

It’s not for me to predict the future, only to say what Jungsik is now: a three-star restaurant.

Jungsik (2 Harrison Street at Hudson Street)

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

Kutsher's Tribeca

Note: It should surprise absolutely no one that Kutsher’s Tribeca closed in mid-2014. This is, after all, a Jeffrey Chodorow restaurant. Quick failure is his calling card. A branch of Almond is expected to replace it. The review below was under the opening chef, Mark Spanganthal, who left the restaurant in early 2013.

*

When I heard that Jeffrey Chodorow, the prolific creator of failed restaurants, was opening a “Catskills Jewish” place in Tribeca, I thought: Mr. Gimmick has struck again. The idea seemed patently absurd.

Kutsher’s Tribeca isn’t absurd at all. It’s actually kinda fun, and the food isn’t bad. The Chod’s role is minimized: he’s an investor, leaving the running of the place to Zach Kutsher, a fourth-generation descendant of the family behind the eponymous Kutsher’s Resort and Country Club in Monticello, New York.

Zach Kutscher is an earnest and sincere fellow (nothing like the Chod), and you want only the best for him, but it is not quite clear how they’ll make it work. There are 167 seats to fill, in a huge space where Drew Nieporent failed twice, most recently with Mai House.

The popularity of the so-called Catskills Jewish cuisine is long past a zenith reached decades ago. The region was once considered a prime summer vacation spot for Jews, but it went into a long decline after the 1950s, owing to the three A’s: assimilation, airplanes, and air conditioning. Most of the resorts are now abandoned, no longer Jewish, or are run as summer camps for the ultra-orthodox.

Kutsher’s, in fact, is the last kosher resort in the Catskills still operating year-round—but just barely. A couple of years ago, Mark and Helen Kutsher were ready to shut down after years of declining business. They got a reprieve when Yossi Zablocki, a lawyer from New Jersey, took over the place and injected much-needed capital. But the resort is still in poor shape, suffering from decades of under-investment. Many of the reviews on various travel sites are downright terrible. If Zablocki hopes to recapture the glory, he will have his work cut out for him.

I never visited Kutsher’s, but my girlfriend did. She even worked there one summer. She says Kutsher’s Tribeca doesn’t resemble the Catskills place at all. I don’t know what a modern version of Catskills décor would look like, but this ain’t it. But it’s pleasant enough, bedecked in bright blonde woods and soft banquettes. There’s a slightly over-loud, but inoffensive soundtrack that, like the décor, could be found anywhere. Should Kutsher’s fail, Chodorow could install his next gimmick with a minimum amount of retooling. Indeed, this must be the plan at any Chodorow establishment, given that they fail at around a 75 percent clip.

If you’re Jewish, you’ll recognize a lot of the menu: charoset, knishes, latkes, gefilte fish, matzo ball soup, potato kugel, chopped liver. Most of these are re-interpreted, served not quite the way you remember them. There’s no traif, but the restaurant is not kosher. Chef Mark Spangenthal adds a handful of neutral items like tuna crudo, beet and goat cheese salad, grilled duck breast, and the Creekstone Farms bone-in ribeye for two that mysteriously finds its way onto every menu in town, regardless of cuisine. These dishes are like the maroon sweater in your closet: they go with everything.

To me, this menu has a great nostalgic appeal. It remains to be seen how it will play to non-Jewish diners. There is something slightly comical when you hear an obviously non-Jewish bartender say, “I just love the kreplach.” Really?

The bread service (above left) was somewhat perfunctory, but I appreciated the soft butter. The Crispy Potato Latkes ($9; above right) with apple compote and sour cream were slightly less hearty versions of the ones I remember from childhood.

For $18, you can get the latkes topped with caviar, an absurdity that has Chodorow’s fingerprints all over it. How good can nine-dollar caviar be? For photos of this monstrosity, have a look at Gael Greene’s blog.

My girlfriend had the Matzo Ball Soup ($11; above left), which she said was terrific.

On the bartender’s recommendation, I decided to take a chance on the Gefilte Fish ($12; above right). This was a considerable risk, as the traditional version is the most vile concoction legal for human consumption: “a tan lump sitting in goo,” as Chef Spangenthal explains. The last time I tried it, I nearly gagged.

So Spangenthal set out to make a modern version that was…edible. For the usual mixture of pike, whitefish, and carp, floating in a jellied broth, he substituted sushi-grade halibut, bound with challah crumbs, beets, and horseradish. No jellied goo. He spent two months refining the dish. (There’s a longer explanation in New York.)

The good news is: he succeeded. This gefilte fish is actually enjoyable. I do wonder, though, how much appeal it’ll have for those who don’t have a nearly-inedible precursor to compare it to.

The Delicatessen ($16; left) came with three meats. Pastrami had a delicious smokey flavor (though not as good as Katz’s), but it was offset by listless veal tongue. The chopped liver was excellent.

I wasn’t able to properly enjoy the Romanian Steak ($26; right), as we had over-ordered. Whether Romanian Jews ever had steak like this is an open question. I was expecting something more like the flat strip served at Sammy’s. This version was sliced and served in a mound, topped with caramelized onions. The beef was cooked to a bright medium rare, and unlike Sammy’s, it was prime and without gristle. A mushroom knish on the side was rather dull.

We were too full for dessert; the meal ended with a packet of “Rabbi Mints” (left), the Catskills alternative to petits fours.

There are no traditional Jewish wines worth serving at such a restaurant, so the wine list here is a generic mix that could be served anywhere: once again, the Chod protects himself against failure.

The cocktails (all $12) have witty names, like “Bug Juice” and “Bungalow Bunny.” Bug Juice is better remembered in the non-alcoholic version of your youth. Try the Milton’s Mark (Maker’s Mark, sweet vermouth, maple syrup, Amargo pisco bitters).

The staff is knowledgeable about the menu and reasonably attentive. The relentless upselling for which Chodorow’s restaurants are so well known, is held mostly in check.

The dining room was about 2/3rds full by 8:00 p.m. The question for Kutsher’s Tribeca is how many of those guests will want to return. Will this be a go-to restaurant, or a gimmick to try once? The answer to that question will determine whether Kutsher’s is still on the scene a couple of years from now.

Kutsher’s Tribeca (186 Franklin St. between Greenwich & Hudson Sts, Tribeca)

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

Tiny's

I admit some initial skepticism about Tiny’s, a small Tribeca restaurant that occupies a bright pink landmarked 1810 townhouse.

There are two red flags, right out of the gate. The guys who opened it, Matt Abramcyk and his family (brother, sister, and father), are better known for nightlife spots. And New York Rangers goalie Henrkk Lundqvist is an investor: restaurants associated with famous athletes are usually terrible.

Tiny’s defies the odds: I’ve visited twice, and loved it both times. This is rustic American bistro food, not especially complicated, but really well prepared. Defying the axiom that dinner these days is bound to cost $100 whether you like it or not, Tiny’s is reasonable, with appetizers between $10–13 and entrées $20–25. It’s a focused menu too, with just seven of the former and five of the latter, although at the bar various snacks and burgers are available too.

Dinner begins with warm bread that is simple but beguiling, with soft, spreadable butter—which I mention only because so many restaurants can’t manage this basic convenience.

Grilled chicken ($20; below left) might be the best chicken dish I’ve had this year: juicy and full of flavor, with a smokey crust on the skin and a hearty warm vegetable salad underneath.

Hake ($22; above right) was a shade less memorable, but nicely done, with a salad of artichokes and radishes under a white bean purée.

Both my visits were fairly early on weekday evenings. It was not crowded, and I was seated immediately. But on a Saturday evening at 8:00 p.m. I was turned away, and another day at around 10:00 p.m. there seemed to be a large crowd gathered outside. These are nightlife operators, after all.

A number of message board reviews mentioned poor service, but I was treated well on both visits. The décor is a similar drab chic that the same team nailed at Smith & Mills, a smaller and less accomplished restaurant. With exposed brick, metal chairs, and a pressed tin ceiling, I suspect it could get loud in here when full. But for an early dinner it’s delightful.

Tiny’s (135 West Broadway between Duane & Thomas Streets, Tribeca)

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

Brushstroke

Restaurant openings are notoriously prone to delay, but the wait for David Bouley’s Brushstroke was epic. Announced in October 2007, it didn’t appear until April of this year. Plans to take over the old Delphi space were scuttled: the restaurant now occupies what was Secession, and before that Danube—all Bouley productions.

The restaurant format is a hybrid. In the dining room, where we sat, there is a choice of three fixed-price kaiseki menus. At the counter, there’s a sushi menu, or you can order many of the kaiseki dishes à la carte.

The menu format is a bit clunky. You’re presented with the choice of an eight-course Vegetarian menu ($85) or a ten-course meat and fish menu ($135), but the longer menu can become a shorter one: the server explains what is omitted if you choose that option. After a while, you grow tired of overhearing the server repeat his explanation at one table after another.

You make your choice, the food starts coming, and all objections fall to the ground. Brushstroke is wonderful. We ordered the longer menu, and it was too much food. The eight-course menu should satisfy all but the most ravenous appetites.

This is no casual production. Bouley claims to have worked on the concept for a decade, and to have tried thousands of recipes in his test kitchen. His chef, Yoshiki Tsuji, runs an acclaimed culinary school in Osaka, Japan. There seem to be as many cooks in the enormous open kitchen and servers in the dining room as there are customers in the restaurant.

As the kaiseki style demands, there is a dazzling array of serving pieces, which are as artful as the food itself. I didn’t take notes: sometimes, I’m glad to be an amateur blogger who can enjoy the meal and not worry about remembering the details of every dish. You’ll have to make do with the photos, descriptions from the menu (the restaurant emailed me a copy, after I asked twice), and some bare-bones recollections.

Seasonal appetizers (above left) rested in a bowl partly concealed by an autumn-themed twig sculpture. Next came a luscious Kabocha Squash Soup (above right) with maitake mushrooms, walnuts, and pumpkin seeds.

The sushi (above left) was a tad underwhelming, but we loved the steamed Chawan-mushi (above right), an egg custard with black truffle sauce.

After sashimi (above left) came another highlight, an onion puré and kanten gelée floating in a beet-vinegar foam (above right).

For the first entrée, we both chose the Grilled Cape Cod Lobster and Lobster–Scallop Dumpling (above left) with an Edamame Purée and Cherrystone Clam Sauce, a terrific dish.

For the second entrée, my girlfriend chose the Wagyu Beef and Autumn Vegetable Sukiyaki (above right), while I chose the Yuzu-kosho Pepper Marinated Pork Belly (below left) with Malanga Yam Purée and Ponzu Sauce.

There is a choice of four rice dishes to end the meal. I had the Stewed Wagyu Beef over Rice (above right), which I was quite sorry not to be able to finish. My girlfriend had the Crab and Mushrooms Steamed with Rice in a Do-nabe Pot (below left), also excellent.

There were three pretty good desserts (above right and below), but I didn’t take note of them: sorry. We were by this time too full to appreciate them properly.

The meal ends with a refreshing cup of green tea (below).

The wine list has many pages of sakes and western wines, not inexpensive, but not out of whack with the cost of the meal. A 2006 Lucien Crochet Sancerre pinot noir, at $72, was about two times retail, a fair price.

The faux-Klimmt décor of Danube and Secession, one of the city’s gems, is alas no more. But they certainly have not stinted on the design of Brushstroke, a riot of blond wood and under-stated elegance.

You can understand why people are reluctant to open anything ambitious in New York. The city’s two most influential critics, Sam Sifton and Adam Platt, both gave it two stars, the same rating they’d give some random pasta joint. Count on the Post’s Steve Cuozzo to get it right: three stars.

Like any David Bouley production, there are some missteps. The only website for Brushtroke is David Bouley’s corporate site, which is tagged with the watermark, “Site in Development.” Want to look at a menu or download a wine list? Fuhgeddaboudit. This is really inexcusable. The place has been open for six months!

And as I mentioned, the menu format is somewhat confusing. Without looking up critics’ reviews, it isn’t even clear that a sushi and à la carte menu is available at the counter. Despite these missteps, the dining room is filling up routinely. Even a Wednesday evening had to be booked a month in advance.

It is well worth the effort.

Brushstroke (30 Hudson Street at Duane Street, TriBeCa)

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

Feast of the Seven Fishes at Stuzzicheria

Stuzzicheria, the Italian small-plates restaurant in Tribeca, offered the Christmas season’s cheapest Feast of the Seven Fishes, at $49.

It turned out to be an even better bargain than I expected, because the restaurant put out only one serving for my son and me to share, whereas I was fully expecting to pay $49 each. With bread (below left) and a shared dessert, the whole bill was just $70.25 before tax and tip.

A copy of the menu is shown above; click on the image for a larger version. Strangely, the dishes were not served in the order stated. The food was unremarkable: a good home cook could do about as well, although not without slaving in the kitchen all day. This took about an hour.

1. Crostino: Marinated white anchovy & fresh mozzarella (above left)

2. Insalata di Calamari: celery, lemon & red chili (above right)

3. Vongole: baked Little Neck clams oreganata style (above left)

4. Agro Dolce: sweet & sour fried flounder (above right), probably the most enjoyable dish

5. Bacala Casserole: potato, cippolini onions & tomato (above left)

6. Gamberetti: grilled prawns [sic] scampi style (above right). Despite the description, you can see that it is only one prawn.

7. Sardina: grilled sardine, fennel, pinoli & raisins.

Dessert, beignets with (if I recall correctly) almond ice cream (above right) was very good.

Everything but the dessert and the flounder was frankly forgettable, and a couple of the dishes (the prawn, the sardine) weren’t really well designed for sharing. My son wasn’t fond of these dishes, but he put up with them gamely.

My feeling about this place, as it was when I visited in September, is that the flavors and the ambition are distinctly timid. The service wasn’t bad, allowing for the price point. The restaurant was a bit over half full on Christmas Eve.

Stuzzicheria (305 Church Street at Walker Street, Tribeca)

Industria Argentina

Note: Industria Argentina has closed, as of February 2012. The space is now Telepan Local.

*

I remembered Industria Argentina as a pretty good Tribeca standby. I gave it two stars in 2006 (I was grading easier then), and bumped it down to 1½ stars in 2007.

The restaurant has continued to decline, or maybe I just got lucky with my previous entrées here—osso buco and suckling pig—neither of which is still on the menu. Bread service (below), warm on my last visit, was room temperature this time, though the house-made butter is still good.

To start, we chose a pair of sausages (above), among five offered, the hot & spicy and the lamb sausage. There was nothing wrong with them, but does that look like $19 worth of sausage to you? It doesn’t to me.

Ribeye steak ($28; above left) was tough and stringy, though the fries were good. You don’t expect aged prime at this price, but there is no point in serving sub-standard product. I take the server’s word for it that our other entrée was indeed the 14-day dry-aged short ribs ($25; above right), but they neither looked nor tasted like short ribs, and they didn’t taste dry-aged either. A skirt steak you’d get in a diner is more like it.

Industria Argentina still looks good, but it didn’t have much patronage on a Friday evening. In a neighborhood with plenty of dining options, it hasn’t attracted much of a following. I can see why. At $115 before tax and tip (including a $43 bottle of wine), it’s no bargain.

Industria Argentina (329 Greenwich Street between Duane & Jay Streets, Tribeca)

Food: Fair
Service: Fine
Ambiance: Good
Overall: Fair

Weather Up Tribeca

Weather Up Tribeca is the second branch of a popular Prospect Heights cocktail lounge, named for owner Kathryn Weatherup. Like many of its breathren, it occupies an unmarked storefront: I walked right by it, and onto the next block, before realizing I’d gone too far.

The attractive space is dark and deep, with plenty of booth and bar seating, and a high ceiling covered in subway tile. It has “date place” written all over it. But my initially favorable impression quickly turned to dismay, when I sat down on one of the bar stools, which are permanently attached to the floor. I was left with the choice of sitting straight up, with the bar an uncomfortable distance away; or bending over uncomfortably, so that I could lean on the counter top.

There’s faux elegance, with your bill being presented handwritten on a business card, and the credit card slip returned in a pre-printed envelope. But a place trying so hard to be upscale ought to have a coat rack. There are hooks underneath the bar, which left my long winter coat dragging on the floor.

The cocktail list (photo here) is too short, with just six choices listed. This compares unfavorably to places like Please Don’t Tell, Death & Co., and Pegu Club, with lists that go on for multiple pages. I suppose they are encouraging you to go off-list, but the busy trainee bartenders did not inspire much faith.

I had the White Horse (Scotch Whisky, Ginger Syrup, Lemon, Orange Juice, and Bitters) and the Quaker (Rye Whisky, Cognac, Grenadine, Lemon Juice), both $14. I would have stayed for more if the bar seating weren’t so damned awkward.

There’s a $6,000 ice machine in the basement:

According to Mr. Boccato, it produces two 300-pound blocks of crystal clear ice every three to four days through a slow-freezing cycle. A pump mounted inside the machine’s cabinets circulates the water, thus preventing impurities from freezing into the block, and as well as the formation of troublesome oxygen bubbles and striations which make carving difficult.

“Essentially this ice freezes in the same fashion as natural ice freezes in a lake — from the bottom up,” Mr. Boccato said. “Once the cycle is finished, excess water and impurities are removed from the top of the block prior to harvesting by use of a common wet and dry vacuum. The blocks are then broken down to suit our needs.”

I asked about food, and was told the menu is limited to caviar and oysters—an awfully limited set of choices. The Times reported that french fries are served, but the “chef” told Eater.com that there are no fries, because the kitchen doesn’t have the equipment for making them.

The ice gimmick aside, Weather Up Tribeca is a disappointment.

Weather Up Tribeca (159 Duane St. between Hudson St. & West Broadway, Tribeca

Mehtaphor

Mehtaphor is one of those restaurants that manages to be endearing, despite its odd annoyances. I’ll get to those in a moment, but let’s focus on the positive.

Jehangir Mehta is a former pastry chef who has worked at Jean Georges, Mercer Kitchen, and about a dozen other places. Three years ago, he oppened Graffiti in the East Village, a quirky little Asian Fusian restaurant that earned a steady following in a space described as “lilliputian” and “comically small.”

As one message board poster put it:

I never went to Grafitti because the size made it awkward for me.

If I went alone, I didn’t want to sit at a table with other people.

And if I went with a date, I CERTAINLY didn’t want to sit at a table with other people.

At Mehtaphor, the chef has room to breathe. Yes, there’s a long communal table, but there is also a bar, and there are two-tops, and four-tops. It is still a small restaurant, but no longer comically so.

What is comical is the service, clearly with an over-abundance of students who have never worked in restaurants before. One will open and pour the bottle of wine you just ordered, and then ask if you’d like a martini. Another will try to clear a teeter-tottering pile of plates and silverware, and then drop stuff.

Most of the menus have burn marks and grease stains on them. Yet, when I tried to take one home, the hostess begged me not to: “We are running out, and the printer has no ink.” Finally, she found one with three burn marks that she decided the restaurant could part with.

The food is inexpensive, although priced a shade higher than at Graffiti. It’s mostly good, in a quirky way, without duplicating dishes you’ve seen in a hundred other places. The menu is a model of austere simplicity, with categories captioned “$ NINE” (three items), “$ TWELVE” (three), “$ SEVENTEEN” (six), and “$ SEVEN” (eight).

Except for the last category, which are clearly desserts, the line between appetizers and entrées is blurry. Everything is served family style, and plates are not replaced until you ask them to. The server suggested that four plates would be about right for two people (which it was).

Our first two dishes showed off the chef’s talent for mixing sweet and savory. A fine Beef Tartare ($12; above left) was enhanced by a guacamole sorbet. Shaved Foie Gras ($12; above right) was served with a raspberry compote. The walnut salad that came with the foie gras was pedestrian, and we couldn’t fathom the logic of serving three slices of toast: two or four would make much more sense.

We loved the Goat Cheese Crab Pizza ($12; above left), made with a light pastry crust. A Chili Ribeye ($17; above right) was not bad for the price.

You’d expect an ex-pastry chef to get the desserts right. A Hazelnut Soufflé ($7; above left) was excellent, but a tiny scoop of vanilla rum raisin ice cream seems a bit stingy. Unbidden, the kitchen sent out a second scoop.

The wine list is a lot like the menu: there are just two categories: “$ THIRTY” and “$ FORTY-FIVE” with a total of eleven choices, all available by the glass as well ($9/12). The 2007 Beckmen Vinyards Grenache ($45) was the only bottle younger than 2008, but it was certainly drinkable.

The restaurant is in the Duane Street Hotel, one of many boutiques that have sprung up in the area. The hotel has been around for three years; it previously had another restaurant, Beca, that attracted no critical attention. Mehtaphor, I think it is obvious, hopes to pull in more than just hotel guests, and at least when we were there, it had clearly succeeded.

Despite a few service oddities, dinner for two was just $136, including tax and tip. Anytime a restaurant can do that, and serve food as enjoyable as Mehtaphor does, I am happy to endorse it.

Mehtaphor (130 Duane Street at Church Street in the Duane Street Hotel, Tribeca)

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

Stuzzicheria

Note: Click here for a later visit, when we had the Feast of the Seven Fishes.

*

In a poor economy, restaurateurs are opening second branches of concepts that have already proved successful across town—this being a much safer bet, as consumers seek comfort in names they already know.

Thus it is, that the modestly successful Bar Stuzzichini in the Flatiron District, begat Stuzzicheria in Tribeca, which opened about a month ago at the corner of Church and Walker Streets. The space has tall picture windows on two sides, offering a panoramic view of . . . the old AT&T building.

The new place is considerably smaller than Bar Stuzzichini, and so is the menu. It features only about half as many of the small plates, or stuzzichini, as its predecessor. (There’s also a handful of salads, pastas, entrées, and so forth.) I sampled four of the stuzzichini, on two different visits. They are well made, but the chef offers only the safest choices—minor tweaks on very familiar items.

 

The Pane Panelle Sliders ($10; above left) were the most intriguing item I tried. Made with Sicilian chickpea fritters, ricotta, and caciocavella, on warm brioche rolls, they exceed expectations, even without meat. Bufala Mozzarella ($6; above right), imported from Naples, comes with just a touch of olive oil, but it’s served colder than I’d like (or am used to).

 

Salume Finochietta ($7; above left), or dried pork & fennel sausage, has a nice spicy tang, but you can find the same in many an Italian restaurant. So too the Polpette Pomodoro ($7; above right), a hearty meatball dish.

Wine is served by the quartino, at about the price ($11–16) many places would charge for just one glass. I was pleased to enjoy again the same Montepulciano d’Abruzzo Riserva we had at Bar Stuzzichini last year.

Right now, the menu has the distinct feel of a work in progress, of a chef unwilling to take chances. The space could also work as a wine bar, although the selection would need to be much broader than it is now. Stuzzicheria is not bad for what it is, but you’d like to see the chef take a few culinary risks.

Stuzzicheria (305 Church Street at Walker Street, Tribeca)