Perilla

Note: Harold Dieterle closed Perilla and its sister restaurant, Kin Shop, late in 2015. He said that he was “not having fun and enjoying myself.”

*

On every episode of Top Chef, host Padma Lakshmi announces that the last surviving chef will win $100,000 (upgraded to $125k in Season 6), “to help turn their culinary dreams into reality.”

So, how many winners have actually parlayed their victory into a new restaurant? Exactly one: Harold Dieterle, the top chef of Season 1, who opened Perilla in May 2007, a year after his win.

Frank Bruni, who awarded one star in the Times, noted the odd trajectory of Dieterle’s success: “Fame on the small screen wasn’t a result of a packed restaurant; his packed restaurant is a result of his fame on the small screen. That’s reality television for you — it scrambles cause and effect, defying the laws of celebrity physics.”

Despite Bruni’s faint praise (he found the menu “cautious” and “straightforward”), Perilla has thrived. We found it packed on a Saturday evening. Meanwhile, the menu has broadened a bit. In serving entrées like Sautéed Triggerfish and Tasting of Local Rabbit, no one can accuse Dieterle of copying everybody else.

The menu is American seasonal cuisine, somewhat reminiscent of the Red Cat, though Perilla is a nicer restaurant. Prices are moderate for food of this quality, with appetizers $11–15, entrées $21–28, and side dishes $8–10.

Crispy Wild Boar Belly ($12; above left) is a clever play on the pork belly that every other chef is serving. The pairing with stewed huckleberries is inspired. We also appreciated that the kitchen divided the dish without prompting, after we told our server that we intended to share it.

We also shared the Spicy Duck Meatballs ($13; above right). It’s a good dish, abetted by a runny quail egg, but the heat stayed behind in the kitchen: we didn’t find it all that spicy at all.

I’m always hesitant about ordering steak in a non-steakhouse, but we took the plunge here and weren’t disappointed. Ribeye for two ($70) was nearly as good as the better steakhouses serve. These days, most restaurants source their aged beef from the major big-name purveyors, like Debragga or LaFreida, so all the kitchen needs to do is have a broiler that can apply a crusty char. Perilla has that, which ensured that this ribeye would make it into the pantheon.

That ribeye was a bargain, given that it came with two sides: potato croquettes and roasted beets with chestnuts. (Most steakhouses would charge at least as much for that ribeye alone.) We adored the beet–chestnut dish, the first time we recall seeing that anywhere. The croquettes, although we could not finish them, were also brilliant, with a crisp crust giving way to silky creamed potatoes.

We never visited Perilla when it was new, but we got the sense that extra tables had been squeezed in to cope with peak demand. There isn’t much room to maneuver here, although the room isn’t as noisy as such places can sometimes be. Despite the crowds, service was warm and efficient.

We came to Perilla mostly out of curiosity—wondering if the former Top Chef winner was really a great discovery, or if he was just coasting on his reputation. We went home remarkably impressed. Harold Dieterle is an excellent chef, and Perilla is a terrific restaurant.

Perilla (9 Jones Street between West 4th & Bleecker Streets, West Village)

Food: ★★
Service: ★★
Ambiance: ★½
Overall: ★★

The Burger at Bar Blanc Bistro

Note: Bar Blanc Bistro has closed. The space is now the Southern-themed restaurant Lowcountry.

*

When we last visited Bar Blanc, we found a washed-out all-blanc space helmed by a former Bouley chef, with a $75 tasting menu and a $32 suckling pig entrée. At those prices, Bar Blanc needed to be more than just a neighborhood place.

Frank Bruni drank the kool-aid, awarding two stars in early 2008. We found it uneven (that pig was stringy and bitter) and over-priced, awarding just one. It seems the customers agreed with us.

Bar Blanc wisely re-tooled. The severe all-blanc space was toned down and made more welcoming. The original chef departed, and was replaced by Sebastiaan Zijp (ironically also a former Bouley employee), who dialed down the menu to a level the West Village could support. To signal the revised ambitions, the space was renamed Bar Blanc Bistro.

Except for a strip steak, all of the entrées are now under $30. Pork appears in several dishes; the chef breaks down whole animals himself. You can order the full menu at the bar, though there is a separate menu of bar snacks, including the obligatory signature burger for $15. On Mondays, you can get a dinner of moules frites with beer for just $18. On Sundays, there’s a $35 prix fixe. Wines are half-price during happy hour.

In other words, there’s a sincere attempt to make this a neighborhood go-to place, but the cuisine is thoughtful enough, and the space welcoming enough, for a low-key date or a business dinner.

Josh Ozersky’s final act as editor of the Feedbag (other than navel-gazing) was a visit to Bar Blanc Bistro, where he sampled the whole menu, liking all of it except the beef. Ozersky has it out for the Piedmontese Beef the restaurant features: “as I expected, the hamburger is awful.”

Being the perverse soul I am, I thought I’d try the one thing Ozersky hated—that burger. No, it is not awful—you knew that, right?

Piedmontese Beef has a luscious taste, remarkable given that it doesn’t rely on high fat content. But I suppose when you’re eating a burger doused in melted Vermont cheddar and bone marrow–bordelaise mayo, who cares how fatty the beef is?

A more serious complaint is the height–width ratio. If this baby were any taller, it would be a meatball. At these proportions, it was difficult to handle. When I was finished, half the bun was still in my hand.

I wouldn’t order that burger again, but I came away much more inclined to return to the restaurant than when Bar Blanc was serving $30 entrées. There’s still much more fun to be had here.

Bar Blanc Bistro (142 W. 10th St. between Sixth & Seventh Avenues, West Village)

Yerba Buena Perry

Yerba Buena, the well regarded Latino restaurant in the East Village, has a new baby brother across town. I assume it is just a coincidence that its predecessor in this space, Matador Bistro Latino, was a very similar restaurant.

The nominal chef at Yerba Buena Perry, Julian Medina, now has three restaurants (counting Toloache in West Midtown), and one worries whether they all have his full attention. We enjoyed our meal here, but there were some missteps.

The price range of Medina’s restaurants may soon reach nosebleed levels. In the East Village, the entrées max out at $27. At Perry Street, four dishes top this amount (several of them steaks, including the obligatory ribeye). Appetizers, however, are about the same at either place ($9–14). Once the average main course is above $25, you’re not talking about cheap eats.

A Tuna Ceviche ($13; above left) with sweet onion and pickled watermelon was too tart. Arepas ($13; above right) were like Latin American sliders, stuffed here with coffee glazed pork belly and cabbage slaw. The coffee taste didn’t come through for me, but they were none the worse for it.

Lechon ($24; above left), or roast suckling pig, packed a strong comfort-food punch. Ropa Vieja de Pato ($26; above right), or duck leg and confit, was nicely done, but the duck egg on top was overdone. We assume the idea was to puncture the yoke and let it run through the shredded duck confit, but the poor yolk had been cooked through.

The carefully prepared cocktails deserve all of the acclaim they’ve received. I especially liked the Turnpike (rye, applejack, and lemon). Another was served with a single large block of ice nearly the size of a Rubik’s cube.

Although the restaurant was mostly empty when we arrived, the hostess seated us at practically the worst table, right next to a serving station. A manager noticed the error, and moved us to a banquette. After that, the service was just fine. The room has been spiffed up a bit, but the atmosphere is decidedly casual.

I wouldn’t send you out of your way to visit Yerba Buena Perry, but if you’re in the area it has terrific cocktails and mostly enjoyable nueva Latina cuisine.

Yerba Buena Perry (1 Perry Street at Greenwich Avenue, West Village)

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

Employees Only

We visited Employees Only last week as a backup, after our original choice cancelled service due to a busted water pipe. I’d never been, but it had always struck me as a dependable fallback when one has no other plans.

It strikes me that way still.

The name strikes an aura of faux exclusivity: you don’t need to be any kind of employee to get in, though you may find chefs and waiters there late, as the kitchen stays open until 3:30 a.m.

At the more civilized hour that we visited (7:00 p.m. on Friday evening), the bar was full, but the tables, of which there are fewer than a dozen, were empty. Bartenders, or perhaps I should say bar chefs, wore crisp white toques.

Employees Only was a speakeasy before everyone started doing it. You’d better memorize the address, because the name isn’t posted outside. There’s a tiny E.O. logo, which you could easily miss. A seemingly bored doorman stands guard, but he ignores you. A lady dressed as a psychic sits at a table just beyond the door. Once you’re fully inside, the the schtick is over, and the place functions as a normal restaurant.

The menu offers straightforward renditions of continental comfort food classics, all solidly done, if not especially imaginative. Salads are $7–12, appetizers $11–23, entrées $19–27, side dishes $7. Cocktails are on the expensive side, mostly $14–15, though you ought to try one.

The Serbian Charcuterie Plate ($21; above) was ample for two to share. It eludes me how Serbian charcuterie is distinguished from other kinds, but it was a fine selection.

I had to try the Elk Loin ($32; above right), if only because there’s nowhere else to get it. Elk is lean and not gamey, which means it doesn’t have a ton of flavor on its own. It was fun to have once, but I wouldn’t order it again. Orecchiette ($19; above left) was a competent preparation, with house-made Italian sausage, arugula, and parmesan.

Service was friendly and attentive.

Employees Only isn’t quite convenient enough for me to drop in regularly, nor important enough to be a destination, but if you’re hungry and don’t have other plans, it’s nice to know it’s there.

Employees Only (510 Hudson Street between Christopher & W. 10th St., West Village)

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

Braeburn

Note: Braeburn closed in January 2011.

Braeburn came quietly to the West Village last October, where it was important enough to be reviewed by all of the major critics, but dull enough to be greeted with yawns. Bruni and Platt awarded one star apiece. Restaurant Girl awarded two, which in her quirky system amounts to the same thing.

In a way, I can see what they mean. Its faux-farmhouse décor reminds you very much of places you’ve seen before. Or maybe a dozen of them. The menu, too, seems like the highlight reel from other farm-to-table restaurants. The chef, Brian Bistrong, won raves at The Harrison, but like so many in the business, he has moved on to something less ambitious.

But there’s something to be said for a restaurant that does a lovely job with simple things, and makes them just exciting enough that you’re happy you dropped in. Such was the case with a Poached and Panko Crusted Farm Egg ($10) with artichoke hash and parmesan foam. So too a tender Almond Crusted Flounder ($22) with cherry tomato salad, basil, and shallots.

The rest of the menu is along similar lines. There are seven appetizers ($9–13), four sides ($6), and six entrées ($22–28). There’s also a daily special, usually some kind of comfort food; Monday’s was Chicken Fried Steak ($18). The three-course prix fixe is $30, with a couple of choices for each course.

The occasion was a catch-up meal with a distant cousin whom I’d not seen since childhood. I figured Braeburn would be comfortable and quiet. At 6:15 p.m., we had the dining room to ourselves. Our timing was perfect. About two hours later, as we were getting up to leave, the tables had started to fill up, and it wasn’t so quiet any more.

The server seemed to realize that we wanted to talk. She stayed out of the way, but circled back frequently enough to keep track of us. We took our time before ordering and never felt rushed.

Braeburn (117 Perry Street at Greenwich Street, West Village)

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

Mas (farmhouse)

Mas was a restaurant we instantly liked when we first visited, a shade under three years ago. Despite our enthusiasm, I had no particular eagerness to return. The food is good, but not in a specific way that you can’t get anywhere else. And Mas is hard to book, partly because it is not on OpenTable.

Of course, its absence from OpenTable is for a reason: Mas is habitually full, even with an extra back room added in late 2007, which increased the size of the dining room from 40 to 55 seats. Last year, Mas got a rare gift: a second review from Frank Bruni, who upgraded it to the two stars it deserved in the first place. (His earlier one-star review was one of the more egregious errors of his first year on the job, though it doesn’t seem to have hurt the restaurant.)

Mas is still as lovely as we found it in December 2006. The seats and tables are comfortable, the warm faux farmhouse décor is inviting, the service is polished. If you notice such things, the china and stemware are some of the most elegant of any New York restaurant, including the four-stars.

There’s a recession going on, but you wouldn’t know it at Mas. If ordered à la carte, the appetizers are $14–23, and the entrées $32–36. Those high prices apply to the wine list too, where you’ll struggle to find a red under $60.

The menu is awfully confusing. The front page offers a $68 four-course prix fixe with specific dishes listed. The server goes on to explain that those dishes are available à la carte as well, and anything on the carte can be substituted into the prix fixe at no extra charge.

If that’s the case, then why is the menu structured that way? As I heard the same lengthy explanation repeated at multiple tables, I wondered why they don’t just do the obvious thing: print everything à la carte, with a note at the bottom: any four courses, $68. (A six-course tasting menu, with the courses not named, is $95.)

We started with an amuse-bouche of smoked duck (above, right) that was more interesting to look at than taste.

A White Asparagus Soup (above left) was just fine, but my girlfriend reported that a Roasted Beet and Goat Cheese salad was too salty. All three of us ordered the Long Island Duck Breast (above right). It was one of the more tender duck preparations I’ve had in a while, with a beautiful layer of fat below the skin. But accompaniments of sweet potato, bacon & leek gratin, with savoy cabbage in a bacon cream and beet sauce, sounded a lot more interesting than they were.

My sense of Mas now is that it is a terrific place for a romantic dinner or a special occasion, and I would happily go there again with the right guests. The cuisine and wine list are solid, but arguably over-priced. For the food alone, Mas isn’t quite exciting enough to win a place in the regular rotation.

Mas (39 Downing St. between Bedford St. and Seventh Ave. South, West Village)

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

The Burger at the Spotted Pig

As time allows, I’ve been eating my way through the city’s iconic burgers. On Friday, it was The Spotted Pig’s turn. No less an authority than Citysearch’s Mr. Cutlets ranks it fourth—not bad in a town where there’s a burger on every street corner.

I eat at the Pig only when I can arrive between 5:00 and 5:30 p.m., when dinner service begins. Any later than that, and you’re looking at a long wait. The service puts many two-star restaurants to shame, from the friendly hostess that found a bar stool for me when it appeared there were none, to another hostess that offered without prompting to transfer the bar tab to my table.

But let’s move onto that burger ($17), a hefty monster with a gorgesous beefy taste and a crisp, charred bun. One could argue that the roquefort cheese overpowers the meat (that’s Cutlets’ position), though I would probably order it again as-is. The shoestring fries that come with it are insubstantial.

The burger seems to be the most popular item at the Spotted Pig. I had a great view of the kitchen, and it looked like about 60% of all orders coming out were burgers. I now see why. It is truly a masterpiece of burger science.

The Spotted Pig (314 W. 11 Street at Greenwich Street, West Village)

La Focaccia

Note: La Focaccia closed in the summer of 2010.

*

La Focaccia is one of the seemingly infinite neighborhood restaurants that inhabit West Village street corners. It would be a full-time job to sample them all, but La Focaccia caught our eye, thanks to a wood-burning oven, clearly visible from ceiling-height picture windows facing on West Fourth and Bank Streets.

The place has rustic Northern Italian charm, with tile tabletops and a pressed tin ceiling, but tables are cramped tightly, and a room full of hard surfaces amplifies the din. There’s a steady trail of walk-ins, ensuring that no table goes unoccupied for long.

Oddly enough, the bread did not seem to be focaccia—it was thicker than it should be. However, it was soft and served warm, which was good enough.

Portions are on the hearty side. When the server brought two large bowls of gnocchi with pesto sauce ($16; right), we were sure she had misunderstood our request for a single order to split, not two separate orders. Our fears proved unfounded when the bill arrived, and we were charged for just one order of gnocchi.

And it was a perfectly respectable gnocchi that I would be happy to eat again. (The photo was snapped after I’d already eaten half of it.)

Among the entrées, the mixed grill for two ($58) is the choice for those who are indecisive. It’s a massive portion of lamb, chicken, sausage, steak, and vegetables, which we could not finish. We puzzled at the logic of including three lamb chops on a plate designed to be share by two people, especially as the lamb was easily the best of the bunch, with the sausage a close second. The chicken was forgettable, the steak and vegetables pedestrian.

The wine list has plenty of choices if you’re on a budget. A 2003 Salice Salentino at $30 was just fine for our purposes. The unevenness of the food, coupled with the loud surroundings, did not leave us with any urge to return.

La Focaccia (51 Bank Street at West Fourth Street, West Village)

Food: Satisfactory
Service: Good
Ambiance: Charming, if you wear ear plugs
Overall: Satisfactory

Centro Vinoteca

[Kalina via Eater]

Note: Centro Vinoteca closed in March 2013. The following review was written under chef Leah Cohen, who left the restaurant in September 2009.

*

Centro Vinoteca is one of those restaurants that raises immediate suspicion, with its achingly long 18-month gestation and a game of musical chefs before it served its first meal in the summer of 2007. Frank Bruni’s middling one-star review did nothing to pique my curiosity.

Last fall, founding chef Anne Burrell—she of the blonde spikey hair, perhaps best known as Mario Batali’s sidekick on Iron Chef—left the restaurant. Apparently all of her TV gigs were interfering with more important matters—like, you know, cooking. No successor was announced, but the owners quietly passed the baton to sous chef Leah Cohen (left), whom they knew — although we did not — was about to appear as a “cheftestant” on Season 5 of Bravo’s Top Chef.

Cohen has had an eventful season on the show. As of this writing, she has made it to the final five, out of an original cast of seventeen. She is not a bad chef, but she will probably be remembered for getting caught on camera playing tonsil hockey with a fellow cheftestant. Most observers expect her to be sent home well before the finale, as she has barely scraped by in the last several challenges.

Of course, the episodes we watch now were taped months ago. As of today, Cohen is chef de cuisine at Centro Vinoteca, and the restaurant’s website doesn’t fail to remind you. I don’t know how many people visit the restaurant to see her—as if you could actually “see” anything—but they are milking it for all it’s worth.

We paid a visit on Saturday evening. Okay, I’ll admit it: I wanted to see what Cohen’s food was like, apart from the contrived and time constrained challenges imposed on TV. Whether due to Cohen’s minor celebrity turn or other reasons, the restaurant was as crowded as any we have been in lately. It is a noisy, cramped space, and not especially pleasant. (An upstairs dining room appears to be a bit more civilized.)

For a casual Italian joint, prices here are a tad on the high side, with antipasti $10–16, primi $14–18, and secondi $22–36. The menu appears to be changing regularly. Many of the items mentioned in the Bruni review have been replaced.

 

Both pastas were very strong: a kabocha squash ravioli with walnuts ($14; above left) and a squid ink tagliatelle with baby squid, shrimp and cockles ($18; above right). But both pastas got cold too quickly, as the plates had not been pre-warmed.

 

Sausage-Stuffed Baby Chicken ($22; above left) suffered from a lack of balance between its two main ingredients. There was about a millimeter of chicken wrapped around far too much of the sausage. It was tender and nicely complemented by a bed of creamy polenta and mushrooms, but the sausage was too powerful a presence.

Ribeye Steak ($36; above right) is a bail-out dish in many restaurants. It was beautifully done here, but my girlfriend said that the potato prosciutto fontina cake underneath it was inedible.

If Centro Vinoteca offered a more quieter atmosphere, I might consider returning to try more of the pastas. They weren’t good enough to compensate for the loud, cramped atmosphere and the uneven entrées.

Centro Vinoteca (74 Seventh Avenue S. at Bleecker/Barrow Streets, West Village)

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

dell'anima

Note: Founding chef Gabe Thompson left dell’anima (and the group’s other restaurants) in October 2015.

*

What do you get when a former Babbo sommelier (Joey Campanale) and a former Del Posto and Le Bernerdin chef (Gabe Thompson) open a casual Italian joint at neighborhood prices? You get dell’anima, one of those instantly popular, crazily-crowded places, that you figure you’ll never get into.

Strangely enough, I got in last night—a bail-out choice when Corner Bistro was too crowded. Reservations at dell’anima (which means “of the soul”) are tough to come by, but there was one lonely bar stool free, and I grabbed it.

The space is casual and cramped. In an early visit shortly after dell’Anima opened in late 2007, Frank Bruni found the food pleasant but unadventurous, and the service was too slow. He did not bother filing a full review, but it scarcely mattered: dell’anima was a hit, and its owners now have a follow-up at nearby L’Artusi.

The menu (click on image for a larger version), which changes daily, is in the standard four-part format, with antipasti e insalate ($11–16), primi ($16–18),  secondi ($20–28) and contorni ($7). There’s an odd mix of English and Italian: “PORK CHOP, ribolata refrito, pear mostarda” is a typical dish. In case you were wondering, pasta fatta in casa.

I wanted to eat simply, so I started with the Endive ($12; above left) with anchovy citronette and pecorino. Flavors were bright and forward. Trofie ($16; above right) was unexplained, but I rolled the dice anyway. Short pasta noodles, slightly thicker than spaghetti, came in a spicy blend with bacon, tomato, shallots, and rosemary.

I didn’t check out the full wine list, but the selections by the glass were ample, and not just generic choices either. A 1999 Satta Vermentino was just $12 per glass.

Service was attentive and brisk—an improvement from some of the early reports. I overheard the bartender offering to transfer a tab to a diner’s table, something the customer had not even asked for. At most places in dell’anima’s price range, exactly the opposite happens. As I was leaving, the hostesses made a point of thanking me for the visit, a nice touch often lacking in places like dell’anima that clearly do not need my business.

dell’anima (38 Eighth Avenue at Jane Street, West Village)

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