RedFarm (Upper West Side)

The RedFarm guys have been busy. In the last six months, they’ve renovated their original location in the West Village, run a pop-up steakhouse in the basement, opened a cocktail bar (soon-to-be Peking Duck place), and expanded the franchise to the Upper West Side. A Williamsburg expansion is on the way.

RedFarm UWS (in the old Fatty Crab space) looks just like the flagship, with its exposed barnyard wood, red-and-white checkered upholstery, and digital toilets in the loo. It’s twice the size.

It’s also just as crowded. There was a 20-minute wait at 9:00pm on a Sunday evening, when most Upper West Side restaurants are starting to slow down. Call me old-fashioned, but when you have 82 seats, I think you could take reservations. I predict they eventually will, when the hype dies down. But you have to give the team credit for recognizing that a “downtown restaurant” would work uptown without changing a thing. RedFarm UWS is a hit.

You have to worry if quality will suffer, as chef Joe Ng’s attention is divided across multiple properties. Some of the food didn’t seem quite as carefully prepared as I recall at the original RedFarm. But it is still one of the most original Chinese menus in town, and to the extent I can tell from one visit, very much worth repeated visits.

Click to read more ...

Cafe Tallulah

I’ve never built or run a restaurant, but I’m gonna go out on a limb, and give some advice: don’t tell the press that you’re building a new Balthazar or Elaine’s. Those two places are too iconic – too legendary –to be copied. The attempt is bound to seem pale by comparison.

That’s exactly what Greg Hunt, owner of Cafe Tallulah on the Upper West Side, did. Florence Fabricant of The Times duly reported it. Hunt hired Roxanne Spruance, a sous chef from Blue Hill Stone Barns (and previously WD~50) to run the kitchen. An Employees Only alumnus was in charge of the cocktails. With that background, the critics were sure to turn up, right?

Except: five weeks later, Spruance was gone, replaced by one Patrick Farrell, who promptly got slammed by The Post’s Steve Cuozzo. According to the folks at Immaculate Infatuation, the place is now on its third chef in ten months.

Click to read more ...

Per Se: Luxury Cars and Four Stars

After a deeply enjoyable lunch at Per Se recently, I started thinking about what it means to be a four-star restaurant.

I

Most of us can’t afford a Rolls Royce, a Jaguar, or a Maserati. Yet, most of us respect those cars. They captivate us. If offered a free ride in a Rolls, wouldn’t we all jump at the chance?

Not so with four-star restaurants. There’s a large sub-culture that finds these bastions of luxury actively worse — who wouldn’t care to visit them, even if they were free, and who certainly don’t find the stratospheric sticker prices remotely worthwhile.

Luxury restaurants coddle you. Some diners are stubbornly resistant to coddling. It’s not just that they’re willing to pay less, in exchange for the same food with worse service. They actually prefer it that way. Frank Bruni captured the ethos of the new generation in his first review of Momofuku Ssäm Bar:

Ssam Bar answers the desires of a generation of savvy, adventurous diners with little appetite for starchy rituals and stratospheric prices.

They want great food, but they want it to feel more accessible, less effete.

These comments captured the false dichotomy. If you don’t join them, you’re un-savvy and effete. Good service is a “starchy ritual,” a religious ceremony repeated endlessly for no logical purpose.

Click to read more ...

Andanada 141

If at first you don’t succeed…you know how the saying goes.

Andanada 141 is the third attempt to create a destination Spanish restaurant at a particularly cursed address, following on the heels of Graffit and Gastroarte. The graffiti-inspired décor remains largely intact, despite the new name, which refers to the top tier of seats at a bullfighting ring.

Chef Jesús Núñez, the chef behind the first two attempts, is gone. Replacing him is Manuel Berganza, who earned two Michelin stars at two different Madrid restaurants. You’d think those chops would be worth at least a look, but after seven months, the Daily News has supplied the only pro review, awarding four stars out of five.

I guess modern Spanish cuisine is a tough sell in this neighborhood. On a Friday evening, before the ballet, the restaurant was not half full. That’s a pity. Andanada 141 is the best of the three Spanish restaurants that have tried to make a go of it in this space.

The cuisine is more conservative than Jesús Núñez’s sometimes baffling creations—which we mostly liked, but not everyone did. We had time to try only a few items. I look forward to trying a lot more.

The menu offers tapas in a wide price range ($6–25), entrées ($28–32), paellas ($24–25 per person, minimum two guests), and desserts ($9).

 

In Pulpo a la Gallega ($16; above left), tender chunks of octopus were in a potato purée, seasoned with olive oil and pimienton de vera, or what tasted to us like chives and paprika. This was one of the best appetizers we’e had all year, rich and satisfying.

We were also fond of the Migas al Pastor ($13; above right), a crockpot of chistorra (Basque sausage) with breadcrumbs and grapes, topped with a poached egg. Good as it was, it would have made a far better impression had it not been served at the same time as our entrée, the paella, which deserved the stage all to itself.

Four paellas are offered: seafood, meat, vegetarian, and mixed. The carne ($25; above), which we ordered, was one of the best paellas I’ve had in a while, a happy brew of pork belly, rabbit, chicken, carrots, chorizo, red peppers, and yellow rice. For one week only, the restaurant was offering a free pitcher of sangria (very good) to go with the paella, so we didn’t explore the wine list. That’ll be for next time.

We dined at the bar, where it was sometimes a challenge to get the server’s attention, despite the restaurant not being full. That, coupled with the late delivery of our second tapa, took the edge slightly off what was otherwise an excellent showing. It’ll take a few more visits to establish if Andanada 141 lives up to the promise of the three dishes we tried. We are certainly looking forward to it.

Andanada 141 (141 W. 69th Street, east of Broadway, Upper West Side)

Food: Modern Spanish, but fairly conservative, and very well prepared
Service: Earnest and friendly, but needs polishing
Ambaince: A comfortable UWS townhouse, artfully decorated

Rating: ★★

Nougatine

Nougatine is the casual front room at Jean-Georges, the analogue of such companion places as the Bar & Lounge at Daniel, the Lounge at Le Bernardin, the Bar Room at The Modern, or the Salon at Per Se.

These companion rooms vary widely: some are separately reservable, others are not. Some are far more casual than the multi-star restaurants they’re attached to; others don’t vary much at all. Some serve a completely different menu; others serve an à la carte version of the main dining room menu.

Nougatine is separately reservable, has a completely different menu, and is much more casual than its four-star companion. Of course, the word casual must be taken in perspective, on a menu where a $19 cheesburger shares the stage with $72 Dover sole. Most of the entrées, though, are in the $24–38 range that defines New York’s “upper middle,” while appetizers range from $12–23.

The space, originally a lounge for the adjoing Trump International Hotel, was long an afterthought, seldom professionally reviewed. Nougatine received its first New York Times review in late 2012 (Pete Wells, two stars), a mere fifteen years after the flagship next door received four stars from Ruth Reichl right out of the gate.

Click to read more ...

The Smith (Lincoln Center)

When The Smith opened in the East Village in 2007, I never imagined it would become a mini-chain. It seemed to us, at the time, an average neighborhood spot and NYU student cafeteria. But a Smith clone opened in East Midtown in late 2011, and a year later across from Lincoln Center, in the old Josephina space. I’m sure it’s not the last one.

The concept here is similar to the East Village: a boistrous, casual space, with subway tile walls and leaded glass windows. It looks like Keith McNally could have designed it, right down to the communal washrooms outside the loo. They take reservations, and the hostess checks coats, which I don’t remember them doing downtown.

menus are similar, but most of the entrées uptown are a couple of dollars more, and at Lincoln Center they serve some extra items: a $75 porterhouse for two, a raw bar. But the core of the menu is the same, and one of the best items, a burger, is $15 at either establishment.

 

Trout Milanese ($25; above right) is an appealing entrée, served breaded in a mustard crust on a bed of lentils. I didn’t really taste the bacon or pear compote alleged to be in the dish, but it was fine for what it was. I would have liked a bit more kick from the mustard. My girlfriend loved the lobster roll ($29; above left; served only on Fridays), which comes with irresistible house-made chips, as it did when we had it in the East Village two years ago.

There are about fifteen well-thought-out cocktails ($13), and about two dozen over-priced wines by the bottle. But there’s another twenty wines by the glass, caraffe, or large caraffe. These are the way to go. We had the Pinotage ($25, the caraffe), which was the right amount of alcohol before an opera. Bur really, are they that hard up that they can only afford juice glasses to serve it in? C’mon guys!

I’d forgotten how much space there was at Josephina, the restaurant that was here before. The front room would make for a good size restaurant all by itself, but you pass through a corridor and there’s another dining room in back, which is a bit more sedate. This was pre-show, so the crowd was all ages—unlike downtown, which skews young. They did a brisk business, but weren’t full. The noise level was energetic, but not punishing.

My impression here was a bit more favorable than our visit to the original Smith two years ago. Downtown, there’s many more restaurants to charm you. The Lincoln Center scene has improved, but it’s no East Village. There isn’t really any other good spot quite like this one, serving elevated pub food, and doing it pretty well. We’ll be back.

The Smith (1900 Broadway between 63rd & 64th Streets, Upper West Side)

Food: Elevated American pub food
Service: Good for this sort of place
Ambiance: McNally Lite

Rating: ★
Why? Lincoln Center needed a restaurant like this 

Salumeria Rosi (Upper West Side)

Note: Cesare Casella sold both Salumeria Rosi restaurants in October 2015. They remain open, but without his involvement.

*

I don’t know if it was luck or prescience, but when chef Cesare Casella opened Salumeria Rosi four years ago, his sense of the moment was pitch-perfect.

Casella copied a number of then-popular trends: the restaurant that doubles as a market; casual, tapas-style dining; and plates delivered randomly, “as and when they’re ready.” Those trends feel less worn-out here than they do at many other places.

In its early days, Salumeria Rosi often wasn’t available at the times we wanted to go (mainly pre-Lincoln Center). It dropped down, and then completely off our radar.

I’ve only lately noticed open tables at times I wanted to go. The recent opening of a new, considerably more upscale Salumeria Rosi on the Upper East Side, reignited my interest in the original spot.

The restaurant is a peculiar partnership with an Italian meat company called Parmacotto, operated by the Rosi family in Parma: hence, its full name, used by almost no one: Salumeria Rosi Parmacotto. It’s technically a chain, with outposts in Parma and Paris, but as far as I know, the cuisine here is entirely Casella’s.

The small-plates format often lends itself to over-ordering. You depend on the server to advise how much is enough, and they err to excess. That wasn’t the case here: the server suggested that we start with five items, which was exactly right for us; diners with larger appetites would probably need more.

The menu includes a large selection of cheeses ($6–8; selection $15), cured meets ($5–9; selections $17 or $26), salads and cooked items ($7–17), and desserts ($8). Just about all of it is available for take-out. If your table faces the market counter, you’ll see a steady stream of Upper West Siders all evening long, who buy meats and cheeses to carry home.

The wine list offers about fifty bottles (about 15–20 by the glass), many under $50, including the 2006 Negroamaro Vereto ($45; above right). I’ll leave the formal evaluation to others, but as far as price goes, this is the sort of wine list this restaurant should have.

 

After bread service (decent but nothing special), we started with Mortadella ($5; above right), a luscious pork sausage dappled with pork fat.

 

Insalata Misti ($9; above left) was routine, a phoned-in salad. Polpette (12; above right), were excellent. You know a restaurant is committed to a dish when it comes on a serving plate that couldn’t be used for anything else—here, plate shaped like a pair of goggles with a separate bowl for each meatball.

 

Farroto ($15; above left) — a risotto-like dish made with farro — was also very good, but the best dish of the evening was Pork Belly ($14; above right), with beautifully crisped skin and pork cracklings. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it with corn and spinach, an inspired pairing.

The Times never gave Salumeria Rosi a full review. In a dining brief, Frank Bruni praised the imported meats and cheeses, but found the space “cramped” and “[not] especially charming.” I suspect he might have a different view today: compared to other Italian market–restaurant places like Eataly and Il Buco Alimentari e Vineria, Salumeria Rosi is practically serene.

Still, it isn’t the spot for a leisurely or romantic meal. When you confirm your reservation, you’ll be told that there’s a 90-minute time limit on tables (a policy in place since early 2010). The restaurant lives up to its end of the bargain, sending out plates at a brisk pace.

One advantage of the kitchen’s speed, is that you needn’t decide up-front how much food you want to eat: start small and order more later if you need to (we didn’t). Still, there is a “wham-bam-thank you ma’am” feeling about dining here. It was fine for a pre-opera dinner, but if you want to linger, you should dine elsewhere.

The small dining room seats about 30. In good weather, there is also an outdoor café.

Salumeria Rosi (283 Amsterdam Avenue at 73rd Street, Upper West Side)

Food: Modern Italian, salumi, and cheeses, served tapas-style
Service: Friendly but very fast; perhaps too fast
Ambiance: A restaurant inside a market

Rating: ★
Why? Very good, clever Italian cuisine; some of the best salumi in town

The Purple Fig

Note: After a brief late-summer closure in late August 2012, the Purple Fig re-opened in September with a “more simple” menu. We liked our visit (when the original menu was still available), but the consensus of most other reviewers was negative.

By December 2012, the space had reverted back to its former name, P. D. O’Hurley’s. That experiement lasted less than three months, before the restaurant was seized by the marshall, presumably for non-payment of taxes. The space was closed as of June 2013, but the 70-year-old Emerald Inn is expected to relocate there.

*

You’ve got to give credit to the team behind The Purple Fig, the cute new French bistro on the Upper West Side. Nothing they’re serving, nor the style in which they are serving it, is remotely fashionable. So they’ve opened this new restaurant for the best possible reason: because they believe in it.

But one must ask where the customers will come from. It’s too fancy to bring the kids, not quite good enough to be a destination, not edgy enough to attract a younger crowd, a tad too far from Lincoln Center to be an obvious pre-theater place, and too expensive to be a neighborhood standby.

After you subtract all the potential guests I’ve just excluded, are there enough remaining to make a go of it? I hope so. The Purple Fig, though not yet great, is promising. In a town where new French restaurants are scarce, you want to root for every one.

Prices, for this location, are a bit dear, with appetizers $9.95–20.95, entrées $23.95–36.95, and side dishes $5.95. Every price ends in “.95,” an outdated and unendearing conceit.

The chef, Conrad Gallagher, was last seen in New York at the now-closed Peacock Alley. A rendition of the Purple Fig in Dublin won him a Michelin star.

Calling it a “modern bistro,” he serves an eccentric menu, with concoctions like: Deep Fried Soft Duck Egg with Polenta, Soft Blood Pudding, Frisée Salad with Prosciutto, Lemon Oil Emulsion.

That’s just one dish. Most others feature similar long lists of ingredients. And you wonder: How’s that going to work?

One might begin with that old standby, the “Goats [sic] Cheese Salad,” served here with wild rocket, confit tomatoes, toasted garlic, pumpkin seeds and marinated figs ($9.95; above right).

Here, the goat cheese sits atop a tiny puff pastry, instead of being integrated into the salad. I don’t consider that an improvement, though I must report: my girlfriend loved the dish.

 

I much admired a Goose Liver Parfait ($12.95; above left), with fig marmalade, spinach salad, apricot compote, and hazelnut aioli, served with perhaps the best brioche I’ve ever been served with this type of dish (above right), so thick and hearty it could have been French toast.

 

My girlfriend and I had the same entrée, the Roasted Muscovy Duck Breast ($26.95; above left), with poached figs, butternut purée, lentils, a quail egg, and green apple salad. She liked it far better than I did. The duck was fine enough, but the lentils tasted bitter, and the dish felt like a pile of unintegrated ingredients. I wasn’t fond (and have never been fond) of the blob of baby food shaped like the point of a spear.

The chef has a fondness for figs: quite inadvertently, they figured in all three dishes we ordered. I guess the place has “fig” in the name for a reason.

The kitchen sent out a plate of the French Fries with Truffle Aioli (normally $5.95; above right). I assumed they came with the duck or were comped, until they appeared on the bill—removed, in all fairness, after I pointed out the error. I’m glad I didn’t pay for them, as they were soggy and not warm enough.

The wine list, as at many new restaurants, doesn’t have much personality. Running to just a page, it’s a list of safe, unremarkable bottles, with no geographic or thematic unity. It isn’t even majority-French. I suspect a consultant put it together.

The space is smartly decorated, in a purple motif that isn’t at all obtrusive, but with its white tablecloths and dim lighting, the space feels fancier than it needs to be. The dining room was about half full on a Friday evening. A handsome long bar wasn’t occupied at all.

Some early message board reports complained about the service, but two months in those issues have been rectified. The staff (most speak with French accents) now seem on top of their game. Aside from the one dish billed in error, we had no complaints. The restaurant is a work in progress, but good enough to be worth a second visit a few months from now.

The Purple Fig (250 W. 72nd St., west of Broadway, Upper West Side)

Food: Modern “eccentric” French
Wine: A generic unfocused list; adequate, but could be better
Service: Mostly very good
Ambiance: An upscale spot that feels fancier than it needs to be

Rating: ★
Why? Not destination cuisine, but worth keeping an eye on

Nice Matin

 

Nice Matin is one of the more puzzling restaurants in New York. It pairs one of the city’s most pedestrian and uninspired menus with one of its most remarkable wine lists.

It was not always thus. In 2003, William Grimes of The Times awarded two stars, praising the Provençal/Niçoise cuisine, while noting that the 140-bottle wine list poorly represented the South of France.

But by 2011, Eric Asimov reported that the wine cellar had swelled to 2,000 bottles, “with perhaps the best list of Bandols and Provençal wines in New York.” The leather-bound wine list is 55 pages. There cannot be more than a couple of dozen restaurants in NYC with such a list; they would almost all be three-star places considerably more expensive than Nice Matin.

It was the wine list that brought me back here, as my dinner in 2005 was so disappointing that I had vowed never to return. Since then the owner, Simon Oren, acquired the substantial cellars of two luxury restaurants that closed, Chanterelle and Country, and he continues to buy at auction where he can.

Nice Matin is the flagship of a network of undistinguished French bistros, the Culinary Tour of France. (Simon Oren also owns the SushiSamba and 5 Napkin Burger chains.) His partner is chef Andy d’Amico, who once earned three stars at Sign of the Dove.

It is difficult to comprehend why Mr. Oren has made such a substantial investment in the wine list, while Mr. d’Amico allows the food to languish. Unlike my meal in 2005, the food this time was at least competently prepared. There were no fireworks on the plate, but no disasters either. I’d have no objection to dining here again.

But the menus are dog-eared and torn; they are obviously not revised very often, except for inflation. Now, I’ve no objection to the French classics—I love them—but the cuisine of southern France has much more to it than the same list of fifteen entrées, year after year, unchanged with the seasons. Put more life in the menu, and Nice Matin could really be something.

I’ve no objection to the prices, either: nothing is more expensive than Steak Frites, at $27.50. Most of the entrées hover around $20, most of the starters around $11. A prix fixe, with limited choices, is $35. Obviously, the quality of the ingredients is limited at these prices.

And there is some carelessness. Fresh bread (above left) comes with butter drizzled in olive oil, a nice touch, but the butter is ice cold.

 

The food, as I said, is worthy of neither praise nor complaint. It was fine. I liked the Escargot ($9.75; above left) a tad better than the Mushroom Tart ($11.75; above right).

 

Both Salmon ($21.50; above left) and Chicken under a Brick ($19.75; above right) are ample portions at practically diner prices. The chicken was quite good, but it was undermined by a pedestrian ragout of couscous, root vegetables, apples, pumpkin seeds, dried cranberries, and herbs.

The casual décor, if not exactly authentic, is attractive and even romantic if you get the right table (we had the booth in the corner). But tables are crammed together, extracting maximum use from every inch of space that the law allows. Grimes complained that it can get noisy in here, and that is still true.

It is passing strange that you can spend $35 a head on food, and then spend hundreds on a first-growth Burgundy. We didn’t go quite that far, ordering a 1984 Santenay Gravière Premier Cru for $77. I don’t know how many places in the city would have that wine, or its equivalent, at that price (or any price), but it can’t be many.

Nice Matin is two restaurants in one, a forgettable French bistro with one of the city’s great wine lists.

Nice Matin (201 W. 79th Street at Amsterdam Avenue, Upper West Side)

Cuisine: French Mediterranean classics, adequately rendered
Wine List: One of the city’s best
Service: Casual, but fine for what it is
Ambance: A cramped but attractive dining room

Rating: ★★
Why? Because of the wine list

Geisha Table

Geisha Table, a new jewel-box izakaya on the Upper West Side, bears out the maxim that good things come in small packages.

You wouldn’t expect that from the proprietors, the Serafina Restaurant Group, who run a chain of forgettable Italian restaurants (ten outlets in New York and four other cities) and a mediocre French one, Brasserie Cognac.

Nor would you expect it if you’d visited the original Geisha on the Upper East Side, which opened in late 2003, and to which Amanda Hesser of The Times awarded one star. It was a big-box place, too crowded for its own good. Not even a former Le Bernardin sous-chef, with the Ripper himself consulting, could make it memorable. (I visited once, pre-blog.) The original Geisha is closed for now, while it readies “sleek new digs next door.”

Meanwhile, they’ve opened this adorable little izakaya, not at all in the mold of its predecessor (except that it’s still mainly Japanese). It has just 23 seats, all of them at the bar, a counter in back, or a communal table. It won’t attract the glam clientele that was the main appeal of Geisha on the East Side. The food actually matters here.

The menu features sushi, sashimi, rolls, yakitori, tempura, oysters, a few prepared entrées, and a generous listing of blackboard specials that changes frequently. Most individual items are under $15, and many are under $10; a chef’s sushi/sashimi selection is $25 or $45. It is probably better to just let the chef choose (as we did); nothing here is particularly expensive.

Disclosure: the staff recognized me, and our food bill, about $60 for two before tax and tip, was perhaps half of what one would ordinarily pay. For the alcohol we paid full freight.

 

Sweet corn tempura (above left) was as light as popcorn. This appeared to be a standard amuse bouche that went to every table. A black truffle tuna “sandwich” (above right) must have been a chef’s special—I can find no such item on the standard menu. It was one of the cleverest dishes I have had in a long while.

The chef’s choice sashimi platter had over a dozen items on it, all in pairs. We were charged just $45 for this, and I’m sure it is normally at least double that. Japanese trout (the pink fish in back), deep fried shrimp heads (on the right), and uni (in front) were the most memorable items for me, but it was all very good: one of the most varied and entertaining sashimi omakases I have had in quite a while, and certainly the best at this price.

 

We then switched to yakitori, including octopus (above left), chicken thigh (above right), and braised short rib (below left).

 

The chef finished with a deep-fried ball of pork belly (above right), which was insane.

Geisha Table is a single room, carved out of a larger space (formerly The West Branch) that is a 140 seat branch of Serafina. You can enter through the main restaurant on Broadway, or through a less conspicuous separate entrance around the corner, on W. 77th. Despite the shared management, they seem to have little in common. Reservations aren’t taken, but on entering a hostess offers immediately to check your coat, a trick the hostess in Serafina couldn’t manage.

The only drawback here is the seating: inflexible wooden stools, about eight inches in diameter. I felt a loss of circulation in my derrière about fifteen minutes into the meal. For an overweight person, it would be torture. But otherwise, Geisha Table offers a welcome escape from the city streets. It isn’t quite authentic, but in many ways it comes close. The service was wonderful, but I was recognized: you would like to think it’s the same for everyone, but I cannot say.

The executive chef here (Richard Lee) has the same title at Geisha on the East Side. It remains to be seen how he’ll cope with the dual assignment when the sister restaurant re-opens. But Geisha Table’s lilliputian proportions are a hedge against reversion to the mean. When you’re that small, it’s a lot harder to lapse into serving a mediocre product.

In some Tokyo neighborhoods, there’s an izakaya on every street corner, or at least it seems that way. In Manhattan they’re far less common, and I don’t remember finding one as good as this.

Geisha Table (2178 Broadway at 77th Street, Upper West Side)

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