Picholine

  

Note: Picholine closed in 2015 after 22 years in business, due to a rent increase. The announcement was bittersweet, coming the very day that Picholine was awarded a star in the 2016 Michelin Guide. The chef, Terrance Brennan, said he would re-open it in a new location to be determined.

*

Picholine is 15 years old, and to “celebrate” they were offering a $50 gift card via the website. That’s a nice chunk of change, even for a restaurant this expensive. And I suppose the offer (which is no longer available) shows that it’s getting harder to find customers in these recession-challenged times. Sure enough, when my mom and I dropped in for a pre-opera meal, Picholine was as quiet as I’ve ever seen it—not deserted, but nowhere near full.

Apparently, chef–owner Terrance Brennan is not yet tempted to lower his prices. Since our last visit, earlier this year, the three-course prix fixe has risen from $85 to $92, while the tasting menu has risen from $110 to $125. A game tasting menu, offered only in the fall, is $145. I wouldn’t mind giving that a try at some point, but this wasn’t the night for it.

The mauve décor made a better impression than it did last time; perhaps it’s more successful in the front room than in the rear. Just about everything about the service and ambiance seemed pitch-perfect, though it helped that the restaurant was less crowded than I’ve seen it before. My mom couldn’t get over how many servers and runners were buzzing around.

 

A quartet of amuses-bouches was more impressive than the trio we were offered last time. I didn’t note them all, but the one on the right (above) was a tempura mushroom on a skewer.

 

A Tuna Cru “Napoleon” (above left) with olive oil ice cream was just fine, but unmemorable. My mom had the Sea Urchin Panna Cotta (above right), which is one of the best things on the menu.

 

The server recited a choice of four Scottish game birds—partridge, grouse, quail and Mallard duck. (He did not mention the $8 supplement.) I had the duck, which was really terrific—tender and gamey, along with a crunchy leg confit. My mom had a fish, which I believe was the John Dory (above right). From the small taste I had, it seemed pedestrian. My mom didn’t use that word, but she agreed the duck was better.

 

The palate cleansers were served in an odd order. As I was having the cheese course, but my mom was not, hers came before the dessert (above left), but mine came after it. Anyhow, the cheese cart (above right) is always the highlight of a meal at Picholine. I told the fromagier that I wanted three cheeses with sharp tastes, soft to medium in texture, and at least one blue cheese.

 

And that’s exactly what he gave me (above left). My mom’s dessert was a chocolate something-or-other (above right).

 

My palate cleanser (above left) came after the cheese course, and that was followed by petits-fours, which we did not touch (above right). They sent us home with a complimentary bottle of olive oil, which I do not recall from previous visits.

The wine list here is wonderful, though it seemed shorter than I remembered it. Anyhow, I found a perfectly drinkable Guigal Côtes du Rhone for $45. After you figure in the $50 gift card, it basically means we had a great dinner at Picholine and drank for free. Not bad.

Picholine (35 W. 64th St. east of Columbus Avenue, Upper West Side)

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

Sunday Suppa at Dovetail

Dovetail opened last year to rapturous reviews. When we visited in March, I couldn’t quite decide if it deserved all those laurels. I gave it 2½ stars, half-a-star lower than the major critics did. We were back this evening for Dovetail’s “Sunday Suppa,” a three-course meal for just $38. If the food were as good as the critics say, this would be one of the best deals in town.

Unfortunately, I had the same reaction as last time: excellent appetizers let down by disappointing entrées. Pastry chef Vera Tong’s wonderful desserts offered partial redemption. I also have the same reaction to the atmosphere. At times, Dovetail acts like it wants to be a three-star restaurant, but it doesn’t carry out the act thoroughly or consistently enough to deserve it.

I was also dismayed to find almost no red wines below $50—and those I did find were both young and obscure. I settled on a 2005 bottle of the seldom-seen Irouléguy appellation from the south of France, at $49, which they then proceeded to charge at $51 (they corrected the bill when I pointed this out). This is definitely a wine list that has not caught up to the recession.

Dovetail is still doing brisk business, but it’s not as busy as it was six months ago. I was able to reserve a 6:30 p.m. table just a few days in advance. Still, you can’t just walk in at prime time. When we left, at around 8:30 p.m., they had just turned a party away.

The meal started well. The amuse-bouche (above) was a sliver of smoked salmon wrapped around a horseradish filling. The bread service was the same terrific cornbread that Dovetail has been serving since the beginning.

   

All three appetizers were first-rate: an Asparagus Velouté with cream and bacon (above left), Mushroom Risotto (above center), and Sweetbreads (above right).

  

Among the entrées, Lamb Meatloaf (above left) was the least objectionable, but it was a bit dry. Loin of Pork (above center), served off the bone, was too tough. Prime Rib (above right) had to be sent back, as it was too rare. It came back rubbery; adding insult to injury, it carried a $12 supplement.

 

We had no complaint about the desseerts—a French Toast-like confection (above left) with enough butter and cream to be a meal in itself, Carrot Cake (above right) and sorbet (not pictured).

The level of accomplishment in the appetizers and desserts makes us wonder how the entrées could be as off-key as they were, but we’ve been underwhelmed by them twice, so we’re bound to conclude it’s a chronic problem. The kitchen probably turns out some great main courses (the talent is obviously there), but it hasn’t happened on either of our visits.

Dovetail (103 W. 77th Street at Columbus Avenue, Upper West Side)

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

Bloomingdale Road

Note: Bloomingdale Road has closed, after four months in business and mostly mediocre reviews.

Update: The Times reports that the restaurant remains open with a limited menu, but Chef Ed Witt has left, and the owner is trying to renegotiate the lease.

Coda: After failing to negotiate a more favorable lease, Bloomingdale Road closed on Saturday, February 7, 2009.

*

Bloomingdale Road opened about a month ago on the Upper West Side in the former Aix Brasserie space. Chef Ed Witt was last seen at Varietal, where he was roundly panned by most critics, and was fired shortly after a devastating review from Frank Bruni in the Times.

At Bloomingdale Road, Witt abandons some of the more absurd flights of fancy that doomed Varietal. This is still a thinking-man’s menu, but with a comfort food soul that goes right for the gut. Among our two appetizers and two entrées there wasn’t a single disappointment, or anything remotely close to it. I am not ready to call this destination cuisine, but if you’re in the neighborhood this has got to be one of the better options.

So far, the neighborhood agrees. The large, tri-level space is doing a brisk business. The vibe is casual (but check out the funky chandeliers), and the menu is sensibly priced for a recession economy. There are snacks ($5–9), Soups & Salads ($7–17), Small Plates & Sandwiches ($10–16), Pastas ($17–19), Mains ($18–24) and Sides ($5–8). There’s an ample selection of 23 wines by the glass, and the there are plenty of decent bottles under $50, including the Rhone blend we had for $42. 

The menu says that items are designed to be shared, though it’s not clear which selections that applies to. My pork chop, for instance, didn’t seem to be any more obviously shareable than any other pork chop I’ve seen. Gael Greene’s review mentioned that several of the supposedly shareable items come in threes, which is not a wise strategy, as most tables have even numbers of customers. Shareable dishes should come in twos or fours; never threes.

For a large, fairly new casual restaurant, service was attentive and impressive. A manager was making the rounds, and it appeared he stopped at just about every table to ask how things were going.

Meals start with a delicious Parker House roll, with soft creamy butter. The roll is cooked in a tin can, which the server delivers to your table and turns upside down. I must admit the roll’s phallic shape didn’t occur to me at the time, but it was rather apparent when I looked at the photo the next morning.

 

We started with two items from the “Small Plates” section of the menu. The terrific House Made Sausage ($10; above left) is made with smoked pork and jalapeño, topped with cheddar, white beans & chips. We also loved the Duck Confit Parfait ($14; above right), served in a glass jar with brandied cherries poured in at tableside. This is a larger portion than it appears in the photo. It came with three slices of round toast for spreading; we asked for three more, and they came quickly. For the size of the portion, they should just send out six pieces of toast with every order.

 

There was nothing fancy in either of our entrées, but both were done just right, and this is no small accomplishment in a kitchen turning out as much food as this one. I could find no fault in the Chicken ($22; above left) or the Pork Chop ($24; above right), with cheese grits and caramelized apples.

One never knows what the future will hold, but if Ed Witt can keep the kitchen operating at this level, Bloomingdale Road should be an Upper West Side hit.

Bloomingdale Road (2398 Broadway at 88th Street, Upper West Side)

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

Bar Boulud

I dropped into Bar Boulud last night for a pre-opera snack. The tables were all full at around 7:00 p.m., but there were a few seats available at the communal table (far left in the above photo).

The menu offered at the communal table seems to be abbreviated, but I quickly settled on one of the warm charcuterie specialties, the Saucisse Fumée Façon “Morteau” ($16), or smoked cumin-spiced sausage on a lentil stew. For what it was, this dish was about perfect. I could eat like this every day.

As I observed last time, service can be helter-skelter, although they fared better at two recent lunch visits. Servers do a first-class job when you have their attention, but getting it isn’t so easy, as there aren’t enough of them to go around, especially in the frantic pre-theater hour.

But the kitchen still seems to have its act together, which is more than you can say for many a Lincoln Center restaurant. Despite its faults, we are lucky to have Bar Boulud in our midst.

Bar Boulud (1900 Broadway near 63rd Street, Upper West Side)

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

Shun Lee Cafe

Shun Lee, is the dean of the pre-Lincoln Center restaurants. It has been serving haute Chinese classics since 1981, when Mimi Sheraton awarded two stars in the Times.

The original space was apparently “dim and dowdy.” It received a snazzy makeover in 1985, but Bryan Miller found the food inconsistent, demoting it to one star in 1987. For the record, Shun Lee’s sister restaurant, Shun Lee Palace, which has been around since 1971, and serves the same menu, still carries two stars, courtesy of Ruth Reichl in 1995.

Shortly after the 1985 makeover, the front dining room was converted into a separate Dim Sum-themed restaurant called Shun Lee Cafe. The main restaurant and the cafe are separately reservable on OpenTable, but they share the kitchen and restroom areas.

Shun Lee Cafe offers an abbreviated version of the full restaurant menu, but when we visited the other day, we had Dim Sum on our minds.

Dim Sum comes on a cart, which a server wheels around the restaurant. There are only a few items at a time on the cart. This keeps the food fresh, but you don’t really know what’s coming next. The server just tells you what she has; either you want some, or you wait until next time the cart comes around. After she serves you, she scribbles on the back of a card. The more scribbles at the end of the meal, the more you pay.

Most items come in pairs, making them well suited to sharing. We had eight servings for a total of $54, which averaged out to $6.75 each. With two cocktails ($10 ea.) and two desserts ($6 ea.), the total cost of the meal was $86 before tax and tip. You’d pay a bit less in Chinatown, but you wouldn’t have Lincoln Center across the street, and you wouldn’t have Shun Lee’s incredibly clever light fixtures staring down at you.

 

We started with dumplings: beef (above left) and shrimp (above right), both done to a high standard.

 

The cart’s next couple of visits featured items from the deep fryer. Our favorite was the Giant Crab Claw (lower left-hand side of the first photo), a large juicy hunk of crab. We loved it so much that we asked for another one.

Shrimp Cheese Puffs (right side of the second photo) came a close second. Shrimp and ricotta cheese made fine company. We also enjoyed the Shrimp Taro Pancakes (left side of the second photo).

The only real dud was the Chicken Sesame Pancake (upper left of the first photo), which had the consistency of shoe leather.

Service was efficient, as it must be at a pre-theater place, though there was some of the upselling, huckstering quality endemic to such restaurants. We asked for just one dessert to share, but the server, perhaps feigning hearing loss, brought two.

Like most long-term restaurants, Shun Lee has its crowd of devoted regulars. Much of the crowd was distinctly elderly. The restaurant has a long-standing relationship with the Jewish community. The owner, Michael Tong, estimates that his clientele is seventy percent Jewish. His busiest day of the year is Christmas, and he can even prepare a kosher banquet on request.

I haven’t been to the main restaurant in many years. Our visit here reminded me that it has been too many years. I’ll have to rectify that. In the meantime, if you’re looking for a more casual option in the area, Shun Lee Cafe is a respectable choice.

Shun Lee Cafe (43 W. 65th Street, east of Broadway, Upper West Side)

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

Eighty One

Note: Eighty One closed after service on Easter Sunday, April 4, 2010. The space is now occupied by Calle Ocho, which moved from its former home on Columbus Avenue.

*

The Upper West Side isn’t known for destination dining, but that has changed with the arrival of three wonderful new places, all within the first three months of 2008: Dovetail, Bar Boulud, and now Eighty One.

So far, Eighty One is a hit, with prime-time tables regularly selling out on opentable.com. Longer-term, Eighty One could face tougher challenges. Bar Boulud, with its modest prices and its Lincoln Center perch, is almost surely there for the long haul. Dovetail, which is about four blocks south of Eighty One, racked up nine stars from the city’s major restaurant critics; it’s a bit cheaper and a lot more casual than Eighty One.

At Eighty One, entrée prices average in the mid-thirties. If you want black truffles shaved over any of them, it will set you back another $42. Appetizers are $15–19, but another section of the menu, peculiarly named “Tasting Collection,” offers another half-dozen appetizer-sized items from $15–39. These aren’t “neighborhood” prices. Luckily, Eighty One resides in the tony Excelsior Hotel, from whence it will no doubt draw many of its customers.

The décor screams “upscale chic,” though we felt that the deep red-velvet hues sucked up the available light, and made the dining room seem a bit depressing. (The drapes were drawn when we visited.)

Amuse-bouche

Chef/owner Ed Brown runs the kitchen, coming off a thirteen-year stint at Rockefeller Center’s Sea Grill. Chef de Cuisine Juan Cuevas has stints at Alain Ducasse, Bruno Jamais, and most recently Blue Hill on his resume. They’re doing a terrific job, serving what I assume is intended to be three-star food, but to which most critics will probably give two.

We loved the amuse-bouche, a square of Hiramasu crudo with a Hawaiian seaweed salad. Bread service came with nice soft butter at room temperature, but the accompanying bread rolls were pedestrian.

 
Sea Scallop & Foie Gras Ravioli (left); Tuna Tartare Tasting (right)

I started with the Sea Scallop and Foie Gras Ravioli ($16) in a straw wine sauce, a buttery ethereal pleasure.

My girlfriend had the Tuna Tartare Tasting ($21), with three half-dollar-sized cylinders of tuna, each in a different preparation. Our favorite the one on the left, with an Indonesian soy sauce, wasabi leaves and a dollop of cream. The other two weren’t bad either: blood orange (center) and olive oil with chervil (right).

 
Lamb Three Ways (left); Dry-Aged Black Angus Sirloin (right)

Lamb Three Ways ($39) was a beautifully composed plate, with sheep’s milk ricotta gnocchi, pine nuts, wild mushrooms and braised butternut lettuce hearts. There was a wonderfully smooth potato purée, served on the side. The “three ways” conceit is becoming a bit cliché, and perhaps it would be better to hit a home run with just one way. I loved the juicy and well marbled rack of lamb, but neither the roasted loin nor the confit shoulder rocked my world.

My girlfriend was happy with a Dry-Aged Black Angus Sirloin ($37), which also included the short rib.  We didn’t quite understand the point of an accompanying Caesar wedge with aged parmigiano. The preparation was just fine, but it would have made more sense as a salad or mid-course.

The wine list includes plenty of bottles at reasonable prices, though you can splurge if you want to. We enjoyed a 2003 Château Lafleur Pomerol ($60). I don’t believe I’ve ordered a Pomerol before, but this bottle made me want to explore more of them.

Service was generally smooth and professional, but the staff paid decidedly less attention to us near the end of our meal, after the restaurant had started to fill up. Our appetizers came out awfully fast (it seemed like just moments), so we had almost half-an-hour to kill later on, before we headed over to Lincoln Center for our show.

Of the three new Upper West Side restaurants that I mentioned at the top of this post, Dovetail and Eighty One are the most similar, with broadly comparable culinary ambitions, and located within a few blocks of each other near the Museum of Natural History. Indeed, based on one visit apiece, I can’t really separate the two in terms of food, though the service and ambiance at Eighty One are considerably better—with prices to match.

Most of the critics in town will have their swords drawn when they review an expensive place with luxury trappings.  That explains why Adam Platt awarded two stars to Eighty One, though he had given Dovetail three. I suspect that Frank Bruni will do the same. I give them identical 2½-star ratings. You can decide for yourself if Eighty One’s more comfortable atmosphere and smoother service is worth a few extra dollars.

Eighty One (45 W. 81st Street between Columbus Avenue & Central Park West, Upper West Side)

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

Bar Boulud

The restaurant scene around Lincoln Center—rather, the lack of it—is inexplicable. Its theaters and auditoriums, with about 10,000 seats between them, are in use almost every night of the year. The programs they put on appeal to the city’s most affluent and sophisticated people. Many of them need to eat dinner.

Yet, the vast majority of the restaurants on the surrounding blocks are dull, if not awful. If you broaden your search to Columbus Circle and the Upper West Side, there are certainly plenty of pre-show dining options. But I can’t conceive of a reason why the restaurants in the immediate vicinity should be so depressing. Until recently, Picholine and Shun Lee West were the only ones I could seriously recommend.

Enter Bar Boulud, the most recent creation of über-chef Daniel Boulud. As he did at his previous three New York restaurants, he seems to have grasped exactly what the neighborhood needed. Both the food and ambiance are casual, and equally suited to a quick pre-show meal or a snack afterwards.

But Bar Boulud has become a destination in itself, which in this neighborhood is almost unheard of. Reservations have been tough to get—it took me nearly three months. And unlike most restaurants catering to a pre-theater crowd, we saw no appreciable clearing-out after 8:00 p.m.

GougèresSylvain Gasdon’s chacuterie menu has garnered rave reviews, including two stars from Frank Bruni in the Times. But hardly anyone has raved about the standard appetizers and entrées. Bruni said “there’s little wow from the kitchen, which turns out treatments of salmon, sea bass and roasted chicken that, while not quite losers, are definitely snoozers.”

I loved the Pâté Grand-mère the last time I visited, so I persuaded my girlfriend to join me for an all-charcuterie dinner. It wasn’t a tough sell, as we both love to order pâtés and terrines wherever they’re served. And no restaurant offers anything like the variety on offer at Bar Boulud.

Dégustation de Charcuterie

The items on the charcuterie menu run anywhere from $5–18, or you can get a good sample with either of two dégustation plates ($22, $46). We ordered the larger of these, which appeared to have a bit of almost everything.

They only thing they don’t supply is the roadmap. There were sixteen pieces on the plate, and even the server wasn’t sure what they all were. His explanation went by awfully quickly, and we could barely hear him in the loud room. So we gave up trying to figure out exactly what we were eating, though I can tell you that the pâtés are on the right side of the photo, the more gelatinous terrines on the left.

Anyhow, it is all excellent. There were two different mustards and a basket of bread, but I was happy to enjoy the pâtés and terrines on their own.

 
Rillons Croustillants au Poivre (left); Cervelas Lyonnais en Brioche (right)

There are also a few hot dishes on the charcuterie menu. Rillons Croustillants au Poivre ($12), or pork belly with pepper, was predictably good, though I thought it should be a bit warmer.

Cervelas Lyonnais en Brioche ($14) is a Lyon sausage baked into a brioche (see photo, right). I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but it’s a fun dish. The menu promised black truffle, but if it was in there, it was a trace amount that my taste buds couldn’t detect.

Besides charcuterie, the other theme at Bar Boulud is wine. Indeed, the long, narrow room is in the shape of a wine bottle. The first time I visited, I was surprised to find just four reds and four whites by the glass, a curious choice for a restaurant focused on wine. That has now been rectified: there are more like ten of each ($10–22).

Wines by the bottle are focused on Burgundy and the Rhone Valley, plus “cousin wines” made elsewhere from similar grapes. Each section of the list is divided into “Discoveries” (less expensive), “Classics” (more) and “Legends” (most). Among the “Discoveries” are numerous bottles below $50, and even one as low as $29. We were happy with a Rhone that the server recommended at just $40. It has been a very long time since I saw a decent bottle in a restaurant at that price.

We are fans of Bar Boulud, but there are some definite drawbacks. There is just a small waiting area at the front, where patrons scrum to announce themselves to the hostess, check and retrieve coats, wait to be seated, and order drinks. Several tables adjoin that area, including the one where we were seated. It has all the ambiance of a train station.

Tables are quite close together, and the staff seem to be over-taxed. I ordered a martini; it took fifteen minutes to arrive. I heard one patron say, “We’ve been waiting twenty minutes for our coats. Can we just go downstairs and look for them ourselves?” I wasn’t given a claim-check for mine, and I feared the worst, but miraculously the attendant quickly found it.

Boulud had his own china made for Bar Boulud, but they’re stingy about using it. We had to eat the charcuterie on our bread plates, and the server didn’t replace the knives we’d used to spread the butter. We couldn’t tell if this was a considered choice, or just one of the many service lapses the restaurant is quickly becoming famous for.

Despite the occasional miscue, Bar Boulud is probably the second-best Lincoln Center restaurant (after Picholine). For its charcuterie menu alone, it’s a worthy destination even if you don’t have a show to go see afterwards. My girlfriend remarked, “It’s a good thing this isn’t in our neighborhood, or I’d be eating here every day.”

Bar Boulud (1900 Broadway near 63rd Street, Upper West Side)

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

Dovetail

[Kalina via Eater]

John Fraser must be floating on air. Dovetail, his new restaurant, scored a rare “triple triple”: three-star reviews from Adam Platt, Restaurant Girl, and most importantly, Frank Bruni. Just before the Bruni review came out, I snagged a Friday night reservation for a few weeks away, figuring that it was about to become nearly impossible to get into this place.

I was a big fan of Fraser’s work at Compass (so was Bruni). If ever a chef deserved his own place, it was Fraser. And he was gutsy enough to put it on the Upper West Side, a neighborhood where upscale restaurants haven’t traditionally thrived. Compass, at least, is close enough to Lincoln Center to attract a pre-show crowd; Dovetail most likely will not.

Location doesn’t matter now: with nine stars to its credit, and counting, Dovetail is a certified destination. Even on the Upper West Side.

The Richard Bloch design suggests some nervousness about the restaurant’s mission. In the entrance lobby, a floor-to-ceiling glass-enclosed “wine wall” and a large host stand make Dovetail look upscale and stylish.

The main dining room looks much humbler, with bare wood tables and exposed brick that would be more suitable for a neighborhood place. (An overflow dining room downstairs looks even more spartan.) Wisely, he added carpeting and padded walls to absorb the sound, but it isn’t quite good enough. With tables that are awfully close together, you don’t get much privacy.

Menu (click to expand)

Servers in conservative ties and crisply pressed white coats look and act like they parachuted in from a much fancier place. I was pleased that they seated me before my girlfriend arrived, and that they let us linger over cocktails without pressing us to get on with it. But after we ordered, the amuse-bouche, appetizer, and entrée all came out at speed.

By contemporary standards, Dovetail is a mid-priced restaurant, with appetizers $11–18, entrées $24–34. A five-course tasting menu is only $65, and on Sundays there’s a three-course prix fixe at just $38. And it is virtually all excellent. As my girlfriend put it, “This is what Adour should have been.”

A sommelier noticed that I was puzzling over the wine list. When I asked her for a red under $60, she came back with three options well below that price, including two in the $40s. It was a refreshing change of pace from wine directors who invariably suggest wines right at your maximum, or indeed even above it.

 

A duo of amuses-bouches offered sashimi-quality tuna on a skewer coupled with salmon roe on a white spoon. The bread service was a warm slice of cheddar corn bread.

 
Idaho Potato Gnocchi; Pork Belly

Both appetizers were hits: potato gnocchi with veal short ribs and foie gras butter, and pork belly with porcini mushrooms, spinach, and a fried hen egg.

 
Halibut; Rack and Leg of Lamb

The entrées offered a bit less excitement, but halibut was expertly done. My girlfriend thought that rack of lamb was a bit tougher than it should be, though I didn’t find any problem with the piece of it that I tasted.

The ambitious food is somewhat let down by both the ambiance and service, but they certainly won’t stand in the way of Dovetail being a tremendous success.

Dovetail (103 W. 77th Street at Columbus Avenue, Upper West Side)

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

Picholine

Note: Click here for a more recent review of Picholine.

Picholine has redeemed itself. Two years ago, we were ripped off on New Year’s Eve, spending $800 for two on a meal that might charitably have been worth a third of that. Last night, we spent $400 on an excellent meal that was worth every penny.

I’m not the only one who thought the “old” Picholine needed some attitude adjustment. Before a September 2006 makeover, Frank Bruni chose Picholine for his sister’s birthday, and it was so lackluster that he had to apologize. For the Times restaurant critic, not being able to find the right restaurant for a family celebration must have been acutely embarrassing.

Post renovation, Bruni found it “arguably the nicest restaurant surprise of this disappointing season,” re-affirming the three-star rating two previous critics had awarded. The 2008 Michelin Guide upgraded Picholine to two stars, making it one of the city’s top ten restaurants.

The revamped décor has impressed no one except, perhaps, some Upper West Side dowagers. Even the china looks like something your grandmother would use. La Grenouille, a restaurant that is thirty years older, is far more lively.

There is nothing the management can do about the narrow space, but when you enter you hit a traffic jam around the host station/bar/coat-check area, a drawback I recall from two previous visits. The aisles in the two dining rooms are narrow, and servers sometimes seem to be pirouetting around obstacles.

Fortunately, there is nothing old-fashioned about chef Terrance Brennan’s rejuvenated cuisine, which is reason enough why Picholine remains popular, and one of this town’s toughest tables to book. Even with several weeks’ notice, 8:45 p.m. was the earliest I could get on a Saturday evening, although we showed up at 8:20 and were seated immediately. (Picholine does a lot of pre- and post-Lincoln Center business; it was still more than half full when we left at almost 11:00.)

With the best cheese selection in town (shared with sister restaurant Artisanal), the cheese course at Picholine is practically obligatory. It is therefore curious that the menu does nothing to alert you to this fact. If you choose either of the printed prix fixe options—three courses ($85) or four courses ($95)—it apparently does not include cheese. (Both of the tasting menus, at $110, do include cheese.)

When we told the server we wanted an appetizer, an entrée, and a cheese tasting, he offered us an option not shown on the menu—two courses for $65—and then we were charged separately the odd price of $33.50 for a six-cheese tasting. I am not sure how a first-time visitor would be expected to figure this out. And why is the menu still captioned “Autumn 2007”?

The opening trio of amuses-bouches was slightly pedestrian. A codfish cake (9:00 in the photo) tasted like a smaller version of a cafeteria fish stick, and lobster salad (1:00 in the photo) didn’t taste very lobster-y. A smooth mushroom panna cotta  (5:00) was the best of the group.

 

Chef Brennan loves his panna cottas. Sea urchin panna cotta (above left) with caviar had an ethereal silky texture. My girlfriend ordered the foie gras terrine (above right; $8 suppl.), which was on a par with the better examples of the genre around town.

Heirloom Chicken “Kiev” — the quotation marks suggesting a riff on the classic dish — was a tour de force. It is still January, but for now this is the dish of the year.

Brennan wraps chicken around chanterelles and foie gras, covers it in a cornflake batter and deep fries it, melting the foie gras. After the dish is brought to your table, a server lances the chicken with a silver spear, and the liquid foie gras oozes out. (The photo was taken after this surgery had been performed.)

Frank Bruni loved it too.

The frommagier brought the cheese cart to our table and gave us an overview. We told him our general preferences and asked him to choose six. There was not a weak selection among the group. As always, he handed us a printed cheese guide to take home, with the ones he’d selected for us identified by number. The meal ended with a broad selection of petits-fours.

The wine list is long and expensive, so I decided to let the sommelier choose for us, giving him a ceiling of $100. He came up with a luscious burgundy at $95 that went perfectly with the chicken. We also accepted his offer of a taste of sauterne to go with my girlfriend’s foie gras. We were charged only $10 for that, and he comped a white wine to go with my Sea Urchin appetizer.

Our captain, a veteran no doubt of many dinner services, provided helpful ordering advice and stayed on top of things. Both the frommagier and sommelier followed up to ensure we were happy with our meal. The junior staff that served the bread and amuses-bouches were a little hard to understand—a problem at many New York restaurants, as these positions are often taken by non-native speakers. Although we were seated side-by-side at a table with ample space, the cramped quarters meant that servers had to reach awkwardly to set and clear the silverware.

The space at Picholine will always seem twenty years too old, but the food, wine and cheese are the stars.

Picholine (35 W. 64th Street between Columbus Avenue & Central Park West, Upper West Side)

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

First Look: Bar Boulud

Kalina via Eater

In today’s Diner’s Journal, Frank Bruni reports that it’s not easy to make a reservation at Daniel Boulud’s latest restaurant, Bar Boulud. Not since Per Se, almost four years ago, has poor Frank had so much trouble reaching a human being. In Per Se’s case, he waited. In Bar Boulud’s case, he hung up in frustration after 15 minutes. [Update: The next day, he finally got through.]

He should have tried just walking in, which a friend and I did yesterday. At 6:00 p.m., we were seated at the bar without a wait. Three doors down, Josephina was full. Go figure.

Like most Michelin-starred chefs, Daniel Boulud isn’t content to have just one restaurant, but he hasn’t opened them as promiscuously as Jean-Georges Vongerichten or Alain Ducasse. Bar Boulud is his first New York opening in at least four years. The location across Broadway from Lincoln Center has long needed some more serious restaurants. I yawned when I heard that Bar Boulud was going to be focused on wine—who needs another wine bar? It turns out the real star is Sylvain Gasdon’s charcuterie menu.

Though yesterday was the official opening to the public, Boulud has been serving friends and family for a few weeks now. Grub Street responded with “dumbstruck awe,” adding that “this kind of charcuterie has almost never been available in this profusion and variety in the United States.” Ed Levine gushed, “Simply put, Gasdon is making the best charcuterie Americans have ever seen and tasted on these shores.” But he wondered, “are Americans ready for this kind of food?”

If you sit at the bar, as we did, you’ll have the massive terrines, pâtés and sausages right in front of you, a gorgeous sight incomparable to anything else in New York. If charcuterie isn’t your cup of espresso, Bar Boulud also has a more conventional bistro menu that takes its cues from Boulud’s native Lyon.

We had actually come in only for drinks, but there was no way I could leave without tasting the charcuterie that refined meatheads like Cutlets and Levine are raving about. So I tried the Pâté Grand-mère ($8), made with chicken liver, pork and cognac. It was a nice hunk, half an inch thick, and about 3 inches by 5, with a dollop of spiced mustard on the side and two bowls of bread (with soft butter). I ignored the bread and just ate the pâté with my fork. It had a luscious buttery taste, the liver pungent but not overwhelming. There’s much more where that came from, and I can’t wait to return.

The wine selection was disappointing. There were just four reds and four whites by the glass, far less than one expects at a purportedly wine-themed restaurant. Bar Boulud needs to do better—far better—than that. Servers were gracious, and the mise en place everything you’d expect in a Boulud restaurant, but the staff was too busy to pay us sufficient attention. We had trouble flagging down a server to order a second glass of wine, and we were there for about 45 minutes before they came with water glasses.

It is too soon to the judge the service, as this was only Bar Boulud’s first night. It will also take more than one pâté to reach a judgment on the food, but Bar Boulud certainly looks promising.

Bar Boulud (1900 Broadway near 63rd Street, Upper West Side)