Ed's Chowder House

I’ve written before about the shortage of good pre-concert dining in the Lincoln Center area. After Picholine and Bar Boulud, your options—at least the good ones—tail off considerably. This remains a mystery to me. There are 10,000 seats across the street, their occupants generally have sophisticated tastes, and they have to eat. Why aren’t there better restaurants catering to them?

Lately, Ed’s Chowder House has been my go-to pre-concert restaurant. Sam Sifton gave it zero stars in the Times, and that’s not right. Ed’s isn’t better than Picholine or Bar Boulud, but it’s good, and you can always walk in and get seated at the bar.

I wrote my last review after a visit on opening night. I won’t repeat the long history of the space: briefly, it’s a Jeffrey Chodorow restaurant, built (like most of his places) where a previous Chodorow restaurant failed. It looks like this one will last. Periodic checks on OpenTable suggest that it’s at least doing a solid pre-concert business.

The eponymous Ed Brown’s main restaurant, eighty one, has closed, so he is probably spending more time here (he is listed as the “Chef Collaborator”). That is a good thing: the man knows fish.

Blissfully, this doesn’t feel like a Chodorow place. The reasonably-priced menu doesn’t ramble, and for the most part it’s free of gimmicks. The servers don’t upsell. The host even seated me early, even though my party was incomplete, which has never happened before at a Chodorow restaurant.

I do think they should merge their bar and dining room menus. They aren’t all that much different, and as they’ll allow you to order from either one, in either room, there is little point in having two.

The bread service (above) remains terrific, as it has been each time I’ve visited.

The food I’ve tried is simple and well done, and doesn’t require much elaboration: a clam chowder ($11.50; above left), an asparagus salad ($14.00; above right). On another occasion, I had the lobster roll, which at $26 is a bit on the expensive side, but very good indeed.

The mains are either “composed” and “simple,” a slightly irritating trend that I cannot blame on Jeffrey Chodorow. But “simple” sea bass ($26; above left) was excellent, and so was a Pat La Freida burger ($17; above right) from the bar menu. The fries, however, had been seasoned with something awful, perhaps truffle oil, that basically ruined them.

The food was good, the service was good, the room is comfortable and unhurried, and they got us to our opera on time. What more could you ask from a Lincoln Center restaurant?

Ed’s Chowder House (44 W. 63rd St. btwn. Broadway & Columbus, Lincoln Center)

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

The Tangled Vine

The Tangled Vine is a cute restaurant and wine bar that opened about two months ago, about a block from the Museum of Natural History.

If the Upper West Side is always a bit risky for a new restaurant, this is the place to be, as the residential community is upscale, subway access is good, and the area has been hospitable to the right kind of destination dining.

The Tangled Vine ought to fit in well here. It’s pretty, without being fancy; intelligent, without being snooty; inexpensive without being cheap.

The focus is on Old World wines that are organic, sustainable, and/or biodynamic. I suspect there are aren’t many customers who can explain the difference between those three terms. They are explained on the menu, and even then I keep forgetting. Do patrons choose their wine bars based on that?

Fortunately, the wine list is very approachable, with dozens of bottles below $75, and plenty below $50. If you order by the glass, as I did, the pours are generous.

The Spanish-themed menu is by David Seigel, who earned one star at Mercat in 2007. Frank Bruni found the space insufferably loud, implying that the food alone might have been closer to two stars. Several dishes Bruni liked, and others resembling them, make their way onto the menu at the Tangled Vine.

The menu is dominated by cheese, crostini, and charcuterie—the kind of snacks you’d expect to order at a wine bar. There are also about a dozen larger plates, ranging from $9–23, with most under $20. Cauliflower Crostini ($6; below left) were a perfect start.

The menu offers several “trios”—generous two-ounce pours of thematically related wines with paired food. An excellent Sherry and Madeira trio ($19) came with the Chickpea crostini (above right), an addictive concoction with morcilla (blood sausage) and apricots.

The Pinot Noir trio ($21) came with a Montadito (left), or pork belly slider, here served in a pita pocket with pickled radish and garlic dijonaise. This was my favorite of the three dishes.

I came here on a publicist’s suggestion, and although I paid fully for my meal, it did seem that I got a bit more attention after I’d introduced myself. For the first half-hour, I felt a bit neglected, even though plenty of staff were on hand, and the room was nowhere near full. As it was early, perhaps they were still setting up.

When you order a single glass, most wine bars first offer a taste before a full pour. That wasn’t done here. I don’t think I have ever declined a wine, and I don’t think many customers do, but it’s a nice touch that the Tangled Vine might want to consider.

I’m not really qualified to write about the wines themselves, but I loved the sherries, and the Pinot Noir trio included a reserve Givry that normally sells for about $20 a glass that was absolutely terrific. After you’ve had that, it’s hard to move on to anything else, but after I gave them the challenge, the server recommended a smooth Montalcino that ended the evening on a strong note.

Great wine bars have sprung up all over town, so it’s hard to recommend the Tangled Vine as a destination. Personally, I think its affordable Old World theme and great Spanish tapas-style cuisine make a more compelling story than the organic spin, which you tend to forget after the first sip of a wonderful Pinot Noir.

The Tangled Vine (434 Amsterdam Avenue at 81st Street, Upper West Side)

Fatty Crab on the Upper West Side

Update: Fatty Crab on the Upper West Side closed in September 2012. A branch of RedFarm has replaced it. The West Village Fatty Crab remains open.

*

There is something deeply frustrating about chef Zak Pelaccio’s peregrinations. Fatty Crab in the West Village was a much deserved hit (our review here), but nearby Five Ninth (which he has since left) was always uneven, and Chop Suey (where he consulted) was a joke. Heaven knows how his next venture, Fatty ’Cue, will turn out.

Last year, he opened a second branch of Fatty Crab on the Upper West Side. Unlike the downtown branch, it takes reservations, and it is more than double the size (70 seats vs. 30). Fatty UWS looks a bit nicer than Fatty WV, but it’s still über-casual. We saw a few diners who, perhaps deceived by Frank Bruni’s two-star review, looked surprised by the gritty surroundings that are atypical for a purportedly serious restaurant in this neighborhood.

The servers look like college students, but fortunately they know the menu well and give good advice. The cuisine is vaguely Southeast Asian, but much of it is filtered through Pelaccio’s American perspective. In that respect, he reminds me of David Chang, who actually claims to be serving American cuisine at his Momofuku restaurants, despite the obviously Asian roots they sprang from.

The Fatty menus in both locations are similar, down to the way they are delivered—loose sheets on a clipboard. The UWS location has a few more selections, but those in common are the same price at either place. There are several categories—Snacks, Noodles/Soup/Rice, Specialties, and Vegetables—but these divisions hardly matter, as everything is served family-style, for sharing. Most items are between $10 and $20. If you order three to five dishes for two people, you’ll spend between $50–80 before beverages, tax, and tip. We ordered four dishes, and felt stuffed.

It didn’t help that the food was practically thrown at us, as if we were contestants in a speed-eating contest. As I’ve noted before, these family-style restaurants generally want to turn tables. The food comes out when the kitchen is ready, not when you’re ready. Everything we had was at least suitable for sharing—not always the case at such places—but a couple of dishes were practically impossible to eat without knives, which aren’t part of the default place setting. When we pointed this out, a server most oddly brought out just one knife.

Wanton Mee, or Wet Wanton ($17; above left), was a delicious mix of noodles with shrimp and pork dumplings. Fatty Duck ($17; above right) was a bit challenging to eat, but worth the effort.

Bacon ($15; above left) was unexpectedly spicy; Short Ribs ($25; above right) a bit bland. Actually, those short ribs were the exception: most of these dishes deliver plenty of heat.

There is a wine list, but we felt that beer would pair better with this food. We each had one, and would have had a second if it had been possible to flag down a server.

Most of the food is very good—quite a bit better, in fact, than the surroundings and the service. But this restaurant isn’t actually near anything, and it’s annoying to travel this far, only to be rushed through the meal.

Fatty Crab (2170 Broadway between 76th & 77th Streets, Upper West Side)

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

Ed's Chowder House

Note: Click here for a more recent review of Ed’s Chowder House.

A new Jeffrey Chodorow restaurant is a bit like a NASCAR race. You suspect there will be a crash. The only question is when?

You have to at least admire Chodorow’s tenacity. After failures at Mix, Rocco’s, Brasserio Caviar & Banana, Tuscan, Tuscan Steak, English is Italian, Wild Salmon, Kobe Club, and Ono, it’s amazing he has any capital left over. Or patience.

When Chodorow opened Center Cut across from Lincoln Center last year, I thought: “Here, finally, is a restaurant he can’t screw up.” Steakhouses seldom fail in New York, and this is a neighborhood that cries out for more dining options. The Lincoln Center restaurants are packed almost every night, despite the fact that very few of them are great. The area needed a place like Center Cut.

I actually liked Center Cut. I didn’t love it, but it was convenient before a show. It was also a place you could get into, and therein lay the problem. Even in a neighborhood that needed more restaurants, the crowds didn’t warm up to Center Cut: I gave plenty of reasons in my review. Once again, Chodorow had screwed up, as only he can.

Now comes Ed’s Chowder House, built on the carcass that was Center Cut. Chodorow has wisely enlisted Ed Brown of the Michelin-starred eighty one, who knows a thing or two about seafood from his thirteen-year stint at Rockefeller Center’s Sea Grill.

This isn’t a gut renovation—Center Cut’s wine wall still separates the bar and the dining room—but the space is now much brighter and livelier. It’s tough to compare a steakhouse and a seafood shack, but prices here are much lower. Center Cut had $17 cocktails (one of Chodorow’s many errors), but they top out here at $12. There are acceptable wines below $50, which Center Cut didn’t have.

The front area, where I ate, is called the “Chowder Bar.” It has its own menu that partly overlaps the dining room menu, but has a few of its own items—a burger ($15) and a lobster roll ($24), for instance. But the servers there offer you the dining room menu too, which leaves you with a lot to ponder.

Too much, in fact. This is the failing of every Chodorow restaurant I’ve visited. At Wild Salmon, even a physicist couldn’t have calculated the number of variations. Chodorow is positively restrained here, but there are still twenty-five entrées in two categories ($17–35)—half of them in a boxed-off list captioned “simply,” the other half being composed plates.

I would far prefer to see the list of the entrées that the restaurant can do really well—and I guarantee you it’s not all twenty-five of them.

The appetizer list is a bit more sensible, with ten choices ($9–16), but there are four soups ($9–15), nine sides ($6), and the obligatory raw bar. Both menus (dining room and chowder bar) have dates printed on them, which suggests they’ll be revised frequently.

Center Cut had a terrific bread service, and so does Ed’s Chowder House (above left). Among the soups are three kinds of chowder, or you can get a sampler for $12 (above right). I loved the New England clam chowder and the sweet corn chowder, but the Manhattan-style chowder tasted like Campbell’s.

A Savory Lobster Crumble ($16; above left) is listed as an appetizer, but it’s hearty enough to be a small entrée. I would be happy to eat this again. I asked a server to recommend her favorite side dish, and she suggested the Jalapeño Creamed Corn (above right), and this was also very good.

This was the first night for Ed’s Chowder House, so consider this a preliminary view. The Chod himself was in the house. Servers were more polished than I would expect at a brand new restaurant. A cocktail took a bit too long to appear, but the staff got me out in time for my 7:30 concert. There was no attempt to upsell me—a first in a Chodorow restaurant.

If this were really Ed Brown’s Chowder House, I would confidently predict success. But this is also Jeffrey Chodorow’s House, and he’s proved there’s no restaurant he can’t foul up. I’ll be rooting for this one, not for any partisan reason, but simply because it’s always good to have another option at Lincoln Center.

Ed’s Chowder House will get a repeat visit from me. I can only hope that after Ed Brown decamps uptown, the China Grill Management folks don’t screw it up.

Ed’s Chowder House (44 W. 63rd St. btwn. Broadway & Columbus, Lincoln Center)

The West Branch

Note: West Branch closed in July 2010.

Tom Valenti has made a living at giving Upper West Siders haute comfort food. Ouest was an instant hit when it opened in 2001, in what was then a culinary desert at Broadway and 83rd. Two years later, he had another hit at ’Cesca (with which he has since severed his ties). Both got two stars from the Times.

The West Branch arrived last fall, after a long gestation. The name comes from a tributary of the Delaware River, where Valenti likes to fish. Also, the restaurant is a branch of Ouest, offering similar, but simpler cuisine at a much lower price point. Here, the average entrée price is around $20, as opposed to about $30 at Ouest.

In the large space, which was formerly three separate storefronts, he has 170 seats to fill. He has divided it up smartly into several adjoining rooms, so that you don’t feel like you’re in a dining barn. The classic bistro décor is easy on the eyes. We suspect it gets noisy when full, but on Labor Day that wasn’t an issue.

Valenti might want to consider updating the website. It still consists of nothing more than a splash page that says, “Opening Summer 2008.”

The menu plays it straight, consisting almost entirely of well known classics.  With gizzards, livers and hearts on offer, you couldn’t accuse Valenti of pandering. Still, it’s not an especially creative menu—not that it needs to be. Sometimes, comfort food well done is exactly what one wants.

We can offer only a preliminary verdict on the food, as our weekend of over-eating left us with room only for entrées.

Duck Confit “choucroute” ($19; above left) was executed flawlessly, including pork sausage, thick-cut bacon, and a bed of sauerkraut. House-made pappardelle bolognese ($19; above right) was a basic dish, but just as satisfying.

The West Branch impressed in other ways, too. We loved the warm, house-made bread with soft butter. We ordered a nice French country wine for around $35, and the server circled back frequently to refill our glasses.

It may not be an “ambitious” restaurant, but on this occasion The West Branch delivered on its ambitions perfectly.

The West Branch (2178 Broadway at 77th Street, Upper West Side)

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

Jean Georges

Note: Click here for a more recent review.

Even four-star restaurants have to adapt. A couple of years ago, the dining room at Jean Georges got a make-over. I’m not the one to itemize all of the changes, as I visited the original space only once, but the space now seems brighter and yet more spare—a kind of Scandanavian economy that ensures no distractions from the food and the adjoining Central Park views.

The current recession brought another change: a $58 four-course menu that is served from 5:30–6:00 p.m. and from 10:00–11:00 p.m. (At other times, the minimum entry point is $98 for four courses.) Those might not be ideal dining hours, but it’s still the lowest available price point of any four-star restaurant, or indeed, of just about any luxury restaurant in the city. For that Jean Georges deserves to be applauded.

It was the $58 menu that brought us into Jean Georges the other night. With a $74 burgundy added to the tab, we were still out of there for $205 before tip, making this one of the better meals we’ve had for the price in quite some time.

The $58 menu offers no choices, except at dessert: you are going to get the three savory courses they’ve mapped out for you. However, it is not a bad selection at all. If I’d ordered these dishes at full price, I would not have been disappointed.

We started with a trio of amuses-bouches (above left): a swirl of pickled rhubarb on a disc of mozarella, a peekytoe crab fritter in a light mushroom sauce, and an herbal chicken broth. The crab fritter was the best of these. The chicken broth seemed like a throw-away. The appetizer (above right) was classic Vongerichten: cubes of delicate hamachi paired with Japanese cucumber.

The next two courses were superb, and at least to me, bracingly original. First was a goat cheese gnocchi with caramelized artichokes, rosemary and lemon zest (above left). I wrote in my notes: “remarkable”.

The last course was an arctic char (above right) with a rhubarb compote, ramp ravioli and olive oil foam. It had a sweet–tart contrast that Vongerichten is so well known for. The tart elements were slightly over-powering to my taste, but I give full credit to the ravioli and the fish itself, which was more tender than I thought possible.

We had our choice of any dessert on the regular menu. I chose “Caramel” (above left), while my Mom chose “Chocolate (above right). (“Rhubarb” and “Apple” were the other options.) It all seemed competent to me, but not as memorable as the savory courses.

We concluded with the usual array of petits-four, including the house-made marshmallows (left).

The service seemed more polished than it was on our last visit, but it surely helped that the dining room was not yet full. I still think that Jean Georges is a half-step behind the city’s other four-star restaurants, but this was my best meal to date in any Vongerichten establishment. I should schedule another visit while it is still possible to eat here at bargain prices.

Jean Georges (1 Central Park West at 60th Street, Upper West Side)

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

Center Cut

Note: Ka-Boom! Jeffrey Chodorow fails again: Center Cut closed in August 2009. Ed’s Chowder House, from chef Ed Brown of eighty one, replaced it.

*

I dropped in at Center Cut a couple of weeks ago for a pre-show dinner. I wasn’t feeling very hungry, so I ordered the $39 prix fixe. You choose four dishes, served in pairs on rectangular plates that look like two normal dinner plates fused together.

An heirloom tomato and mozzarella salad was very good, but so-called five-alarm chili tasted about three alarms less bold than it should be. Despite the standard advice about non-steak entrées at steakhouses, I ordered shrimp scampi, which turned out to be excellent. But a side dish of Balsamic Caramelized Cippolini Onions misfired: I gave up after a few cloying bites.

The prix fixe comes with a cookie plate as a standard dessert. The cookies looked terrific, but I was full and didn’t try them.

The bread service is wonderful—a fluffy roll the size of a large brick, served hot. The rest of the service was also very good—a significant improvement over my last visit. The only Chodorow Moment® was the attempt to upsell a Wagyu steak for $10 more.

There have been some menu tweaks. The “Flintstone Ribs” I had last time are no longer available. So too the Glazed Korean Short Ribs that Gael Greene had. Those, unfortunately, were two of the more interesting items on the original menu.

Business was much more brisk than I expected. Center Cut isn’t selling out, but I suspect they’re more than covering the rent.

Center Cut (44. W. 63rd St. between Broadway & Columbus Ave., Upper West Side)

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

BarBao

[Savory Cities]

Note: BarBao closed in March 2010, the latest restaurant the love-’em-and leave-’em chef has abandoned. It will become a second branch of Marc Murphy’s Ditch Plains.

*

BarBao is the latest production of Vietnamese chef Michael Bao Huynh. He has made the rounds, to put it charitably, but he is a partner here, so perhaps he’ll finally stay put. I loved his cooking at Mai House, and there is certainly no doubt about his talent.

The space that was formerly Rain has been gutted and beautifully renovated. There’s a large bar, a spacious dining room, yet another bar, and a quiet space in the back with seating so comfortable that you’ll want to take it home with you.

The major critics haven’t made it here yet, but Cuozzo in the Post, DiGregorio in the Village Voice, and Gael Greene at Insatiable all liked it. Andrea Strong had a muted reaction by her standards, though she found the décor—get this!—sexy. I’ll alert the media.

Instead of appetizers and entrées, the menu offers “Small Plates” ($8–14) and “Big Plates” ($16–27), all served family style. The plates of whatever size are designed for sharing, which is the way to go. The cuisine, though nominally Vietnamese, is very liberally interpreted.

Most reviewers have mentioned the Daikon Duck Hash ($14; above left). The concept is beguiling: what’s not to love about duck fat and a fried egg? But we found the duck fat cloying, and the few slices of real duck meat seemed too skimpy.

An Octopus special ($14; above right) was the star of the evening.

Mashima Sirloin ($24; above left) got a mixed reaction. I considered it a success, but my girlfriend found the meat a bit too tough. The accompanying salad, to our surprise, was served cold (by design).

Lemongrass Guinea Hen ($17; above right), another special, was terrific. It had enough red pepper for a three-alarm fire, but we were also impressed by the tenderness of the meat.

Had the server told us that the Guinea Hen came with rice, we probably wouldn’t have ordered a side of Duck Fried Rice ($9; below left). Still, it was very good fried rice, and had more duck in it than the Daikon Duck Hash we had earlier.

The wine list isn’t lengthy, but we were pleased with a 2000 Valdrinal Tempranillo, which at $44 was one of the better wine deals we’ve seen this year.

Like most restaurants these days, BarBao needs to work hard for its customers’ affections. It was about half full on a Friday night, which probably covered the rent, but isn’t good enough to stay in business. Service was attentive, if perhaps a bit ingratiating, and there must have been three or four manager types who kept dropping by, along with the chef himself, to make sure we were enjoying ourselves—which we were.

The two best items we had were specials, which tells me that chef Huynh is still experimenting, and that return visits will be rewarded with new things to try. The food wasn’t perfect, but much of it was very good, and the bill for two was a very reasonable $120 before tax and tip.

Bar Bao (100 W. 82nd Street at Columbus Avenue, Upper West Side)

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

Kefi

[Kreiger via Eater]

If you’re an ethical food blogger—don’t snicker, that’s not an oxymoron—what do you do when a restaurant in its first week is a disaster? Do you assume the problems will eventually be worked out? Or do you call it like it is?

As of today, the new Kefi is a disaster—a blunder by two smart people who should have known better. The question is, how much can they improve? We figure that Michael Psilakis and Donatella Arpaia—chef and restauranteur respectively—will do their best to get it right. Yet, much of what is wrong stems from a misguided concept that is not easily fixed.

Let’s be blunt: this is their third restaurant together, and more are coming. Psilakis and Arpaia were both in the house on Saturday night, but that won’t last long. After the critics have come through, they’ll both be spending their time elsewhere.

In at least 10 visits to her various restaurants, this is the first time I’ve ever seen Arpaia. And in my experience, her restaurants do not improve with time. She has too many of them, along with other projects, to give the loving attention they need, and apparently she cannot find, or has not found, the right staff to manage them in her stead.

Here’s the background: Psilakis opened Onera on the Upper West Side, a Greek take on haute cuisine that critics liked, but wasn’t suited to the neighborhood. He turned it into an inexpensive casual place called Kefi, which didn’t take reservations or even credit cards. Meanwhile, the haute Greek idea was reborn as Anthos in a fancier midtown location, earning a Michelin star in its first year. Those aren’t the only restaurants Psilakis and Arpaia have been involved in, or rumored to be working on, but we’ll leave the history lesson there.

Kefi was a big hit. We were impressed. So were the critics. Peter Meehan filed a rave in $25 & Under. There was lots of love on the BruniBlog. But Kefi had a problem: it had only 70 seats, and waits to get in were interminable. So Psilakis and Arpaia decided to move several blocks away, where they could triple the space, and where they could finally accept reservations and credit cards.

I appreciate that Psilakis and Arpaia hated turning customers away. Yet, there was a grave risk that, in moving to a space 200% larger, the concept would lose its charm. That is exactly what has happened: stadium dining at its worst. The new Kefi feels like a theater district barn, geared to churn out hundreds of meals at a breakneck pace. The only difference is that Kefi doesn’t slow down at 8:00.

There are four rooms on two levels, each with its own design personality. (In this, it resembles Mia Dona, another Psilakis/Arpaia property.) This choice was supposed to “keep Kefi’s intimate appeal,” but it doesn’t work that way. The host station is inexplicably near the back of the first floor, so you have to navigate the clotted bar just to ask for your table.

This unfortunate intersection is adjacent to the kitchen, so runners with food and busboys with dirty dishes have to fight their way through the same space where diners not yet seated are forced to congregate. Staff and customers must also share a narrow winding staircase that leads to two downstairs dining rooms, and also to the restrooms. Anyone who works here will get plenty of exercise. This restaurant really needed a dumbwaiter.

Our adventure did not start well: they had lost our reservation. “We’ll accommodate you,” our hostess generously offered, after conferring with Ms. Arpaia. A better response might have been, “We apologize for misplacing your reservation.” I know that customers are sometimes mistaken or even deceitful about bookings they claim to have made, but a new and obviously disorganized restaurant might want to consider giving the benefit of the doubt.

Kefi was packed when we arrived, and it was packed when we left. It had the usual problems of a restaurant suddenly serving triple the number of guests. Runners were frequently confused about where to deliver food. This happened not just at our table, but everywhere. Most dishes came out not quite warm enough. This, too, happened repeatedly. Kefi is tightly packed, so it was not difficult to overhear the complaints. Plates were dropped off without silverware. Appetizer plates were cleared while leaving dirty silverware behind.

House-made sausage ($7.50; above left) was the best thing we had: tender, a bit spicy, and served at the right temperature. Greek salad ($6.50; above right) was pedestrian. Meatballs ($6.25; above right) had potential, but they were served lukewarm.

For the main course, I ordered the braised lamb shank ($15.95), as I had done at the former location. The plating last time (above left) is more careful, with the bed of orzo covering the plate and flecks of green on the shank itself. The version of it served on Saturday (above right) was a much lazier try, with the food carelessly dumped on the plate. The lamb shank itself was just fine, but with sufficient brazing any meat naturally would be.

Moussaka ($11.95; above left) and  Creamed Spinach ($5.50; above right) were both average. Neither one was served quite warm enough.

Dessert was alleged to be Sesame Sorbet ($3.95; above left), though it sure tasted like ice cream to us. Whatever it was, it was too tart.

If there’s a bright spot at Kefi, it’s the all-Greek wine list. There are tasting notes for each bottle, which is thoughtful of them, as these appellations will be utterly unfamiliar to most diners. Many bottles are very reasonably priced For $48 I was pleased with the 2001 Grande Reserve Naoussa Boutari (above right). If it were French, restaurants would sell it for twice as much.

Prices remain the saving grace at Kefi. We had three appetizers, two entrées, a side dish and a bottle of wine for just $105.60, before tax and tip. That’s a bargain by today’s standards, though it is still no excuse for serving lukewarm food in a charmless atmosphere. The new place still has Kefi’s name, but none of its appeal, other than low prices.

Ms. Arpaia came downstairs multiple times during our visit. But we never noticed her stopping at any table to ask how it was going. “She doesn’t look happy,” my girlfriend said. We passed her coming down as we were leaving. You’d think she might have said, “Thanks for coming.” Naturally, she did not.

Perhaps Psilakis and Arpaia will be able to whip this place into shape, but I doubt it. They have too many other projects, and too many of the problems are design flaws that are virtually impossible to fix. Even if they ace it, this place cannot duplicate the original Kefi’s charms. They should not have sullied its good name.

I am not going to pronounce Kefi a failure after just six nights of service. This chef and this owner have earned the right to prove they can do better. They have their work cut out for them.

Kefi (505 Columbus Avenue between 84th–85th Streets, Upper West Side)

Food: good, when it is served warm enough
Service: confused
Atmosphere: a dining stadium
Overall: incomplete

Center Cut

[Horine via Eater]

Note: Center Cut closed, replaced by Ed’s Chowder House.

In the increasingly compelling Lincoln Center pre-theater market, the latest entry is Jeffrey Chodorow’s new steakhouse, Center Cut. With 27 restaurants to his name—I think that’s the correct count, unless another has opened or closed in the last 15 minutes—Chodorow doesn’t linger over his projects. He’s had some hits (Asia de Cuba), which are enough to subsidize his many failures.

Center Cut is in the Empire Hotel, directly across the street from Lincoln Center. You’d think it’s the perfect location for a restaurant, but many have come and gone over the 27 years I’ve been watching. Center Cut ought to make it. Steakhouses seldom fail in New York, and this one pushes plenty of populist buttons. The space is lovely, albeit over-built. The menu is straightforward. It’s neither as silly as Chodorow’s now-closed Wild Salmon, nor as cynical as his still-open, but deathwatched, Kobe Club.

This is, of course, a Chodorow production, so you should expect to be mildly annoyed. They wouldn’t transfer our bar tab to our table. Although the restaurant was almost empty, they seated us right next to another party. The hostess supplied menus, “And your server will be able to give you a wine list.” We waited a while, and no server appeared, but fortunately the table next to us had a wine list they no longer needed. I guess there was a good reason, after all, for seating us so close together. The server finally arrived, with Jeffrey Chodorow’s patented Treatise on Upselling firmly in tow.

There are a baker’s dozen signature cocktails, many of them with operatic names (“The Tristan,” “The Isolde”). When you see that they’re $14–17, perhaps you’re not surprised that management is pushing them hard. I think we were asked three times if we’d like to order one. Classic cocktails, such as a Tom Collins or a Side Car, are a few dollars cheaper.

Like most of Chodorow’s places, the menu offers a lot to ponder. For starters, there are eight appetizers ($12–19), five soups ($13–15), and six salads ($9–15), plus a raw bar. For the main course, there are sixteen composed dishes in various categories ($29–41, not counting lobster, for which no price is listed) and six “center cuts,” served à la carte ($35–41 for one, $59–78 for two). For steak, the filet seems to be the best option: you can have it four different ways. There is no porterhouse, though there’s a T-bone for two ($56). There are six available steak sauces and ten sides ($7 each). On top of that, there’s a $39 pre- or post-theater prix fixe, served from 5–7 p.m., or after 10 p.m.

The restaurant’s mantra is, “Where Style & Sustainability Meet.” On the wine list, purveyors are marked with little logos if they’re “Organic,” “Sustainable,” or “Biodynamic.” If you don’t know what those terms mean, don’t worry: there’s a little essay that explains it. The steaks, from Brandt Beef, are alleged to be “natural, humanely-raised, antibiotic and hormone free.” Perhaps I spoke too soon when I said the concept was free of sillyness or cynicism.

Bread service was terrific—a hot Parker House roll (above)—though the butter needed to be softer.

 

I started with the Slow Roasted Berkshire Bacon ($12; above left), which would have been fine enough on its own, and didn’t need a bed of bitter-tasting “beer roasted onions.” A Caesar Salad ($13; above right) was over-dressed.

 

The menu warns that its “Flintstone” Brandt Beef Ribs ($32; above left) are “for two or one ‘really hungry person’.” That warning is accurate. The foreshortening of the photo doesn’t do justice to the amount of food you get. Two could easily share this dish, especially if you also order sides. According to the server, the BBQ sauce is a hand-me-down from chef Bradley Day’s family. If so, the Day household was probably a pretty good place to eat. Both the sauce and the meat were done perfectly.

My girlfriend found the prime rib ($35; above right) a bit too salty and not flavorful enough, though I had no objection to the small piece of it that I tasted.

 

Both side dishes, Potatoes Dophinoise (above left) and Roasted Corn & Manchego Gratin (above center) were excellent. It was good to see compelling options beyond the usual steakhouse classics. Eggplant Fries don’t float my boat, but the Wild Mushroom Strudel is one to try next time.

The wine list is almost all young (2004 or later), and there aren’t many bargains. Except for Beaujolais, nearly all the red bottles are above $65. If three-star restaurants like Café Boulud and Corton can offer a whole page of wines under $60, surely other places can too. I ordered a 2006 Brouilly at $40, mainly because we were going to the opera and I knew we weren’t going to finish it. With most reds by the glass priced at $14 or higher (and I wouldn’t have ordered the ones that weren’t), it seemed like the way to go.

For a nearly-empty restaurant, service ought to have been a bit more attentive. A manager buzzed around the few occupied tables, correcting the staff’s many oversights. The server was a decent enough fellow when you had his attention.

There were hits and misses here, but it looks like one can put together a respectable meal at Center Cut. Most steaks are priced below $40, and there are even some entrées in the high $20s. Those prices aren’t low enough to qualify as bargains, but they are below a number of other steakhouses that have opened in recent years. The bill mounts quickly if you order wine and side dishes, but you can still put together a decent meal here for less than the average Manhattan steakhouse.

Service was uneven, and I’d like to think it will get better with time, except that this is a Jeffrey Chodorow restaurant, and some of the glitches seem to be in China Grill Management’s corporate DNA. I’d certainly like to see more people in the cavernous dining room, lest this restaurant suffer the fate of so many others in the Empire Hotel.

Center Cut (44. W. 63rd St. between Broadway & Columbus Ave., Upper West Side)

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