Abboccato

Note: As of May 2008 Abboccato was apparently searching for a new chef de cuisine.

For me, Abboccato was a “when I get around to it” restaurant — a place that looked interesting, but not enough to make it a special priority. Well, I finally got around to it, and it turns out Abboccato is terrific. I should have tried it a lot sooner, and so should you.

Abboccato comes from the Livanos family—the same folks that run Oceana and Molyvos. It’s not a bad trio to be associated with. The chef is Jim Bostacos, who has bounced around town, and earned three stars at Molyvos. But he’s half Italian, and he made the hop to Abboccato, where the Livanos gave him more creative control.

In October 2005, Marian Burros of The New York Times (subbing for the vacationing Bruni) awarded a fairly enthusiastic two stars, finding considerable potential, but a few dishes over or under-salted. In New York, Adam Platt (in the days before he awarded stars)  liked the place too, but found the menu overly long and complicated—a problem many Italian restaurants seem to have these days.

The menu seems to have undergone some editing since then; it is now a more focused document than Platt found it. There are the obvious categories of antipasti ($14–16), primi ($22–26),  secondi and whole fish ($32–38), and side dishes ($8). There is also a pre-theater prix fixe (we arrived too late to sample it), and a pasta tasting menu at $55 per person.

Whether Marian Burros’s complaints have been addressed is harder to judge on one visit, but everything we tasted was without fault.

 

To start, we shared an order of the ravioli ($22). Silky-smooth pasta pillows were lined with wild greens, and glazed with a riccotta and bone marrow butter sauce. We moved on to the branzino for two ($70). The server presented the whole fish for inspection, then whisked it away to be filleted. There was nothing complicated here, but there didn’t need to be. The fish was simply grilled, with olive oil and rosemary, and served with a garnish of crushed olives.

We finished up with the Mascarpone Cheese Cake ($9), topped (improbably) with a strawberry-pink peppercorn sauce that managed to work, despite the odd name.

There were a couple of odd service issues near the beginning of the meal: a too-eager server taking our wine order before we’d even been shown menus; bread served without butter or olive oil. But things settled down after that.

The restaurant was not even close to full at prime time on a Saturday night, and that’s too bad: Abboccato deserves much more attention.

Abboccato (136 W. 55th Street between Sixth & Seventh Avenues, West Midtown)

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

Grayz

 

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

Whatever he does, Gray Kunz seems to take his time. After he left the four-star Lespinasse, it was six years until he opened a new restaurant, Café Gray, which was much delayed—the last to appear of the originally announced restaurants in the Time-Warner Center.

Then, Grayz was announced. The Times featured it in their September 2006 fall dining preview section. In October, the Post broke the story that plans had been scrapped, apparently due to a dispute with the construction company. In January, it was back on again. Two weeks ago, Grayz finally opened in the former Aquavit space, in the landmarked 19th-century Rockefeller townhouse.

I have never warmed up to Café Gray. While no one would dispute Kunz’s talent as a chef, the restaurant is crowded, loud, and distinctly unpleasant. I dined there twice, and wasn’t happy either time. For his next venture, I hoped that Kunz would open the kind of refined restaurant that his breathtaking talent deserves, but with Grayz he has gone in the opposite direction. It’s mainly a catering place, with a lively bar that serves finger food. Kunz’s finger food may beat everyone else’s, but Grayz is still a place for…well, grazing, not dining.

Frank Bruni previewed Grayz in a June blog post. He included a sample menu, which is fairly close to what Grayz is offering now. He described it as “a theater for fancy private parties.” The dinner concept, according to a publicist, is “one big cocktail party.” The lunch menu is supposed to be more traditional (which would be wise), but Bruni had no lunch menu to show, and as far as I know the lunch service hasn’t yet begun.

Bread service

I was seated immediately when I walked in at around 6:00 p.m. on a Thursday evening, but an hour later the place was packed. Kunz’s catering strategy had already paid dividends, as the downstairs room was booked for a private party by the accounting firm KPMG—not bad for a restaurant that had only been open for 10 days.

The menu offers nine appetizers, captioned “Small Plates and Finger Food” ($13–22) and just three entrées ($16–33). Included among the latter are Kunz’s famous short ribs, which are also a mainstay on the Café Gray menu (and were offered at Lespinasse, as well). I asked the server how many small plates would make a meal. She cautioned, “They are small!” So I ordered three of them, after asking her for suggestions.

 Homemade bread sticks came, with a wonderful yogurt dipping sauce that tasted like a soft goat cheese. I finished all of it, and could probably have eaten more. (I apologize for the quality of the photos, but note the elegant silver tray—typical of the service at Grayz.)

 
Salt Stone Grilled Prawns (left); Crisped Calamari (right)

Grilled prawns ($18) were served on a hot stone, with a kaffir rémoulade seasoning. This appeared to be the most popular dish, as I saw more prawn orders coming out than anything else. The Crisped calamari ($12) with a lemon–honey chutney was much more delicate than the usual deep-fried calamari. (As New York revealed, Kunz makes it with Nabisco graham crackers and Cream of Wheat.) It was the largest portion of anything I ordered, but I got bored with it about halfway through.

 
Pasta Fiori and Tomato Concassée (left); Cheese and marinated vegetables (right)

Pasta Fiori ($15) in a lemon thyme broth was the best item I tried. A soft pillow of silky pasta in a delicate tomato sauce, it would be at home in any four-star restaurant. Good as it was, it seemed out of place at Grayz, as the portion was far too small to be shared, and it certainly wasn’t finger food.

The cheese course ($11), which I ordered from the dessert menu, was a miscalculation. The marinated vegetables at the corners of the plate were miniscule, while the pile of shaved cheese in the center tasted like supermarket provalone. (It also came with bread; not shown in the photo.)

Service was first-rate, with beautiful platings, and fresh silverware delivered for every course. It almost seemed overwrought and a little too precious. Every plate was left in the middle of the table, as if to be shared with an imaginary companion (I was there alone).

The total for three appetizers, a cheese course, one cocktail, and two glasses of wine, came to $100 before tax and tip. That’s a high total for finger food. The menu could evolve considerably as Kunz figures out what works, and what doesn’t. For now, I’d say that it’s worth dropping in if you’re in the neighborhood, but it’s nothing I’d rush back for.

Grayz (13–15 West 54th Street between Fifth & Sixth Avenues, West Midtown)

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

BLT Market

BLT Market postcard, based on art work displayed in the restaurant

Note: Click here for more recent visits to BLT Market.

You would have every reason to be a little cynical about the opening of yet another “Bistro Laurent Tourondel” restaurant. In a matter of three years, Tourondel has launched almost a dozen of them, the majority being clones of the very first one, BLT Steak. To date, the best of the brood has been BLT Fish, which earned three stars from Frank Bruni, as well as a Michelin star, which it promptly lost.

Main Menu

Now comes BLT Market, which occupies the former Atelier space in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel at the corner of Sixth Avenue and Central Park South. To Tourondel’s credit, this is his first restaurant in quite a while that isn’t a mindless clone of a previous endeavour. The idea of a restaurant focused on seasonal ingredients is hardly original, but Tourondel’s version of it could become one of the better ones.

I walked in on impulse at around 6:30 p.m. on a weeknight. The dining room was booked, but I got an outdoor table immediately with a nice view of Central Park. Typical of a BLT restaurant, the server presented me with several loose sheets of paper: a menu, a specials menu, and a wine list supplement. (I didn’t ask to see the full wine list, but they have one.)

I ordered a cocktail called the Apricot–Mint Caiproska ($14). Like other cocktails I’ve had at BLT restaurants, it was too small, and almost all ice. I felt like I had paid about $1 per sip. I wasn’t shown the full wine list, but the paper supplement showed ten selections by the glass and bottles from a variety of regions. It included eight choices from New York state, something you do not normally see. With bottles priced mostly above $60, there were few bargains to be had.

Specials Menu

The menu is focused and not unduly long. There are seven appetizers ($12–25), one soup ($12), two pastas ($14–24 as appetizers; $23–38 as entrées), six entrées ($26–43), six desserts ($10–11), and a cheese course ($14). A sidebar lists all of the vegetables and fish that are in season. The specials menu added an additional appetizer, two entrées, and one dessert. While the prices are obviously expensive, they are all-inclusive, unlike the other BLT restaurants, where the side dishes cost extra, and drive up the bill considerably.

I wasn’t that hungry, so I ordered two appetizers. Grilled Octopus ($18) came with a fresh cranberry  bean salad and bergamot dressing. The octopus was nicely charred, and thick enough to have the consistency of a steak, but it upstaged the accompanying salad, which was dull. Raw and Confit Big Eye Tuna ($18) came with a tonnato sauce, garnished with avocado and fresh heart of palm. This was a lovely dish, attractively plated. The raw tuna was especially good, but the confit version seemed not as flavorful.

The amuse-bouche was a riff on “pigs in a blanket”—a small slice of frankfurter wrapped in a pastry shell with a mustard and relish dressing. It was a cute idea, but a bit messy to eat, and the hot dog didn’t seem fresh. The bread service was spectacular: a long hot garlic bread, served in a paper bag. Say what you want about Tourondel, but the breads in his restaurants are great.

The space is a bit more elegant than the other BLT restaurants, but with many informal touches. Tables are bare wood, with cloth napkins but paper placemats. Servers wear striped aprons, but the captains wear suits. The artwork, which I understand Tourondel selected himself, consists of large pastel paintings showing fruits and vegetables, such as the tomato still life shown at the top of this post.

Service was friendly, but slow, with a rather long gap between my first and second appetizer. The amuse and bread courses left my placemat festooned with crumbs, but they didn’t replace it until after the meal was over. I wasn’t smitten with BLT Market, but the restaurant shows promise. With the menu still technically in previews, I assume there will be refinements, and some of the service glitches will be smoothed out.

BLT Market (1430 Sixth Avenue at Central Park South, West Midtown)

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

Staghorn Steakhouse

I’m on a mission to try all of the steakhouses in town. The other day, it was Staghorn Steakhouse’s turn.

Before I even tasted a morsel, I was struck by the austere décor. Frank Bruni (on his blog) thought that it was built on-the-cheap. I took it as a considered decision to break out of steakhouse clichés, and I’m glad they did. The blonde wood floors, white walls, and generously spaced tables made the space feel more relaxing than most other restaurants of its kind.

Service, however, was right out of the steakhouse playbook. Bread rolls were cold and stale. When I asked about wines by the glass, the waiter blurted out a list of grapes (merlot, shiraz, cabernet, pinot noir, chianti), but there was no printed list so that you’d know which shiraz they were serving. No other restaurant in its price range would be so cavalier about wines, but nearly all steakhouses seem to do it.

The meat entrées were the usual items, at the usual prices. I ordered the prime bone-in ribeye ($36), which was nicely charred and a perfect medium rare, but not quite as tender as some other ribeyes I’ve enjoyed, and marred by gristle in a couple of spots. I don’t hold the restaurant entirely accountable for this, as these days there are too many buyers chasing not enough beef. The server informed me that the steak was aged on-site for 28 days, which seemed believable.

The seafood menu (though I didn’t sample it) looked a bit better than some other steakhouses, including a Dover Sole and a Grilled Whole Branzini.

The restaurant wasn’t particularly crowded, although on a Thursday night in mid-August I wouldn’t draw any conclusions. However, the location isn’t in its favor. I’ve walked by a number of times, and it never seemed full. As Eater noted, Staghorn probably does good business before Knick and Ranger games. I don’t know if that’s enough to stay in business, but as it’s on my way home, I’ll probably be back.

On the strength of one visit, Staghorn Steakhouse seems a notch below the city’s better steakhouses, but it’s certainly respectable, and its calmer ambiance might be just right for some occasions.

Staghorn Steakhouse (315 W. 36th Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues, West Midtown)

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

Anthos

Note: This is a review under chef Michael Psilakis, who left the restaurant in March 2010. Anthos closed in August 2010. It is now the Empire Steakhouse, from the Ben & Jack’s team.

*

Anthos is the latest creation of Greek wonder-chef Michael Psilakis. For a self-taught chef, Psilakis has made a remarkable name for himself in just a few years. First he opened Onera on the Upper West Side. I loved the place, but the space was admittedly a bit dismal, and the location worked against it. And maybe the Upper West Side wasn’t ready for an offal tasting menu.

Then, he opened Dona, an Italian/Greek hybrid with comely restauranteur Donatella Arpaia. I wasn’t quite as infatuated with Dona as some other people, but there’s no question it was a big success. But then, Psilakis and Arpaia lost their lease, and Dona was no more. Around that time, he closed Onera and re-opened it as the more casual Kefi, and it’s now a hit. Then came Anthos (“blossoming”), which was meant to propel Greek cuisine to the three-star heights that Onera and Dona both missed.

The question is, did they succeed? Both Adam Platt in New York and Frank Bruni in the New York Times didn’t quite think so, both awarding two stars, though Bruni thought Anthos came awfully close to three. He pronounced it better than either Onera or Dona—both of which had won two stars from him—and several of his complaints seemed petty: “fussy tics” and “self-consciousness” (both recurring turn-offs for him), as well as “drab” décor (a complaint several critics have noted). He added, “Pauses between courses are too long, and not everything that arrives is worth the wait.”

We found Anthos to be just about everything a Greek restaurant could hope to be. Perhaps some of the early rough spots have been smoothed out. Or perhaps a Saturday in August, with the restaurant only half full, didn’t provide an indication of what service would be like when traffic is busier. We had no complaint with the purportedly drab décor, which seemed to us comfortable and appropriately restrained.

Canapés came first (above, left), followed by an amuse bouche (above, right). The server describing them had a heavy accent, and was difficult to understand. The latter—a smoked Halibut, I believe—was about one inch square. My girlfriend didn’t much care for it, but I thought it was successful. In any case, it must have set a record for most ingredients in a small package.

The menu at Anthos is re-printed daily. Both the appetizer and entrée I ordered aren’t shown on any of the online menus, and I don’t have exact descriptions. A Skate Salad (above, left; $16) was excellent, but I was especially impressed by Cod wrapped in zucchini (above, right; $33).

To start, my girlfriend ordered Sheep’s Milk Dumplings ($16), which were beautifully executed. But the highlight for her was the Roasted Chicken (above; $28), which was impeccably prepared, tender, and very attractively plated.

The wine list is a tad over-priced, but we found a wonderful Greek white wine at $55 (label pictured above). Curiously, the sommelier tried to steer us away from Greek wines—we weren’t sure why—but the choice we finally landed on was excellent.

Mileage may vary, but we left Anthos more impressed than we have been with any restaurant in quite some time.

Anthos (36 W. 52nd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, West Midtown)

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

Brasserie Ruhlmann

Brasserie Ruhlmann got on my “ought-to-try” list after I heard that Laurent Tourondel had taken over the kitchen. Perhaps I ought to have been suspicious.

Laurent Tourondel has spread himself thinner than goose liver pâté. He has four other Manhattan restaurants in his BLT franchise (BLT Steak, BLT Prime, BLT Fish, and BLT Burger), a fifth opening this summer (BLT Market), and BLT Steak outposts in two other cities. He’s built up that empire in just a shade over three years, so he can’t be spending much time in any of his kitchens.

Brasserie Ruhlmann was a quick rescue job. The restaurant opened in January 2006 with another executive chef, and Tourondel was named to the post just three months later. I assume Tourondel got a tidy consultant’s fee to design a standard-issue French brasserie menu that he could hand over to a chef de cuisine, and never think about again. His name is on the menu and his cookbook prominently displayed, but there’s none of the inspiration that make the BLT restaurants so impressive. (Update: Tourondel has yet another offspring: BLT Steak in the Westchester Ritz-Carlton.)

Brasserie Ruhlmann is named for the art deco furniture designer Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann. Owner Jean Denoyer is a Ruhlmann collector himself, and he spent $5 million building out the spectacular space on Rockefeller Plaza, where the art deco theme is always at home. Denoyer knows a little something about restaurants too, as he also owns the Michelin-starred La Goulue on the Upper East Side (among other places).

Alas, the kitchen just goes through the motions. You’ll have a satisfactory meal at Brasserie Ruhlmann, but nothing you can’t have at many other French brasseries around town, or indeed at La Goulue, where the food is better, and the atmosphere feels far less like a tourist trap.

We arrived at around 8:00 p.m. on a Saturday night, with the restaurant nearly deserted. It seemed like a nice evening, so we decided to sit outdoors. Drinks—a sidecar for me, a whiskey sour for my girlfriend—took twenty minutes to arrive. The manager explained that they’d never heard of a sidecar, and had to look it up. After all that time, they served my girlfriend whiskey straight-up, rather than a whiskey sour. We sent it back.

By now, it was 8:25. Though we had only just started sipping our cocktails, naturally they were keen to take our wine and food order instantly, but we were having none of that. When we finally did order, the wine came promptly, but the waiter struggled to uncork it. After a minor skirmish, he managed to push the cork into the bottle. With a sheepish look, he disappeared.

Meanwhile, the rains had come, so we headed inside. A short while later (it was now 9:00), he returned to our new table with the wine in a decanter—“very well filtered,” he assured us.

Complain all you want about Laurent Tourondel, but the bread service is always superb at his restaurants. Gougères (above, right) were perhaps the most original item we had at Brasserie Ruhlmann.

Country Pâté (left); Beef Shortribs Bourguignonne (right)

Country Pâté ($12) was competently prepared, although fairly ordinary. Beef Shortribs Bourguignonne ($28) were served in a generous portion, though the sauce was a bit heavy. (The photo doesn’t do it justice—beef seldom photographs well.)

After the comic mishaps with the drinks, the rest of the evening’s service was just fine. On principle, we thought that the drinks should have been comped—but they weren’t. The restaurant was nearly empty while we were there. It is probably busier and livelier at lunch, as at dinner time there’s usually no reason to be in the area. So far, it doesn’t look like Brasserie Ruhlmann will change that.

Brasserie Ruhlmann (45 Rockefeller Plaza, 50th Street between Fifth & Sixth Avenues, Rockefeller Center, West Midtown)

Food: Satisfactory
Service: Mediocre
Ambiance: Good
Overall: Satisfactory

Insieme

Note: Marco Canora and Paul Grieco left Insieme in September 2009. As of December 2010, the new chef is Andrés Julian Grundy. As of January 2011, the restaurant was closed—except for breakfast.

*

When Marco Canora and Paul Grieco opened Hearth in 2003, it was an immediate sensation in foodie community. Canora had been the executive chef at the much-loved Craft, and Hearth was his first solo venture. It won an enthusiastic two stars from Amanda Hesser in the Times, and has been on a roll ever since. I’ve visited Hearth twice, awarding 2½ stars after my most recent visit.

Canora and Grieco are back with an encore: Insieme, which means “together” in Italian. It’s bound to be the most mispronounced restaurant name in Manhattan. (For the record, it’s “in-see-EM-ay.”)

A new restaurant from this team was bound to attract attention. It took Gourmet’s Ruth Reichl only a week to pronounce that Insieme was serving the best lasagne in New York. The bloggers will no doubt come trooping briskly; there’s already a rave on Off the Broiler.

Insieme is located in the Michelangelo Hotel. Frankly, the style of the restaurant clashes with the style of the hotel, but that probably won’t matter: Insieme has its own entrance on Seventh Avenue. It’s actually a bit of a challenge to find the restaurant from inside the hotel. Located at the northern end of the theater district, it should draw on the pre- and post-show crowds. But it’s close enough to the midtown business district to draw on the same clientele that patronizes Le Bernardin, just across the street.

The cuisine has a more upscale feel to it than Hearth. The menu (PDF here) is on two facing pages. On the left are traditional Italian favorites, written in Italian with English translations. On the right are modern versions of the same or similar dishes, with the descriptions only in English. Each side has four antipasti ($12–18), three primi/mid-courses ($14–16) and four secondi/entrées ($29–36). Most of the primi are also available in entrée-sized portions for $26. Side dishes are $9. A five-course tasting menu is $85.

Hors d’oeuvres

After we arrived, the kitchen sent out a wonderful plate of hors-d’oeuvres. Radishes were hollowed out, and stuffed with olives and anchovies. Crostini were topped with goat cheese. Fresh baked rolls came out, with a helping of soft, creamy butter.

Egg-drop soup (left); Black olive fettuccini (right)

The amuse-bouche was an intense egg-drop soup in a beef and chicken broth. To start, I had the Black Olive Fettuccini ($16), with duck ragu and a hint of foie gras. Although wonderful, I thought the portion size was a mite too small, even allowing that it was an appetizer. My girlfriend had the Lasagne Verdi Bolognese ($16), which is surely the dish Ruth Reichl raved about. Made with spinach noodles, it had an astonishingly light texture.

Lamb chop, saddle, breast, sausage with lavender, spring garlic, morels, and mustard greens

Fagioli all’ Uccelletto

We were both drawn to an entrée titled simply “Lamb” ($36), featuring four renditions of lamb: chop, saddle, breast, and sausage. “Breast” is an unusual description for any part of lamb, but I’m assuming it referred to the tender lamb belly (nine o’clock in the photo). The chop and saddle were both impeccably prepared. I was not wowed by the sausage, which seemed to have been stuffed inside of morel mushrooms, and didn’t have enough spicy kick.

A side dish of Fagioli all’ Uccelletto ($8), or Cannellini beans, tomato, garlic, and sage, was terrific. In less accomplished hands, the tomato base would overwhelm the beans, but Marco Canora’s kitchen had the balance just right.

Baba au Rhum
 

Petits-fours
 

Whistler “The Black Piper” G.S.M. 2005For dessert, we shared the Baba au Rhum ($10), an unlikely dish in an Italian restaurant, but still well worth a try. I can’t say that it eclipsed the legendary rendition of this dish at Alain Ducasse, but that would be an unfair comparison.

The evening ended with petits-fours, all excellent, particularly the chocolate truffle in the middle of the photo.

The wine list is a work in progress. At the moment, it’s neither as long nor as interesting as the wine list at Hearth, but with Paul Grieco in charge of both, you can be sure that won’t last. Grieco himself came over to our table, and offered to assist. After a discussion, his advice confirmed the choice I was already leaning to anyway: the Whistler 2005 Black Piper ($47), a fruity Grenache–Shiraz–Mourvedre blend. We loved it so much that I brought the label home.

Service throughout the evening was first-rate. When I arrived, the maitre d’ alertly noticed that our original table was too close to a baby in a high chair. Without prompting, he offered to move us.

The dining room was never more than about half full. It cleared out considerably after 7:30, as the pre-theater crowd headed out. It started to fill up again around 9:00 p.m. I suspect that will be the rhythm of this place. I overheard Chef Canora telling a friend that the restaurant will stay open until 11:00 p.m. on weekdays, 11:30 p.m. on weekends. It’s an experiment to try to attract a post-theater crowd, and Canora didn’t sound positive that it would work. (Hearth closes at 10:00 p.m. on weekdays, 11:00 p.m. on weekends.)

It’s clear that Canora is trying to pitch Insieme at a higher level than Hearth. It’s about $10 per person more expensive, and the décor feels more elegant. Yet, Canora was obviously wary of getting too fancy, given that the city’s major critics tend to hold that against a restaurant. There are no tablecloths, and the tables are crammed rather close together.

It’s a familiar vibe that feels very much like two other recent successes, Perry St. and A Voce. But Insieme seems more sincere, and also more fun, than either of those two restaurants. At Perry St., Jean-Georges Vongerichten, the nominal man-in-charge, is too busy running 10 or 15 other restaurants to give the place more than passing attention. And at A Voce we found the service and ambiance seriously annoying.

And the best part of it is that Insieme is only two weeks old. It can only get better from here.

Insieme (777 Seventh Avenue at 51st Street, West Midtown/Theater District)

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

Easter Sunday at Quality Meats

My girlfriend, son, and I had Easter dinner at Quality Meats. This was our second visit—see earlier review—and cemented our view that Quality Meats is in the top echelon of New York steakhouses.

The most notable recent trend in Manhattan steakhouses—aside from the sheer quantity of them—is the rise of what I call “chick-friendly” steakhouses. It’s probably an unfair term, since plenty of women go to the standard Peter Luger-style steakhouses too. But at most of the classic steakhouses, the clientele is very obviously male-dominated. There are other stereotypes too, such as the wood paneling, unimaginative menu, and old-school waiters who seem almost bored.

Quality Meats, and others of its ilk, break this mold. They come across as fine-dining restaurants that happen to serve great steak, rather than as cookie-cutter steakhouses.

It would take a far more scientific study than I have time for to rate Quality Meats for the steaks alone, but they’re fairly close to the top of the heap, if not quite at the pinacle of it. There may be better classic steakhouses, but the supporting cast make Quality Meats a superior experience—from the excellent side dishes; to the homemade steak sauce, prepared tableside; and finally to the enjoyable AvroKO ambiance and first-rate service.

My girlfriend and I were both pleased with the 24 oz. bone-in rib steak ($44), which came with a foot-long rib bone still attached. The steak had the appropriate dry-aged taste, was done to the correct temperature, and was nicely marbled. My son did well by the 12 oz. filet mignon ($39).

We got the same side dishes as last time, the asparagus ($9) and the incredibly addictive crispy potatoes ($9), to which hot garlic butter was added tableside.

The wine list offers plenty to explore at reasonable prices. A Santa Duc Quatre Terres Côte du Rhône at $45 was a happy choice to go with what we had ordered.

For dessert, Quality Meats offers a great selection of ice creams ($6 for two scoops), so we all had that.

The restaurant did a brisk Easter business, but wasn’t full. Service was excellent, but for a repeat of the same upselling trick our server tried last time. We knew that steaks plus side dishes would be plenty, so we didn’t order appetizers. The server said, “Are you sure you don’t want appetizers? The steaks are going to take about 25 minutes.” Having been lured by this ruse last time, we politely declined. Sure enough, the wait for our steaks was more like 15 minutes.

There are plenty of great Manhattan steakhouses on my hit parade. If I’m just hungry for a steak, I walk in, order a slab of meat (with nothing else), and go home sated. But for a steakhouse that offers the whole package, Quality Meats may be the best of them all.

Quality Meats (57 West 58th St., east of Sixth Avenue, West Midtown)

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

The Modern (Dining Room)

For some restaurants, a favorable New York Times review is make-or-break. Alain Ducasse fired chef de cuisine Christian Delouvrier after Frank Bruni demoted his restaurant from four stars to three, and not long thereafter he closed the restaurant altogether. The owners of Gilt fired Paul Liebrandt after getting two stars from Mr. Bruni, at a restaurant clearly designed for a minimum of three.

Then there is The Modern—another restaurant with three or four-star aspirations that received a mere two. Owner–manager Danny Meyer was none too pleased, but he didn’t panic. Executive chef Gabriel Kreuther is still in place, offering his elegant interpretation of classic Alsatian cuisine. The meal price has gone up since the Bruni review came out. Judging by OpenTable availability and our own experience on Saturday night, the restaurant seems to be full most of the time. Deserved recognition came with a Michelin star, and Frank Bruni’s faint praise didn’t much matter.

Bruni thought that The Modern “will only become better,” but he has continued to take swipes at it, the most recent being an unprecedented three-star review for the Bar Room, The Modern’s casual cousin. I don’t believe there’s any other establishment where the Times has separately rated the casual front-room of a more formal restaurant. And if it had, there is certainly no precedent for giving a “bar room” a higher rating than the main restaurant itself.

The Modern is located in The Museum of Modern Art, although it has a separate entrance and is open for much longer hours than the museum itself. The main dining room is furnished in austere whites and blacks, with a spectacular view of the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden. Fine bone china and sterling silver table settings are paired with elegant and nearly flawless service. The room is lively, but with tables generously spaced, the noise level is not oppressive. However, there is not the hushed solemnity of some haute dining palaces.

The menu offers a three-course prix fixe at $85, a seven-course chef’s tasting menu at $125, or a seven-course winter tasting menu at $155. With amuse-bouches and mid-course treats, both seven-course menus are more like eleven courses. The more expensive tasting menu seems to derive its cost mainly from an over-dose of truffles. The chef’s tasting menu, besides being $30 cheaper, actually had more dishes that appealed to us, so we chose that.

Our meal, one of the best we have had in New York, unfolded over more than 3½ hours. Pacing, so often a problem with tasting menus, was impeccable. Even at restaurants that should know better, like Jean Georges and Gordon Ramsay, I’ve had to ask servers to slow down. Not here. When we arrived, we ordered a glass of champagne to start. The staff gave us time to enjoy it, rather than rushing us into ordering. And after we told our server that we had chosen the tasting menu, he asked if we wanted to defer placing the order until after we’d selected wine. I don’t remember that happening at any other restaurant, and we gladly took him up on the offer.

Paired wines would have been $95 apiece. I’m sure I’ll do a full wine pairing again, but I always feel like I need to be wheeled out on stretcher afterwards, so I asked the sommelier to recommend a single bottle at $100 or less that would go well with the whole meal. He offered two recommendations, at $100 and $105, which seemed a wee bit like gouging. (I like to see sommeliers come within my price limit, rather than trying to exceed it.) I chose the $100 bottle and was quite happy.

Bread service consisted of baguettes and olive bread, both served warm, with a cube of soft butter on an small two-tiered pedestal. The first amuse bouch was a trio of small bites: a foie gras truffle, a goat cheese linzer tart, and a cucumber ball, accompanied by a glass of roasted fava beans that could easily become addictive.

The second amuse (above, left) was a luscious salmon tartare sandwiched between potato blinis. This brought us to our first savory course, a foie gras terrine (above, right) that was sinfully sweet, thanks to an accompaniment of juniper marinated raisins. The apple compote and duck prosciutto (left side of the photo) were just fine, although arguably surplus for a dish where the terrine took a well deserved bow at center stage.

 
Next came a perfectly balanced tartare of yellowfin tuna and diver scallops (above, left) on a bed of cucumber, and speckled with Yellowstone River caviar—a breed of which, according to the menu, The Modern purchases the entire annual crop. Maine Lobster (above, right) came with winter vegetables and a spiced broth that was added tableside. This heavenly preparation was more exciting than Per Se’s rendition of a similar dish.

 
At this point I got caught up in the meal, and for the next two courses, forgot to snap the photos until after we’d started eating them. Chorizo-crusted Chatham Cod in a white coco bean puree (above, left) was another triumph. Long Island Duck Breast coated with a black trumpet marmelade and banyul jus added tableside (above, right) was the evening’s lone disappointment. It seemed too pedestrian after the increasing raptures of the fish courses, and it required too much effort to cut through the duck with the dull knife provided. A pastry called a “Fleischneke,” made from duck confit (top right of photo), sounded promising but was also rather uninteresting.

 
The cheese cart offered plenty of provocative selections, all expertly explained by the server. I was happy with all of them, but would particularly single out the orange one (third from left), which is actually a bleu cheese with notes of cheddar; and largest of the group (fifth from left), made from three different kinds of milk.

 
Pre-dessert was a concotion of fresh pineapple, citrus foam and pomegranate, with fresh cilantro that perhaps was a touch too dominant. Dessert was a trio of chocolates—all more than competently prepared, but not as memorable as what had gone before.

 
The traditional sweets came with a surprise—a miniature raspberry sundae in a cone. (Could it be an hommage to Thomas Keller’s salmon cone?) The tray of petits-fours came on the same style of bi-level pedestal used earlier for the butter, although much larger: it weighed about eight pounds. There was also a box of chocolates (not shown). We concluded with Ethiopian coffee, which was hand pressed and came in its own silver serving pot.

Our meal had a level of sustained excellence, with polished and professional service, that we judged superior to the tasting menu at Jean Georges that we had just over two months ago. If a couple of courses were less that fully inspiring (the duck and the dessert), this was only because everything else established such lofty expectations. During our long meal, we admired the plates coming out to other tables. One cannot judge food by looks alone, but everything we saw was beautifully composed and elegantly presented, with many dishes being finished at tableside.

When we were finished, the staff graciously honored our request for a tour of the kitchen—a gleaming beehive of copper and stainless steel. As we left, we were given a lemon coffee cake; we made fast work of it the next morning.

I’ve continued to read mixed reports about The Modern, which could suggest that it is uneven, or that Chef Kreuther’s brand of fine dining is not to all tastes. I don’t think there is any colorable argument, however, that it is not at least a three-star restaurant. Fortunately, The Modern has been wildly successful without Frank Bruni’s endorsement. But his continuing animus toward this restaurant must nevertheless be reckoned a professional disgrace.

The Modern (9 West 53rd Street between 5th & 6th Avenues, West Midtown)

Cuisine: Modern French/Alsatian, beautifully executed
Service: Pampering and attentive; Danny Meyeresque
Ambiance: A gorgeous modern room overlooking the MoMA sculpture garden

Rating: ★★★★

La Vineria

Note: La Vineria has moved to 737 Ninth Avenue at 50th Street, the former home of La Locanda dei Vini, another Italian restaurant by the same owners. The new chef is Massimiliano “Max” Bartoli, formerly of the Miss Williamsburg Diner.

*

La Vineria is an unassuming trattoria that one could easily overlook, on a stretch of West 55th Street dominated by much larger places—indeed, despite knowing the address, I walked right by it the first time. Once inside, you quickly forget you’re in Midtown. The space is cozy, with the décor dominated by an exposed kitchen and a high shelf lined with old wine bottles that encircles the room.

The menu features pizzas ($14–17), antipasti ($9.50–14), pastas ($15–25) and main courses ($15–34). Many of the pastas have a heavy meat or fish component, accounting for some of the higher-priced dishes. These included the Pappardelle with duck ragout and seasoned mushrooms ($18), which I thought would have benefited from a heftier helping of duck than was offered. My friend was delighted with the mixed seafood stew ($24.50).

The wine program at La Vineria is something to celebrate. On a list with a couple of hundred selections, there are 23 reds under $45, including ten choices $30 or under. We were delighted with a 2003 Valpolicella at $30, which had a bouquet so fragrant that I couldn’t help holding the glass up to my nose every time I took a sip.

Our party of 25 guests took up about two-thirds of the restaurant. Naturally, in such a small space the kitchen and service staff struggle at times to keep up, as they are not normally geared up to serve so many meals at once. Under the circumstance, they did an admirable job.

For a moderately-priced dining option, in a neighborhood where most good restaurants cost a lot more, La Vineria is worth a look.

La Vineria (19 West 55th Street between 5th and 6th Avenues, West Midtown)

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