Top Ten New Restaurants of 2011

Yesterday, I posted my top ten restaurant disappointments of 2011. Today, here are my ten best.

It was not a great year. Most of my choices come with hedges and caveats. There was no consensus #1, and among my top ten there are very few that I am confident will still be open, and still be good, a year or two from now.

As usual, the list includes restaurants I reviewed in 2011 that opened this year or late last year. (Most critics who make such lists seem to operate the same way, given that the standard reviewing cycle for a new restaurant is anywhere from two to four months after the opening date.)

Let me first mention a few places that didn’t make the cut. The Dutch and Tertulia are on the top-ten lists of every critic in town (Sifton, Platt, Sutton). I consider them disappointments, rather than hits, for the reasons I gave yesterday. Multiple critics mentioned Ciano and Kin Shop, and deservedly so, but I reviewed them late last year, so they were on my 2010 list.

Empellón was on all three critics’ lists. I didn’t enjoy my visit, partly due to the punishing sound level. I understand it has improved, but I was disappointed. The Red Rooster is on two out of the three critics’ lists. I found it not bad at all, but I have no particular desire to return.

I considered including the first-class revamp of the Monkey Bar. But it’s not a new restaurant, just a new staff, so it’s not on my list. Finally, there are some possibly excellent places that I simply didn’t get to: Danji, Romera, and Isa.

Now, to the list:

10. Gastroarte. This place had a rough start, after the chef was forced to change the original name (Graffit) in a trademark dispute. On an earlier visit, the kitchen was inconsistent, and the critics weren’t kind. By October, I found it much improved. Though not to all tastes, chef Jesús Núñez is serving some of the cleverest, most original food in the city.

9. Hospoda. This “beer hall” dedicated to Czech cuisine, also got very little critic love, and it took them a while to figure out the right price point. (A $76 prix fixe was wisely abandoned early on.) As I wrote in my original review: “There’s always a place in my heart for restaurants that come out of nowhere—that neither set nor follow any discernable trend; that exist, for no other reason than someone believes in an idea.”

8. Rouge et Blanc. This much-overlooked Vietnamese restaurant with an excellent wine list is on none of the major critics’ lists, simply because none of them reviewed it. Eric Asimov finally did so a month ago, giving it two stars.

7. Boulud Sud. For his second Lincoln Center restaurant, Daniel Boulud swam against the tide, and opened a relatively formal place (by modern standards), tablecloths and all. He was rewarded with mostly rapturous reviews for his best new restaurant in years, and a place on all three critics’ best-of-2011 lists. My only visit was relatively early, and the menu structure has changed since then. I wonder if Boulud can maintain the early high standard, now that the review cycle is over and his attentions are fixed elsewhere.

6. Fatty ’Cue (West Village). Zak Pelaccio promised that the second outpost of Fatty ’Cue would be more “grown up,” and he delivered. No one would call any Pelaccio restaurant formal, but this is the most polished and the most enjoyable of the four “Fatties” to date.

5. Crown. I waited and waited to visit Crown, worried that it was just another of chef John DeLucie’s over-priced pseudo-clubs. It turns out Crown is wonderful, an hommage to old-fashioned formality that even downtown folk are flocking to. DeLucie himself is not a great talent, but he put Crown in the hands of good people, and they delivered.

4. Junoon and Tulsi (tie). This was the year for haute Indian cuisine, with Junoon and Tulsi both winning Michelin stars. I visited Junoon twice (it has the better room and superior wine service), though the food at Tulsi might be better. I’m calling it a tie. [Yes, I know that gives me eleven restaurants on the list, rather than ten.]

3. Ai Fiori. As chef Michael White syndicates his empire globally, you start to wonder if he’s just going through the motions, but my meal there was superb, and his butter-poached lobster was probably the single best dish I had all year. The restaurant has since lost its chef de cuisine (Sifton knocked Ai Fiori off his list for this reason), but I’m paying tribute to what was achieved at the time, not for what the future holds.

2. Brushstroke. David Bouley has screwed up so many restaurants that it was almost a surprise when he got one right. Japanese Kaiseki cuisine is a tough sell in New York (there are very few places that offer it), and Bouley isn’t making it any easier on himself with the world’s worst restaurant website. As of September there were month-long waits for reservations, but the happy hour menu recently announced could be a sign of trouble.

1. Jungsik. This was my last review of the year, and the best new restaurant of the year. Alas, the city’s critics have little patience for upscale prix fixe Korean cuisine. I worry they’ll be forced to dumb down the menu (prices have already been reduced), but for now it’s excellent.

Top Ten Restaurant Disappointments of 2011

It’s time once again for the annual wrap-up. I’ll talk about disappointments here, and favorites in a subsequent post.

Just a few ground rules: I only write about restaurants I visited. Does the “neurogastronomy” restaurant Romera belong in the top ten or the bottom ten? So far, I’ve not been tempted to drop $125 a head to find out.

Except for the bottom section below (“Sad Goodbyes”), every restaurant on the list opened in 2011 or late in 2010, and was first reviewed here in 2011.

My standards for this type of list are a bit different than other people’s. I didn’t have many actively bad meals in 2011, though I didn’t have many great ones either. It was a mediocre year for restaurants in New York. Unlike professional critics, I don’t visit places I know (or strongly believe) are bad, out of journalistic obligation to review them. Once I’ve had a bad meal, I seldom pay the second or third visit a professional critic would, before passing judgment.

So, the list below is not a list of ten bad restaurants, though there are a few of those. Instead, it’s a list of places that, in my judgment, missed an opportunity to be better, or are not as good as they ought to be. I’ve even included a couple of critical darlings that, as I see it, are resting on shaky laurels.

As a point of comparison, Lincoln was #1 on last year’s most-disappointing list. I did not dislike Lincoln: I had given it 2 stars and have gone back frequently. But in relation to what it could and should be, Lincoln was the most disappointing restaurant of 2010. (For the record, Lincoln is improving, though it’s not yet the three-star restaurant it aspires to be.)

On with the list:

Missed Opportunities:

10. Marble Lane. This was my worst meal of the year. With career mediocrity Manuel Treviño as chef in a clubby Meatpacking District hotel, why on earth did I go there? But it’s not merely my bad judgment that got Marble Lane on this list. I found the place empty, so apparently everyone else in town had figured out what I had not.

9. Left Bank. This was my second-worst meal of the year. It wasn’t really all that bad, and the problems are fixable, but other restaurants have failed in this location; most of the pro critics ignored it; and they chose a meaningless name that is too easily confused with other establishments.

8. Casa Nonna. Jimmy Haber broke up with Laurent Tourondel, so that he could do this? Why doesn’t he just open an Applebees?

7. WallE. We actually liked WallE, the unbuttoned spinoff of Chinese standard Chin Chin. But despite great opening press, it got very few reviews (Steve Cuozzo of The Post panned it), and the quasi-lounge ambiance is a real downer. These guys should have left the lounge business to those who know how to do it.

6. Duo. The folks from Duvet (the restaurant/lounge where guests dined on beds) opened Duo, a strangly posh restaurant with illuminated menus, footmen, and purse stools. We wouldn’t mind those things in the right place, but here it seemed silly. The opening chef was pretty good, but he was fired after two months, and there are no professional reviews to date.

5. Tenpenny. A lot of folks loved Tenpenny, a place that proved hotel restaurants don’t have to be bad. But just six months in, managing partner Jeff Tascarella left the restaurant to open the new Daniel Humm/Will Guidara place in the NoMad hotel. Chef Chris Cippollone followed him out the door two months later.

Not As Good As They Should Be

4. Fedora. Like most of Gabe Stulman’s growing clutch of West Village restaurants, Fedora is a solid neighborhood place. But with an alum of the sainted Montreal restaurant Au Pied de Cochon in the kitchen, some of us expected the fireworks generated by the short-lived M. Wells in Long Island City. What we got, instead, was forgettable and ordinary. Fedora isn’t struggling. Not one bit. If he actually cares, this is Stulman’s chance to do something better.

3. Tertulia. I was so surprised by the critical hype for Tertulia that I did something I rarely do: visited three times, to see if my first and second impressions were mistaken. Though not bad, the dishes I tried were hits and misses in equal measure. Having made it on just about every critic’s top-ten list, I realize that chef Seamus Mullen isn’t going to change a thing. Why should he?

2. The Dutch. Much like Fedora and Tertulia, The Dutch isn’t bad, but I think it is coasting, and the claims of some critics that it made Minetta Tavern “irrelevant” are just plain daft. Sam Sifton named The Dutch Restaurant of the Year, yet another absurd judgment from him that makes me happy he is no longer writing reviews.

Sad Goodbyes

1c. What Happens When. Dovetail chef John Fraser had a terrific, crazy idea: a restaurant that would change everything (menu, décor, cuisine) every month—but only for nine months, and then close for good. I’d hoped to go more often, but only made it there once. In the end, a stupid dispute over a liquor license forced him to close after just five months. Had it been a permanent restaurant, I likely would have given it 2½ stars.

1b. Daniel Angerer’s Empire. This chef had a pretty good thing going, with Klee Brasserie, Brats and the Little Cheese Pub in the heart of Chelsea. Within a matter of months, he closed Brats, announced plans to turn Klee into a wine bar, and then sold both remaining places outright. Angerer now runs the kitchens for the Dig Inn Seasonal Market chain.

1a. Alto and Convivio. If anyone had an annus horribilis in the NYC restaurant industry, it’s Chris Cannon. In January, he officially announced his break-up with the chef Michael White. In February, he announced new chefs at the two restaurants he retained, Alto and Convivio. And then, most mysteriously, Alto and Convivio closed a month later. On the same day. The simultaneous closure remains unexplained: neither restaurant was believed to be struggling. There are rumors, which I will not repeat; Cannon himself has been mum. In one day, two of the city’s best Italian restaurants, with nine Michelin and New York Times stars between them, were gone.

Jungsik

Twain said, “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.” Or maybe it wasn’t Twain—the statement has been attributed to more than one writer.

Today, I find myself making the opposite excuse. This review is shorter than it ought to be. Jungsik, the new Korean restaurant that opened three months ago in the old Chanterelle space, is excellent. It will probably be #1 on my “Best of 2011” list. But I don’t have time to write a long review, so I’ll make do with general impressions. Here is the most important one:

Go!

Jungsik is the kind of restaurant that should have a detailed and adoring review, because it will get precious few of these. Adam Platt has already given it just one star, even though he thought the cooking deserved three. That’s Platt for you. Sam Sifton was so offended that he slammed the place in his last “Hey, Mr. Critic” column.

To be sure, Jungsik faces a headwind. It’s a clone of a Seoul restaurant, and the city’s critics almost always deduct a star for imported concepts. We loved the quiet, austere space, with its white tablecloths and elegant service. But most of the city’s current crop of critics, having declared fine dining dead, cannot bear to see a restaurant that swims against the tide. (Sam Sifton compared it to an airport lounge, which makes me wonder where he’s been flying.)

Diners are not accustomed to an expensive prix fixe for Korean food, or indeed, for any Asian cuisine except Japanese. There have been adjustments. Jungsik opened with a $125 five-course prix fixe, as much as Eleven Madison Park. It’s good, but it isn’t that good. The current price is $115 for five courses, with a three-course option at $80. That’s a big step in the right direction.

The five-course meal includes a salad, a rice or noodle dish, a fish course, a meat course, and dessert, with three or four choices for each. The three-course option, which we had, includes the first two and one meat or fish course. But it comes with three flights of amuses and petits fours, making it more like a five-course meal anyway. Indeed, I was unable to finish my entrée, which was a pity, as it was the best pork belly I have had all year.

Above and below left: three flights of amuses bouches.

Above right: bread service.

Above left: Bibim with tomato and arugula sorbet.
Above right: Four Seasons with parsley, zucchini, and quail egg.

(The kitchen seems to prefer eccentric platings with all of the food at one edge of the plate. You’ll see that over and over again in these photos.)

Above left: Sea Urchin with Korean seaweed rice and crispy quinoa
Above right: Champs-Elysées with Foie gras and kimchi

Above left: Black Cod
Above right: Five Senses Pork Belly
Below left: Petits fours

Though I’ve not described the dishes in much detail, there wasn’t a dud among them. And for that much food, suddenly $80 doesn’t seem so extravagant.

The drawback is that you can’t dip into the menu selectively. I’d love to go back and order just the pork belly, but I cannot. Platt deducted a whole star for that. But you can’t order à la carte at any of the top ten restaurants in the Platt 101, nor at any restaurant that currently has four stars from The Times.

The question is whether Jungsik will be able to get away with charging as if it’s a four-star (or high three-star) restaurant. It was about 3/4ths full by 9:00 p.m. on a Wednesday evening, but December is always a good month for restaurants. The acid test is to survive the winter.

It’s not for me to predict the future, only to say what Jungsik is now: a three-star restaurant.

Jungsik (2 Harrison Street at Hudson Street)

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

The Three Hens

The Three Hens, which opened in September, did not set my pulse racing. The proffer of “American comfort food with a twist” is a story we’ve heard before. A lot. But I occasionally have evening events in that part of Murray Hill, so it went on the list, waiting for an opportunity to visit, and last Friday night we finally got around to it.

The neighborhood is often called Curry Hill, for its many Indian restaurants. The Three Hens feels a little out of place, but the owner, Shiva Natarajan of nearby Dhaba (and Chola in midtown), knows the area, and probably wanted to keep an eye on it.

There’s no hint of Indian cuisine here at all. The chef, Colin Cruzik, cooked in a similar idiom at Jo’s, which we rather liked, but he and the owners parted ways over disagreements about the direction of the restaurant. (I got the sense that Cruzik, a Bouley and Nobu alum, was trying to take it in a more upscale direction than the owners were comfortable with.)

The menu, as promised, is upscale comfort food, and not terribly expensive, with appetizers $10–17, soups & salads $7–14, burgers $12–14, pastas and entrées $13–24, and side dishes $5–9. There’s the now de rigeur footnote that ingredients are sourced locally, organically, and “responsibly.”

It makes the review less interesting when we both order the same thing—but that’s what we wanted, so it’ll have to suffice: the lamb burger ($16). The meat had a strong, rich taste, although the bun was a bit too big for the patty. The fries were superb, perhaps the best we’ve had all year, with the exterior crunch exactly right.

We didn’t have wine, but the bar makes a good rendition of an Aviation.

The dining room has wooden tables and metal chairs, but there are broad picture-windows facing onto 23rd Street, and there will be an outdoor café in good weather. The walls are painted a slate gray except for one alcove that sports a leafy green pattern. There are several indoor trees, with bare-bulb chandeliers overhead.

We were about 20 minutes late for our reservation, and I wondered if they’d hold our table. You never know how it is with new restaurants. I needn’t have worried. It was empty at 6:20 p.m. A few parties wandered in before we left an hour later, but it was nowhere close to full. On a Friday night, that’s worrisome.

Lacking either a name chef or the sort of menu that attracts critics, The Three Hens will have to build a reputation the old-fashioned way: slowly, and by word of mouth. They’ve certainly earned a repeat visit from me.

The Three Hens (115 Lexington Avenue at 28th Street, Murray Hill)

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

La Mar Cebicheria Peruana

La M.C.P. closed in August 2013 after two years in business. I am not surprised: as discussed in the review below, there were many reasons to be skeptical.

*

On either the website or the printed menu at La Mar Cebicheria Peruana, the first thing you see is the list of cities where the restaurant is franchised: eight of them to date. In all, chef Gastón Acurio has thirty-three restaurants on three continents, most of them duplicates trading under a handful of names, like Astrid and Gastón, Tanta, and La Mar. He makes Jean-Georges Vongerichten look like a small-time operator.

I guess Chef Acurio never got the memo: New Yorkers don’t take kindly to imported franchises and chefs. He would have been far wiser to open under a new name, giving at least the impression that he was creating something unique. It could have been a complete sham, but who would know?

Then, there’s the location, the former home to Tabla. Even Danny Meyer didn’t survive here. It’s a large space on two levels, in a high-rent building. Only a well-capitalized operator who was very sure of both himself and his concept would have considered it. But restaurants need to fit the personality of their neighborhoods, and La Mar (named for the sea) feels like a cruise ship past its prime. Does that work at Madison Square Park? Only time will tell.

Wikipedia proclaims Chef Acurio “a true culinary visionary who has put all his effort into rediscovering Peruvian cuisine.” (Apparently the Wiki Police have not yet gotten around to censoring this clearly biased article.) Besides nearly three dozen restaurants, he hosts a television show in Perú and is author of various cookbooks and magazines. That’s a lot to live up to.

The menu is in six categories, a layout that blurs the line between appetizers and entrées, and seems calculated to provoke over-ordering. The traditional appetizers are $11–18, the main courses $26–42, which makes La Mar a rather expensive restaurant, especially if you accept the tacit invitation to order from each group.

We did the opposite, eschewing the so-called appetizers and entrées entirely. In the meantime, it’s easy to fill up on fried plantain chips (above left) with their appealing hot dipping sauce.

The Cebiches ($15–28), the so-called national dish of Perú, lead off the menu. There’s much more variety here than the Mexican ceviches commonly seen on New York menus. The “Tigre Tasting” ($15; above left) offered three drinkable shot-glasses: fish, shrimp, and octopus, all fairly spicy. But I liked the “Popular” ($18; above right) better, with salmon, shrimp, ocotpus, and crisp calamari in a tart green sauce.

Tiraditos (raw fish) are Perú’s answer to sashimi, though to me Italian crudi seemed like a more apt analogy. Three kinds are offered (all $18), of which we tried two (above left), the Nikei (Toro tuna with chile pepper, tamarind, and sesame oil) and the Chaifa (wild salmon belly and cilantro in passion fruit).

Carapulcra is a Peruvian dish akin to a potato stew. It was offered as a recited special, with pork belly as a decidedly non-traditional extra ingredient. The dish as presented ($26; above right) didn’t resemble a stew at all. Was it meant to be an appetizer or an entrée? After multiple failed attempts to get an explanation, we decided to take our chances. It was pretty good, but it’s difficult to ruin pork belly.

The wine list features an ample selection of Argentinean, Brazilian, and Chilean wines, along with more familiar fare from Spain and California. The price range is in line with the food, with decent options below $50, though they were out of my first choice.

The space has a bright new design from starchitect Stephanie Goto (Corton, Aldea). I don’t think it’s her best work, but maybe this tired look is what the client wanted. The layout is the same as Tabla, with a bar and lounge on the ground floor and the main dining room up a flight of steps. It was about half full on a Saturday evening; still, we had trouble hearing our server’s recitation of the daily specials.

The food was all at least pleasant and inoffensive, but it is nothing I am dying to have again. Add two glasses of sangria at the bar ($13 each), and a bottle of Malbec at the table ($52), and we were well above $100 a head, and that’s without ordering traditional entrées. Absent more excitement on the plate, I am somewhat skeptical that the restaurant can build a long-term following at these prices, and in such a sterile space.

La Mar Cebicheria Peruana (11 Madison Ave. at 25th St., Gramercy/Flatiron District)

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

Kutsher's Tribeca

Note: It should surprise absolutely no one that Kutsher’s Tribeca closed in mid-2014. This is, after all, a Jeffrey Chodorow restaurant. Quick failure is his calling card. A branch of Almond is expected to replace it. The review below was under the opening chef, Mark Spanganthal, who left the restaurant in early 2013.

*

When I heard that Jeffrey Chodorow, the prolific creator of failed restaurants, was opening a “Catskills Jewish” place in Tribeca, I thought: Mr. Gimmick has struck again. The idea seemed patently absurd.

Kutsher’s Tribeca isn’t absurd at all. It’s actually kinda fun, and the food isn’t bad. The Chod’s role is minimized: he’s an investor, leaving the running of the place to Zach Kutsher, a fourth-generation descendant of the family behind the eponymous Kutsher’s Resort and Country Club in Monticello, New York.

Zach Kutscher is an earnest and sincere fellow (nothing like the Chod), and you want only the best for him, but it is not quite clear how they’ll make it work. There are 167 seats to fill, in a huge space where Drew Nieporent failed twice, most recently with Mai House.

The popularity of the so-called Catskills Jewish cuisine is long past a zenith reached decades ago. The region was once considered a prime summer vacation spot for Jews, but it went into a long decline after the 1950s, owing to the three A’s: assimilation, airplanes, and air conditioning. Most of the resorts are now abandoned, no longer Jewish, or are run as summer camps for the ultra-orthodox.

Kutsher’s, in fact, is the last kosher resort in the Catskills still operating year-round—but just barely. A couple of years ago, Mark and Helen Kutsher were ready to shut down after years of declining business. They got a reprieve when Yossi Zablocki, a lawyer from New Jersey, took over the place and injected much-needed capital. But the resort is still in poor shape, suffering from decades of under-investment. Many of the reviews on various travel sites are downright terrible. If Zablocki hopes to recapture the glory, he will have his work cut out for him.

I never visited Kutsher’s, but my girlfriend did. She even worked there one summer. She says Kutsher’s Tribeca doesn’t resemble the Catskills place at all. I don’t know what a modern version of Catskills décor would look like, but this ain’t it. But it’s pleasant enough, bedecked in bright blonde woods and soft banquettes. There’s a slightly over-loud, but inoffensive soundtrack that, like the décor, could be found anywhere. Should Kutsher’s fail, Chodorow could install his next gimmick with a minimum amount of retooling. Indeed, this must be the plan at any Chodorow establishment, given that they fail at around a 75 percent clip.

If you’re Jewish, you’ll recognize a lot of the menu: charoset, knishes, latkes, gefilte fish, matzo ball soup, potato kugel, chopped liver. Most of these are re-interpreted, served not quite the way you remember them. There’s no traif, but the restaurant is not kosher. Chef Mark Spangenthal adds a handful of neutral items like tuna crudo, beet and goat cheese salad, grilled duck breast, and the Creekstone Farms bone-in ribeye for two that mysteriously finds its way onto every menu in town, regardless of cuisine. These dishes are like the maroon sweater in your closet: they go with everything.

To me, this menu has a great nostalgic appeal. It remains to be seen how it will play to non-Jewish diners. There is something slightly comical when you hear an obviously non-Jewish bartender say, “I just love the kreplach.” Really?

The bread service (above left) was somewhat perfunctory, but I appreciated the soft butter. The Crispy Potato Latkes ($9; above right) with apple compote and sour cream were slightly less hearty versions of the ones I remember from childhood.

For $18, you can get the latkes topped with caviar, an absurdity that has Chodorow’s fingerprints all over it. How good can nine-dollar caviar be? For photos of this monstrosity, have a look at Gael Greene’s blog.

My girlfriend had the Matzo Ball Soup ($11; above left), which she said was terrific.

On the bartender’s recommendation, I decided to take a chance on the Gefilte Fish ($12; above right). This was a considerable risk, as the traditional version is the most vile concoction legal for human consumption: “a tan lump sitting in goo,” as Chef Spangenthal explains. The last time I tried it, I nearly gagged.

So Spangenthal set out to make a modern version that was…edible. For the usual mixture of pike, whitefish, and carp, floating in a jellied broth, he substituted sushi-grade halibut, bound with challah crumbs, beets, and horseradish. No jellied goo. He spent two months refining the dish. (There’s a longer explanation in New York.)

The good news is: he succeeded. This gefilte fish is actually enjoyable. I do wonder, though, how much appeal it’ll have for those who don’t have a nearly-inedible precursor to compare it to.

The Delicatessen ($16; left) came with three meats. Pastrami had a delicious smokey flavor (though not as good as Katz’s), but it was offset by listless veal tongue. The chopped liver was excellent.

I wasn’t able to properly enjoy the Romanian Steak ($26; right), as we had over-ordered. Whether Romanian Jews ever had steak like this is an open question. I was expecting something more like the flat strip served at Sammy’s. This version was sliced and served in a mound, topped with caramelized onions. The beef was cooked to a bright medium rare, and unlike Sammy’s, it was prime and without gristle. A mushroom knish on the side was rather dull.

We were too full for dessert; the meal ended with a packet of “Rabbi Mints” (left), the Catskills alternative to petits fours.

There are no traditional Jewish wines worth serving at such a restaurant, so the wine list here is a generic mix that could be served anywhere: once again, the Chod protects himself against failure.

The cocktails (all $12) have witty names, like “Bug Juice” and “Bungalow Bunny.” Bug Juice is better remembered in the non-alcoholic version of your youth. Try the Milton’s Mark (Maker’s Mark, sweet vermouth, maple syrup, Amargo pisco bitters).

The staff is knowledgeable about the menu and reasonably attentive. The relentless upselling for which Chodorow’s restaurants are so well known, is held mostly in check.

The dining room was about 2/3rds full by 8:00 p.m. The question for Kutsher’s Tribeca is how many of those guests will want to return. Will this be a go-to restaurant, or a gimmick to try once? The answer to that question will determine whether Kutsher’s is still on the scene a couple of years from now.

Kutsher’s Tribeca (186 Franklin St. between Greenwich & Hudson Sts, Tribeca)

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

Loi

Note: Loi closed in July 2014, supposedly because the restaurant’s owners could not reach a lease agreement with the landlord. I found the very large space nearly empty on both of my visits, and most of the city’s main critics never reviewed it. A meatery called Lincoln Square Steak replaced it.

*

Compass was the restaurant with more lives than a cat. Between 2002 and 2011, it chewed up and spitted out at least six executive chefs. Most of them were pretty good, but the place never developed a following.

Finally, the owners gave up on the name, and brought in Maria Loi as a partner to run the place. Known as the “Greek Martha Stewart,” she has written several cookbooks and, until recently, hosted a cooking show in Greece. She also owns a restaurant on one of the islands, produces a weekly magazine and a series of DVDs, designs a line of appliances and dinnerware, partners in a clothing business, and has also lobbied on behalf of firms like Texaco and Nokia.

I’ve no doubt that Ms. Loi has a talent for breaking down Greek cooking to a series of easy steps comprehensible to the amateur—like a Rachael Ray, Giada DeLaurentiis, or yes, Martha Stewart. None of this implies a talent for running a restaurant.

Hardly anyone believes that chefs like Daniel Boulud or Jean-Georges Vongerichten actually cook the food at the restaurants named for them. But they are, at least, full-time professional chefs, and have been for their entire adult lives. Ms. Loi isn’t even that. She’s the front for an operation that will be run (mostly) by others.

The restaurant—called Loi, naturally—re-opened in late October after a two-month renovation. The floor layout is pretty much the same as it was at Compass, but it’s clad in a handsome Aegean skin, with comfortable seats, crisp white tablecloths, and a regimented, well-dressed staff.

Five weeks in, Ms. Loi is an active presence in the restaurant, highly visible on both of my visits. (She told The Times she intends to be here “24/7.”) She spends most of her time making rounds in the dining room, saying hello at least briefly to all her guests, and chatting at some length with those she recognizes.

Not that the rounds are at all demanding. This restaurant may have the same problem Compass did: staying full. The space is huge. The main dining room seats 125. There is also a spacious bar and lounge, and three private dining rooms seat up to 300.

On two weeknights, a week apart, Loi was about 10 or 20 percent full at 6:45 p.m., before I headed over to Lincoln Center. If it does not attract a significant pre-theater following, which it hasn’t so far, I cannot imagine how it will fill up, especially with the more modestly-priced and far better-known Kefi nearby.

Not that Loi is terribly expensive, especially for such an attractive space. Appetizers, soups, and salads are mostly in the mid-teens, entrées mostly in the mid-to-high $20s. Still, diners won’t forgive sloppy execution, and there is some of that.

I’ve no complaint with the ample bread service (above left), but Loi’s version of a Greek Salad, the Horiatiki Loi ($14; above right) was marred by a chalky brick of feta that tasted like it has been cut hours earlier, and left to sit in the fridge. I had hardly blinked before it came out, which makes me suspect they have a bunch of these pre-made.

On my second visit, the kitchen sent out a quartet of stuffed grape leaves (above left) as an amuse-bouche. My girlfriend and I shared the Tirokeftedes ($15; above right), cheese croquettes with baked goat and manouri cheese, with a fig and apricot compote. This was a decent enough appetizer, but like the salad on my prior visit, came out within moments and didn’t seem quite as fresh as it should be.

I wasn’t at all fond of Loi’s Moussaka ($19; above left). The traditional minced mean filling had been ground to where you could almost have sipped it through a straw, and the Bechamel sauce tasted a bit sour.

On my second visit, the entrées were more successful. An ample hunk of salmon ($26; above right) had a rich, smokey flavor. I also liked the Seared Diver Scallops ($28; below left), served in a bright dill sauce with asparagus.

Desserts (above right) were comped, as it appears they are at every table. (We were not given a dessert menu to inspect; they just appeared.) The explanation was a bit difficult to follow. One was a traditional baklava, and I am not sure about the other. Anyhow, they were both very good—perhaps the best part of the meal.

The service was attentive and solicitous, especially in the dining room; less so at the bar. They are a shade over-eager to take your order and get you out the door to a show.

Any neighborhood can use an authentic Greek restaurant that is not as mass-produced as Kefi, but not as outrageously priced as midtown’s Estiatoria Milos. The menu at Koi is a work in progress (there are various recited specials), and so is its execution. Here’s hoping it becomes dependable.

My girlfriend, who did not suffer through my less impressive first visit, enjoyed Loi and would happily go back, and so we will.

Loi (208 W. 70th Street, west of Amsterdam Avenue, Upper West Side)

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