Whither "$25 & Under"?

Last Friday, Eater.com broke the story that Peter Meehan had resigned as the “$25 & Under” dining critic at The New York Times. Meehan’s editor, Pete Wells, confirmed the story on Grub Street, and today Meehan speaks up on Eater.com—dubbed an “exit interview.”

Eric Asimov founded the “$25 & Under” column in 1992. As conceived at the time, the column was supposed to highlight “restaurants where people can eat lavishly for $25 and under. For that price, you should be able to get a complete meal: appetizer, main course, and dessert. Beverages, tax, and tip are not included in the calculation.”

Like the Alternative Minimum Tax, the column name wasn’t indexed for inflation. Asimov kept reviewing the kinds of restaurants he’d always reviewed, but by 2004 (his final year), the name wasn’t literally true any more. As Asimov recounted in an eGullet Q&A, “Let’s be honest about the $25 cutoff. It made literal sense in 1992. Nowadays it communicates generally that this restaurant is going to be cheaper than the other restaurant on the page, and that it’s going to be a good value.”

When William Grimes stepped aside as chief restaurant critic, Asimov could have had the job if he’d wanted it. Instead, Asimov chose the cushier job of chief wine critic, Frank Bruni took over as the main restaurant critic, and the “$25 & Under” job went to the then-unknown Peter Meehan.

The paper had apparently decided to restore truth to the “$25 & Under” label. Meehan did as he was told, but the column became increasingly irrelevant, as he struggled to find newsworthy restaurants where you could have a $25 meal worth writing about. Bruni, in the meantime, “stretched” the traditional star system to encompass everything from Per Se to Katz’s Deli.

My view? Asimov had it right. Rename the column “$40 & Under.” Doing so would give Frank Bruni more bandwidth to cover the traditional territory of “starred restaurants,” and would restore to the former Asimov column the luster it used to have.

My reasoning? The Times is a national paper first, a metro paper second, and a neighborhood paper third. Anyplace the Times reviews needs to be a “destination” in some sense. The $25 ceiling forces the critic into reviewing obscure outer-borough destinations that most readers don’t care about. The paper will never have the bandwidth to do justice to tavernas in Queens or taco stands in the Bronx. Websites like Chowhound.com cover that ground more effectively than the Times ever can.

I am not trying to make the Times any more elitist than it already is. I know there are some people who adore these humble neighborhood joints. But I am trying to be realistic about what the paper’s dining section can realistically achieve. Editor Pete Wells seems to have realized this, when he dialed back “$25 & Under” to bi-weekly, replacing it with “Dining Briefs,” a column that provides shorter snapshots of two or three restaurants at a time.

If Times management is unwilling to lift the “$25 & Under” ceiling to a level that would restore the column to its original purpose, then they should just kill the column altogether, and run “Dining Briefs” every week.

L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon

Note: L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon closed at the end of June 2012. A conflict with the union was partly to blame. It is expected to re-open in March 2015 at Brookfield Place in Battery Park City. This will be a stiff test of the viability of fine dining downtown.

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The French Gault Millau hailed Joël Robuchon as Chef of the Century—the last one, that is.

So when Robuchon’s L’Atelier (the name means “workshop”) arrived in town, what did the city’s two principal critics say? They complained the place was too casual. New York’s Adam Platt said that he would award four stars for the food, negative one for the ambiance, for a total of three, the same total Frank Bruni awarded.

Let us recall that Platt awarded four stars to Momofuku Ko without subtracting a star for ambiance, even though the experience at Momofuku Ko is in every respect inferior to L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon.

Let us also recall that after Frank Bruni reviewed this restaurant in October 2006, it took another sixteen months for him to find another new restaurant worthy of three stars. When he finally did, what was it? Why, Dovetail, another restaurant in every respect inferior by an order of magnitude to L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon.

After I returned home from my visit here, I immediately resolved to downgrade Momofuku Ko, a very good restaurant to which I had, nevertheless, erroneously awarded 3½ stars. One needs to be reminded occasionally of what the word “extraordinary” really means, lest it be confused with that which is merely “excellent.”

Food isn’t the only thing that’s extraordinary at L’Atelier. So are the prices. Little tasting plates range from $17–38 (not counting the caviar dish), and you’ll need about four of these to make a satisfactory meal. Appetizers range from $16–44, entrées from $37–46. Desserts are $17 apiece. The nine-course tasting menu is $190, making it the city’s third-most expensive after Masa and Per Se. The wine list, as you’d expect, carries prices to match: I saw no reds below $70.

But those who dine at this class of restaurant are already reconciled to dropping a sum of money. Momofuku Ko doesn’t become better than L’Atelier, just because David Chang has found a way to serve extremely good (though not extraordinary) cuisine at a price for the masses.

The two restaurants are comparable in many ways, as both feature counter dining, though the counter at L’Atelier is considerably more spacious and comfortable. L’Atelier also has twenty-six table seats, and I suspect much of the experience is diluted if you sit there, as it would be at any good sushi restaurant.

But continuing the comparison, it must be noted that L’Atelier has considerably more kitchen space than Momofuku Ko. With about 36 savory courses and 8 desserts, you could dine at L’Atelier a good half-dozen times without duplicating a selection. At Momofuku Ko, you will have come fairly close to exhausting the possibilities after just a couple of dinners.

At L’Atelier, the level of precision is something remarkable to behold. A chef actually uses tweezers to place chives on a plate. A couple of times, we were astounded, not merely at how good something tasted, but at how it could have existed at all. Robuchon is not just a chef, but a magician too.

Although Robuchon has seventeen Michelin stars (currently tops in the world), and something like eighteen restaurants, he is not a totally absentee chef. He recently spent a week in New York. Food & Wine reported that he was actually cooking. (We asked the staff about this, and they conceded he does not spend the whole evening in the kitchen, and that he does a good deal of schmoozing, too.)

To dine at L’Atelier, you have to put up with a slightly overwhelming menu. The items are in three categories (tasting plates, appetizers, entrées). Assuming you give the tasting menu a pass (which we did), how much constitutes a meal? The server advised that each “tasting plate” is generally about half the size of a conventional appetizer, but this isn’t strictly true when you consider the richness of the food. (My girlfriend wondered how many tons of butter they go through in a day.)

We decided to order two tasting plates and one entrée apiece, and to swap plates in between courses, which allowed us to try six things between us.

 
Bread service; Amuse-bouche

The bread service was lovely, though I would have preferred softer butter to go with it. The amuse-bouche was a delightful little foie gras mousse with a port reduction and parmesan foam.

 
Le Saumon (left); L’Ognion Nouveau (right)

The dishes here have deceptively simple names. I started with Le Saumon ($25). On the right side of the plate are two strips of thinly cut smoked salmon. On the left is a tangle of shredded crisp potato, but inside is a lightly poached egg. How they got the potato to completely surround the egg without damaging it is a mystery. You cut into the potato, and the egg yolk spills out: a deconstructed egg, salmon and potato omelet.

L’Ognion Nouveau ($24), an onion tart, was less mysterious, but every bit as accomplished in its preparation.

 
Le Ris de Veau (left); Les Burgers (right)

Le Ris de Veau ($29) offered two succulent sweetbreads, but equally delightful was the spring of stuffed romaine lettuce—stuffed with what? We were not sure, but it was astonishing.

But that was nothing compared to Les Burgers ($39), two small double-decker burgers with beef, foie gras and caramelized bell peppers, with hand-cut fries and Robuchon’s take on homemade ketchup. In another restaurant, these tiny burgers would be called sliders, but they put to shame every other version I’ve tried. The beef and foie gras melt together into one potent flavor package. Of the fries, my girlfriend said, “These are what I want before I die.”

 
La Caille (left); Le Tete de Veau (right)

The entrées didn’t rock our world quite as much as the tasting plates did. La Caille ($45), or quail, is one of Robuchon’s signature dishes, and I suspect anyone that loves the bird would love this bird. He stuffs the breast with foie gras, and caramelizes the outside. There are two little wings, two little breasts, and a potato purée on the side. I thought the dish disappeared awfully quickly for something that costs $45, and it was a lot of work to pull off what little meat a quail wing had to offer. But ’tis ever thus with quail. (The menu also offers a tasting portion of this dish, at $30.)

Le Tete de Veau ($42) is a remarkable preparation of a veal’s head, with bits of the cheek, tongue, and other unmentionables pounded thin, layered, rolled in a layer of fat, and cooked till crisp. We both thought that the fat overpowered the dish, but we didn’t have a basis of comparison for evaluating this classic.

  
Cheese plate; Cappuccino; Petits-fours

In lieu of dessert, we chose the cheese plate ($28), with four wonderful choices: from left to right, Hoch Ybrig, Emissaire de Notre Dame, Camembert Chatelain, and Bleu d’Auvergne. (The staff kindly produced a handwritten list when we asked for it.)

The unusually large cappuccino ($12) seemed worthy of a photo too, as well as two precious chocolate petits-fours that came on their own little pedestal.

The service throughout was first-class, notwithstanding the inherent informality of the counter setting. (Even the runners wear white gloves.) Our server had some mannerisms that were a bit irritating. Whatever we ordered seemed coincidentally to be her favorite item on the menu. A couple of times, she punctuated our dinner with “Good job!”, as if we were earning merit badges.

The restaurant is located in a corner of the Four Seasons hotel, but there is little separation between the dining room and the hotel bar just outside it. Both New York’s Platt and the Times’ Frank Bruni complained that the bar’s hubbub interfered with the quiet seclusion that such a meal ostensibly calls for. That may well have been true in the early days, when foodies were tripping over each other to try New York’s latest new thing. It was not an issue at any time during our two-hour meal on a Saturday evening. The restaurant was about two-thirds full.

With its stratospheric prices, L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon does not allow you to get out cheaply. Dinner for two came to $475, including tax and tip. At our income level, it cannot be anything more than an “occasion place,” visited occasionally. But assuming you take the plunge, you are almost certain to be treated to a level of cuisine few New York restaurants can match.

L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon (57 E. 57th Street between Park & Madison Avenues, in the Four Seasons Hotel, East Midtown)

Cuisine: Modern French, with luxury ingredients, impeccably prepared
Service: The white glove treatment, literally and figuratively
Ambiance: As elegant as counter service could ever be

Overall: ★★★★

Elettaria

Akhtar Nawab (center) runs a tight ship at Elettaria

Note: Elettaria closed in August 2009, after the owners could not negotiate a lease extension.

*

Akhtar Nawab first came to prominence at Tom Colicchio’s Craftbar. He left in 2006 to go solo, but things didn’t quite go as planned. He was the originally announced chef at Allen & Delancey, but when the restaurant finally opened, Neil Ferguson was at the helm. Then he signed on at The E.U., a star-crossed restaurant if ever there was one.

At Elettaria, Nawab is finally in control of his own destiny, along with partner Noel Cruz (Dani). Let’s hope that it’s a hit. Based on our meal there last night, it certainly deserves to be.

The name is the Latin word for cardamom, a spice often used in Indian cuisine. There are Indian accents all over the menu at Elettaria, but there are accents from a lot of places. Nawab is from Kentucky, and the cooking here could as well be called Modern American.

The interior design is from the same folks that did Allen & Delancey. You can see the resemblance, but their work is less successful here. For A&D’s charm, they’ve substituted a laundry list of clichés.

The bar takes up too much space. Dining tables are crammed too closely together. There’s a long row of them along the restaurant’s spine, and they’re just inches apart. We considered ourselves lucky to be there early, before the place filled up. There isn’t much space to manoever.

There’s a wide-open kitchen at the back of the restaurant. Nawab has it running smoothly. It’s a pleasure to watch. The space, most recently a men’s clothing store, was once a nightclub, and the kitchen is “on the very same spot where Jimi Hendrix reputedly plucked his guitar.”

 
Bread service (left); White asparagus with foie gras (left)

Our dinner at Elettaria was one of those rare restaurant meals that actually improved as it went along. The bread service consisted of two slices of naan. For the appetizer course, we were both attracted to one of the recited specials: a serving of white asparagus with shaved foie gras.

Pork, rice, quail egg

The asparagus, served chilled, had been over-cooked. The foie gras lacked the flavor punch it should have, and the few croutons offered were slightly soggy. At $20, this appetizer needed to be better.

The kitchen sent out a comped mid-course. It wasn’t on the printed menu, so I am guessing this is an item the chef is still tinkering with. He need tinker no longer. The highlights were two contrasting cuts of pork and a fried quail egg, resting in a slurry of rice. Nawab risks accusations of being derivative, with pork and fried eggs showing up on menus all over town, but this dish was much more of a hit than our original appetizer.

[Update: In his rave review for The Sun, Paul Adams described “an off-the-menu starter of lúgao ($12), Filipino rice porridge flavored with a succulent panoply of pig parts.” I am pretty sure that’s the mid-course item described above.]

 
Red Snapper (left); Striped Bass (right)

We both chose fish for the main course: red snapper ($28) for me, striped bass ($22) for my girlfriend. The kitchen did well by both fish, which were tender, flavorful, and well complemented by the accompanying vegetables and cous cous. A bed of small clams that came with the red snapper seemed more decorative than anything else.

The wine list here is downright revelatory, with many great bottles under $50, along with an impressive list of cocktails, liqueurs, apéritifs, and so forth. A 2004 Cotes de Provence from Chateau de Roquefort was only $37.

Although our appetizer misfired, the cooking here is ambitious. Over time, we suspect that Akhtar Nawab will have many more successes than failures. The reasonable prices make the restaurant especially compelling. Elettaria is well worth a return visit.

Elettaria (33 W. 8th Street at MacDougal Street, Greenwich Village)

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

Cocktails at Tailor

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

Most restaurants go through an adjustment period after they open, as chefs figure out what works, and what doesn’t. Those adjustments were somewhat more dramatic at Tailor, where chef Sam Mason had to eat a huge helping of humble pie, after his restaurant was roasted and pilloried by every critic in town.

In an early visit, I found the restaurant promising, but the menu didn’t have enough choices, and the lack of a serious wine list was a serious drawback. Mason has rectified both. The current menu offers about a half-dozen each of appetizers ($15–17), entrées ($24–27) and desserts ($12), though it must be noted that portion sizes remain small, and hearty eaters may need to order more than three courses to go home full. A seven-course chef’s tasting menu is $90, which seems exorbitant when you consider that Momofuku Ko serves ten courses for $85.

The wine list has been fleshed out too. Early on, Mason conceded that “Wine’s a little beyond me,” but he finally figured out that customers want wine with food. From the beginning, Eben Freeman’s cocktails won high praise, but I still think they pair poorly with food. They need to be enjoyed on their own.

Last night, I dropped in for a couple of cocktails before heading uptown for dinner. The bar area is downstairs, and it is one of the loveliest bar spaces in town. Both of my visits have been quite early (around 5:30 p.m.), when it is still relatively empty, and the bartenders have time to chat.

 

One feature of Eben Freeman’s cocktail menu is that almost every item has ingredients you never heard of. I asked for something “not too sweet,” and the bartender recommended the Mate Sour ($13), which is made from Yerba Mate, Queberante Pisco, Lime Juice, Honey, Egg Whites, and Angostura. Half of those ingredients are as unfamiliar to me as they probably are to you. But it had a nice cool, bracing taste.

Freeman also serves a tasting of three “solid cocktails” ($12), captioned Cuba Libre, Ramos Gin Fizz, and White Russian. The menu is unhelpful—it lists only the short names—and I wasn’t about to give the bartender the third degree. I’d describe them as interesting, rather than good, and they disappear awfully quickly.

I asked the bartender about a mysterious unlabeled bottle, which he said was tobacco-infused bourbon. None of the cocktails on the printed menu actually uses that ingredient, so I asked him to make one up for me. So he put some tobacco-infused bourbon, Jim Beam, and a couple of different bitters into a mixing vessel, and voila! Out came the drink shown on the left, which resembled an Old Fashioned.

Last week’s Time Out New York named Tailor “Best restaurant you were sick of before it opened.” That captures the contradiction, which is that Tailor is very good, but suffered badly from early over-exposure. I didn’t eat any of the food this time, but it looks like Tailor has matured. Those who were sick of it should consider a second look.

Tailor (525 Broome Street between Sullivan & Thompson Streets, SoHo)

Food & Drink: **
Ambiance: **
Service: **
Overall: **

Uncle Jack's Steakhouse

New York’s bustling steakhouse industry has settled into three distinct camps: classic, modern, and Peter Luger clones.

Classic steakhouses feature fairly predictable menus, old-school waiters (always men), and throwback décor (mahogany paneling, white tablecloths, oil paintings). You often see large, boistrous, all-male parties at these places; they’re much favored by investment bankers celebrating the latest deal, and so forth. Sparks and Keens are typical classic steakhouses.

Modern steakhouses are those that break the mold, usually by offering non-steak items you can take seriously, more inventive side dishes, friendlier service, and more contemporary décor. BLT Prime and Craftsteak head up this category.

The Luger clones are a variant on the classic steakhouse, but there are enough of them to list separately. The key giveaway is a menu that emphasizes “Steak for One” (Two, Three, or Four), the famous thick-cut Canadian bacon, and German-fried potatoes as a side dish. Examples include Wolfgang’s and Mark Joseph.

Uncle Jack’s Steakhouse is firmly in the classic mold, and it may be the best of the bunch. I loved my first visit there, 2½ years ago, even if my three-star rating was utterly crazy. I don’t know what took me so long to get back, as the Ninth Avenue location is practically on the way home. Anyhow, I finally got back again the other night.

I was enormously impressed with a truncheon-sized ribeye ($45) with a beautiful exterior char. Only at Strip House have I seen it bettered.

I was impressed with the wine list, too: a hefty tome with plenty of decent bottles below the $50 mark, and wines by the glass that are actually printed. At most of the classic and Luger-style steakhouses, the waiter just intones, “Cabernet, Merlot, Shiraz, Pinot Noir,” as if it were irrelevant which Cabernet, Merlot, Shiraz, or Pinot Noir they were serving.

The décor, I must admit, is a little tacky, with “Lobster,” “Caviar,” etc. painted in big block letters along the wall. In other respects, Uncle Jack’s has the standard steakhouse ambiance nailed.

Service is better here, with waiters who don’t seem as bored as most steakhouse waiters, and who circle back frequently to check up on you.

Uncle Jack’s doesn’t get as much publicity as the other classic steakhouses, but I am not sure why. On the basis of my visits, I much prefer it to Keens or Sparks—to give but two eamples. There are now three outposts of Uncle Jack’s: the original in Bayside, the one I visited on Ninth Avenue, and the newest branch in West Midtown, on 56th Street.

Uncle Jack’s Steakhouse (440 Ninth Ave. between 34th & 35th Sts., Hell’s Kitchen)

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

Your Seder Could Be Here

With Passover starting tomorrow, I doubt that anyone who cares about celebrating a Seder is still looking for restaurant suggestions. Still, I thought I’d share my research.

I was surprised how many serious restaurants are offering Seders or Passover-themed meals this weekend:

• At Savoy, chef–owner Peter Hoffman cooks the Sephardic-accented meal and leads the Seder himself. Price: $110.
• At Tabla, Floyd Cardoz celebrates Passover Indian-style. Price: $95.
• At Compass, Neil Annis mixes a modern American and traditional Jewish menu. Price: $110.
• At Capsouto Frères, which has offered its Seder for 20 years, the menu is Sephardic-themed, and the proceeds are donated to charity. Price: $150.

These are all wonderful restaurants—places I’d be pleased to recommend any day of the week. On paper, Tabla appears to have the best deal, not merely because it has the lowest price, but because it’s the best restaurant of the bunch.

But the pièce de resistance is Passover at Sammy’s Roumanian, where the watered-down Seder (just 20-minutes long) costs $190. Just three years ago, they were charging only $90 for it. We were actually considering Sammy’s—the 20-minute service is right up our street—but at the inflated price we’ll take a pass.

So where are we going instead? L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon. Same price as Sammy’s; food from another universe.

First Look: Brasserie Cognac

 

The Times’ Florence Fabricant and I may be among the few cheering about the return of classic French cuisine, but perhaps there will soon be restaurants full of us. The other night, I looked in on the newest of these, Brasserie Cognac de Monsieur Ballon, or just Brasserie Cognac for short.

Let’s get this out of the way: Monsieur Ballon doesn’t exist. He’s an invention of the folks who own the Serafina chain, who now envision a bunch of brasseries by Mr. such-and-suches—this being the first. I wasn’t optimistic that the purveyors of formulaic Italian could put out a French restaurant of any distinction, but at first blush they’ve made a very serious attempt.

For starters, they engaged Rita and André Jammet, who had owned three-star La Caravelle, as consultants. The kitchen is in the hands of Florian Hugo, the great-great-grandson of the author Victor Hugo. The décor and menu are in the conventional brasserie style, authentic-looking without going over-the-top.

I would have overlooked a dish called Vol-au-vent, had not the server pointed it out. I don’t recall seeing it on any brasserie menu in New York. The waiter, who was French, assured me that it’s one of the classics, but not often served because it’s difficult to prepare. Wikipedia explains:

A Vol-au-vent (French for “windblown” to describe its lightness) is a small hollow case of puff pastry. A round opening is cut in the top and the pastry cut out for the opening is replaced as a lid after the case is filled. Vol-au-vents can accommodate various fillings, such as mushrooms, prawns, fruit, or cheese, but they are almost always savory.

The Vol-au-vent here was a lovely, light puff pastry that corralled a serving of lobster, foie gras and mushrooms in a lobster sauce. I was astounded that an entrée made with so many luxury ingredients was only $29.

There is some serious talent at the bar, too. I counted 18 house cocktails, and not just rote formula drinks with “-tini” and “-rita” suffixes. Six of them are cognac based, including the terrific one I tried, the Do Ré-my ($12), served in a champagne glass with Rémy Martin, sour mix, St. Germain liqueur, and Charles Heidsieck champagne.

There are 110 cognacs available. The printed list wasn’t yet available (it was only the restaurant’s second night), but the manager recommended an XO (normally $14) and then comped it. Service was slightly helter-skelter, but the staff (mostly Europeans, it appeared) were friendly and apologetic. I assume it will improve after things settle down.

I’ll withhold judgment till I’ve had a chance to sample more, but if the rest of the menu is as good as the Do Ré-my cocktail and the Vol-au-vent, then Brasserie Cognac is very good indeed. At the least, it’s a compelling new option for pre-Carnegie Hall dining.

Brasserie Cognac (1740 Broadway at 55th Street, West Midtown)

The Payoff: Adour

Today, Frank Bruni awarded the expected three stars to Alain Ducasse’s newest restaurant, Adour:

Alain Ducasse may never live down the grandiose way he first swept into town, granting blinkered New Yorkers a vision of French elegance few of them had ever experienced, expected or, for that matter, asked for…

This time around he’s taking a less flamboyant approach, and he’s eager to get out that message, so much so that advance reports on Adour, named for a river in France, made it sound like an embellished wine bar.

Right. It’s a wine bar the way Lourdes is a roadside shrine, and it proves that even a dressed-down Mr. Ducasse is still a puffed-up anybody else…

But you’ll notice a relative straightforwardness in many preparations that distinguishes Adour from its Essex House ancestor. And among a well-edited collection of dishes that range from quietly appealing to quietly stunning, you won’t notice that forebear’s ostentation.

Someone seems to have put happy pills in Frank’s coffee. He has already awarded three stars to four restaurants this year, two of which are new. Last year, he gave out three stars only six times all year, and they were all re-reviews. This is also the fourth time this year that Frank has filed a reasonably favorable review of a French restaurant, a cuisine he has not historically been fond of.

We and Eater both win $3 on our hypothetical one-dollar bets.

	Eater		NYJ
Bankroll	$83.50		$94.67
Gain/Loss	+3.00		+3.00
Total	$86.50		$97.67
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Won–Lost	37–15		37–15

Ducasse’s Benoit to Open

This has been a busy year for Alain Ducasse, with two new restaurants opening in New York, to say nothing of his ever-growing worldwide empire.

First up was Adour, which we weren’t fond of, but was fêted with three stars by both Adam Platt and Frank Bruni. For the verdict Ducasse really cares about — Michelin — we’ll have to wait till October.

Meanwhile, Benoit opens on April 21 in the former Brasserie LCB space, which before that was La Côte Basque. As usual, Ducasse didn’t stint on the décor. Per the Times:

To furnish Benoit, Mr. Ducasse haunted the Paris flea markets buying stuff, including an 1866 decorative ceiling painted on glass, and fixtures from a former Banque de France. A 19th-century herbal pharmacy from Bordeaux was reassembled on the second floor.

He also kept a few decorative elements from La Côte Basque. “I hoped to transfer the ambience of Benoit, not make an exact reproduction,” Mr. Ducasse said, adding that Benoit in New York cost more to build than his other new Manhattan restaurant, Adour, in the St. Regis a block away.

La Côte Basque’s former chef–owner, Jean-Jacques Rachou, told the Times that he thinks “New York is now regretting the disappearance of the classic food.”

Classics, indeed, are what dominates the menu at Benoit. Ducasse said, “Dishes like these have a history, and I have a list of 100 of them that I hope to put on the menu sooner or later. I call it my mental terroir.” The opening menu, though, runs the risk of putting the audience to sleep, with a $44 chicken for two as the signature item. I’ll be rooting for Ducasse to open up his cookbook sooner, rather than later.

I took an envious look inside last night. The restaurant was clearly open and serving “friends & family.” I am neither, and so I left Benoit for another day.

Rolling the Dice: Adour

Every week, we take our turn with Lady Luck on the BruniBetting odds as posted by Eater. Just for kicks, we track Eater’s bet too, and see who is better at guessing what the unpredictable Bruni will do. We track our sins with an imaginary $1 bet every week.

The Line: Tomorrow, Frank Bruni reviews Alain Ducasse’s Adour, the chef’s latest attempt to bring high-end French dining to New York. The Eater oddsmakers have set the action as follows (√√ denotes the Eater bet):

Zero Stars: 15-1
One Star: 10-1
Two Stars: 6-1
Three Stars: 3-1 √√
Four Stars: 7-1

The Skinny: We weren’t impressed with Adour. Perhaps its far superior predecessor, Alain Ducasse at the Essex House, cast too long a shadow. We found Adour boring and underwhelming, a verdict that a number of other early diners have shared. Even New York’s Adam Platt, while awarding three stars, seemed to damn with faint praise: “Ducasse’s new, occasionally flat interpretations of local tastes is rescued by the elegant room (one star), the elevated cooking technique (another star), and the desserts (the third star).”

On top of that, Bruni has never shown much affection for French food. Until quite recently—his review of La Sirène, to be specific—I was not aware of an example where Bruni went to a French restaurant by choice. He visited them, to be sure, but only when the visit was more-or-less compelled by circumstances beyond his control. No restaurant critic can avoid French food entirely, but it just doesn’t seem to float his boat the way Italian, Asian, and steakhouses do.

For all of these reasons, until a week ago, we were ready to bet the house that Adour would receive at best two stars from Bruni, with a singleton being a not indistinct possibility. But as Eater noted, we can’t ignore the dicta in last week’s review: “I knew that Chop Suey, which I’d visited before, wouldn’t give us a meal as proficient and pampering as the one we’d get at, say, Adour.”

Now, for a restaurant at Adour’s price level, a two-star review is a put-down, and Bruni knows it. If he thinks Adour is “proficient and pampering,” he has to award the three stars the restaurant was designed for. You just can’t call Adour “proficient” while two-starring it.

We could leave it at that, but there’s one other observation. Critics love it when their opinion is perceived to be vindicated. Bruni wasn’t fond of Adour’s predecessor at the Essex House, demoting it from four stars to three. It was one of the dumbest reviews of his tenure, but it happened, and the restaurant closed. He was vindicated. Bruni thinks New Yorkers no longer want traditional formality. He is wrong, but that’s what he thinks. Adour is a lot less formal than Ducasse’s old space in the Essex House. Bruni is again vindicated, and the review will surely say so.

The Bet: We agree with Eater that Frank Bruni will award three stars to Adour.