Trattoria Dopo Teatro

 

My son and I walked into Trattoria Dopo Teatro in December 2005. It was mostly an act of desperation: we were hungry, and in the Theater District it’s hard to find anything much better than Olive Garden. I was surprised to find very respectable standard Italian fare and designer pizzas prepared in a wood-burning oven, all prepared conscientiously in spite of the crushing load of tourists on their way to a show.

The other night, we actually made a 6:15 p.m. reservation, though I don’t know why we bothered. We found a long line snaking out the door. After about 15 minutes, we finally got to the hostess station, and told her we had a reservation. “So does everyone else,” she said. It seemed almost random—like winning the lottery—when another hostess picked us out of the scrum of hapless souls waiting around the bar, and took us to a table.

Last time, we were seated at a two-top near the front window, so I hadn’t appreciated the size of the place. There’s a rabbit’s warren of rooms on two levels, with names like “The Secret Garden,” “The Theater Room,” “The American Room,” “The Grappa Room,” and “The Wine Cellar.” They must be able to accommodate hundreds of people. Despite that, the kitchen manages to do a solid job while turning out the orders quickly.

Mezze Luni ai Porcini

I truly enjoyed half-moon ravioli stuffed with ground veal in a porcini mushroom sauce ($19.50)

 
Mezzi Rigatoni alla Siciliana (left); Calamari Sabbiati (right)

My son didn’t much care for the half rigatoni in a light tomato sauce topped with eggplant, mozzarella and basil ($16.00). But the kitchen did well by baby calamari ($10.50), which were delicately sautéed and topped with breadcrumbs, in a generous portion for an appetizer.

The orders came out fast, but you had better know what you want, because you have only slim odds of flagging down a server later on. Near the end of the pre-theater rush, we saw the beginning of a transformation. Plain wooden table tops with paper placemats gave way to white tablecloths for those who would dine after 8:00 p.m., when things slow down considerably.

I can’t claim that there is anything unique about Trattoria Dopo Teatro, but for a meal before a show, it’s a solid option in a neighborhood where so many of the restaurants aren’t even worth writing about. And after curtain time, it might actually be a place worth hanging around.

Trattoria Dopo Teatro (125 W. 44th Street between Broadway & 6th Avenue, Theater District)

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

BLT Fish revisited

The raw bar downstairs at BLT Fish

Note: BLT Fish “closed for renovations” in July 2014. We shall see if it ever re-opens.

*

My last visit to BLT Fish left me so utterly disgusted that I vowed to take a long break before I would visit another BLT restaurant. The fish was excellent — how could it not be? — but the service was risible.

In the meantime, Laurent Tourondel continued to expand his BLT empire, with the widely panned BLT Burger here in New York, the forthcoming BLT Market in the former Atelier space, and clones of BLT Steak in several cities. BLT Fish lost its Michelin star this year, confirming the generally held view that Tourondel was too over-extended to mind the store.

Despite all of that, I decided to revisit BLT Fish the other night with my mom, who is visiting from Detroit. This was, by far, the most pleasant of all my visits to the various BLT establishments. The food was superb, and we were blessed with a four-top table set apart from the noisiest part of the restaurant. Service was solid, though this must be taken in the context of the comparatively low grade of service in Tourondel’s restaurants.

 
The bread amuses at BLT Fish

We began with a couple of bread courses. First came crackers with a delicious tuna spread. As usual, the number of crackers was about half as many as needed—a fairly consistent screw-up at the BLT establishments. On the other hand, they are so justifiably proud of their luscious warm bread rolls that they even provide the recipe (see the little “BLT” brochure in the photo).

Grilled Sardines / Caponata / Aged Xeres Vinegar / Basil

The waitstaff at the BLT restaurants are black-belt masters of plumping up the bill. Our server advised that the whole fish we had ordered would take about 25 minutes, so she strongly urged us to order an appetizer to tide us over. Grilled sardines ($12) came perched on crisp toasted bread, but for a dish so likely to be shared, why were there just three of them?

Sea Salt Crusted New Zealand Pink Snapper

The menu offers a number of whole fish, most of them suitable for sharing. They are priced by the pound, which means you really don’t know how much you’ve signed up for until the end. We chose the Pink Snapper grilled in sea salt. After dinner, we were put out of our suspense: it weighed 2.188 pounds, which at $35 per pound came to $76.58. Aren’t you glad you asked?

The fish was presented tableside, then whisked away to be filleted. I would have preferred to watch them do it, though given the tight spacing of the tables, perhaps this would have been impractical. Any of my numerous complaints about the restaurant were completely erased once we started eating: it was simply the most sweet, succulent, tender fish imaginable. Two wonderful sauces came with it, which I’m afraid I can’t recall, but they were pitch-perfect accompaniments.

A two-pound fish is a lot for two people to eat, but when it’s this good you find a way to finish it. Had we bulked up on appetizers and side dishes, as our server advised, the snapper might have sufficed for three. When we thought we were done, the server returned to serve the tender, delicate “cheeks” from the fish head. It was an impressive encore.

At BLT restaurants, vegetables and starches are always à la carte. Our sever advised ordering two or three of these, which at $8–9 apiece can quickly add up. I was prepared for this bad advice, based on past visits. Although the side dishes are uniformly terrific, you almost never finish them. One is normally enough. We had the Sautéed Garlic Spinach ($9), which was just right.

After dinner, the server brought a small plate of petits-fours. But why only three of them, for a table of two people? A large clump of green cotton candy was too cloyingly sweet to be tolerated for more than a couple of bites.

Many other aspects of the service remain peculiar. The menu is a cheap, loose sheet of paper, which I’m sure doesn’t last much more than a day. So why must there be a separate sheet of paper listing the raw bar selections and daily specials? And why is only one copy of that sheet distributed, when there are two diners? We observed this at other tables, so I know it wasn’t just a mistake.

About the wine list there can be no complaint. Here, as at the other BLT restaurants, they take the wine program seriously. We were perfectly happy with a $45 bottle of Beaujolais, which was served (as it should be) slightly below room temperature.

With a critic installed at the Times who positively abhores traditional formality, I suppose Laurent Tourondel has perfectly captured the mood of the age. Even Frank Bruni couldn’t quite forgive the conceit of sacrificing a restroom for an open kitchen, one of the more boneheaded restaurant design decisions of recent years. But Bruni was smitten with the food, awarding three stars. For food alone, that is the correct verdict. You have to be willing to put up with some annoying conceits, but on this occasion it was well worth it.

BLT Fish (21 W. 17th Street between 5th & 6th Avenues, Flatiron District)

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

Porter House New York revisited

Note: Click here for a more recent review of Porter House New York.

I first tried Porter House New York last October during its opening week. A 20% introductory discount was in place, perhaps because the management knew to expect some rough going. And that’s exactly what we found. By late November, Frank Bruni was no more impressed. He awarded the same one star that I had given it, finding Porter House a “generically sophisticated upgrade of the kind of chain establishment found in lesser malls…an M.B.A. program for beef eaters who did undergraduate work at Outback.”

My mom’s visit this week provided the excuse to see if things have improved at Porter House. And indeed they have. Service was the best I have encountered at any New York steakhouse. At least five people must have said “Good evening” to us before we had even sat down. The number of servers, runners, sommeliers and managers paying attention to our table—every table—was nearly enough to put Porter House in Per Se’s league.

On the way out, I had a brief chat with the manager. He actually knew my name, even though we hadn’t spoken at all during the meal. Now, that’s service.

There are rotating specials for each night of the week. We both had the Thursday special, Cowboy Steak ($38), a large rib steak on the bone that is typical of the ribeye most NYC steakhouses serve. The reason for offering this only on Thursdays utterly eludes me, when so many of Porter House’s competitors serve it every night. (The every-day menu has a chili-rubbed ribeye at the same price, which, unless they have changed it, is served off the bone.)

Anyhow, it was expertly prepared and very close to top-quality; perhaps a notch below the better specimens I’ve had around town, although not by much. We sampled three sauces along with it, of which the best was an excellent Classic Bearnaise.

The wine list is very expensive, with no choices below $50, and very few below $75. We found a fine Cabernet Franc at around the $60 mark. We had tap water with that, which I mention only because it specifically contravened the wishes of the chef! Every restaurant tries to sell you bottled water, but this was the first time that a server has ever said, “The chef recommends bottled water this evening.”

Luckily for Porter House and chef Michael Lomonaco, Frank Bruni’s unfavorable Times review was irrelevant: business remains brisk. This isn’t exactly a surprise, as it’s tough to kill a steakhouse. But unlike the mass of undifferentiated steakhouses in New York, Porter House is special. With superb service, postcard views of Central Park, an extremely comfortable atmosphere, and very solid work from the kitchen, Porter House can now be strongly recommended.

Porter House New York (Time-Warner Center, 10 Columbus Circle, 4th floor)

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

Valentine’s Day at Country

Note: Click here for a more recent Valentine’s Day visit to Country.

It was only a couple of weeks after New Year’s Eve, and we were faced with a new dining dilemma: where to book for Valentine’s Day? It’s one of those days when restaurants tend to serve sub-par menus at exorbitant prices. I have generally not had good luck on such occasions, although last New Year’s Eve we hit the jackpot at WD-50.

I do understand the restaurants’ position. Valentine’s Day is their single busiest day of the year. It’s a day that attracts guests for whom a three-star meal is a once-a-year occasion. The restaurants respond by offering a simplified and unchallenging menu that will offend no one, and that can be turned out efficiently for as many covers as possible.

One eGullet poster went into the bar at Picholine, and was told the only option was the “price-inflated, dumbed down Valentine’s menu.” As he put it, “there’s no way in the world I’m going to pay a premium for a more boring version of your normal menu.” And then he walked out, and headed over to Café Gray. Another eGulleteer walked into Eleven Madison Park, where they wouldn’t serve him at the bar at all.

 
The tables set for Valentine’s Day — all two-tops.

We decided to give Country a try, remembering our four-star meal last year. It would have been madness to expect Country to reach those heights again. But considering the occasion, Executive Chef Doug Psaltis’s menu was impressive indeed, and everything that came out of the kitchen was uniformly excellent. Service was a bit sloppy, but the only real annoyance was the rather tardy appearance of the wine list.

For Valentine’s Day, Country was serving six-course tasting menus for $135—their usual price. However, the restaurant took my credit card at the time of the reservation and charged $270 a month in advance. I see the need to protect against no-shows, but I thought that this went beyond what is reasonable.

 

After we were seated, the server presented us with printed menus that appeared identical on the outside, but were in fact quite different. I am not sure if he was supposed to tell us this, or if we were meant to be surprised. (We had checked the website in advance, but I’m sure many diners did not.)

In any case, I thought it was a neat idea, as we both had different meals and got to sample each other’s plates. And it showed that Country was not satisfied merely to do the obvious. Psaltis could easily have served the same menu to everyone, and no one would have complained. He went the extra mile.

We begain with gougères spiked with truffles, which could easily be the world’s most addictive snack food. Warm Parker House rolls were as good as I remembered them, but the butter was cold.

 

The amuse bouche was a delicious cream of mushroom (above, left) so thick that it could have been a pudding. Heirloom potato velouté (above, right) sounded all the right notes. I tasted a bit of my girlfriend’s foie gras torchon, which was one of the softest and richest preparations of that dish that I’ve ever encountered.

 

I was similarly enchanted with the black truffle risotto (above, left) and the grilled sea scallop (right).

 

The next two courses weren’t as exciting. Bison bordelaise (left) may have sounded daring, but it was boring. I didn’t taste much truffle in brie de meaux (right), which was a forgettable sliver of soft cheese, with a tiny slice of bread and a bit of apple jam.

 

My girlfriend hit the dessert jackpot. I had never heard of “Pavlova,” which was a half-moon shaped mound of baked frosting, with a running river of red berries inside. It was as enchanting and seductive as it sounds. My dark chocolate dessert (above, left) couldn’t stand up to this. Memo to Country: If you can’t think of two great desserts, then just serve us both the same thing. After dessert came a bowl of sugar-coated baked macaroons (above, right).

There were several service lapses, most of which I would ignore at a lesser restaurant. Inexplicably, we weren’t offered a wine list. By the time I realized it, the food had already started coming. When I brought this to a server’s attention, he presented a small pre-printed card with just three whites, three reds, and three champagnes. I flagged him down again. He explained that these were the sommelier’s recommended wines to accompany the evening’s tasting menu. The lowest-priced red wine was $97 per bottle. I asked to see the full wine list. There was another delay before this was presented, and yet another delay before he showed up again to take our order. By the time we finally had the bottle we wanted, we were already past two courses.

On this day, Country had no interest in serving leisurely, multi-hour meals. The courses came lickety-split, and I think we were out of there in two hours flat. I have no serious complaints about what we were served, but it was probably only 80% of what the restaurant was capable of. Even at that level, I rate the hit-to-miss ratio higher than we experienced a year ago, in a very respectable Valentine’s Day meal at three-star Oceana.

The setting was lovely as ever. The remodeled ball room, with its gorgeous Tiffany skylight, is one of New York’s great romantic dining spots. Some may argue that my original four-star rating was overly exuberant, but I don’t think any major restaurant does its best work on a major holiday, so for now I will leave Country in the top echelon.

Country (90 Madison Avenue at 29th Street, Flatiron District)

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

Critiquing the Critic: Pera and Dennis Foy

Today, New York Journal adds a new weekly feature. In “Critiquing the Critic,” we’ll deconstruct Frank Bruni’s latest performance in the Times dining section.

Sadly, Jules Langbein’s hilarious Bruni Digest has gone dark— she has posted only one of her patented Bruni-skewerings in the last three months. I can’t possibly replicate what Jules did, and I won’t even try. I’m afraid I’m going to sound much more sanctimoniously serious than the situation calls for.

To business: This week, Frank Bruni files a double-review of Pera and Dennis Foy, granting one star to both.

The frequency of double-reviews has gone up, and that’s a good thing. There are far too many restaurants that never get a Times review, and far too many others that go years before a re-review. If Bruni is right about Pera and Dennis Foy—and I’m not saying he is—neither one is important enough to deserve a column to itself.

Bruni reminds us, “Dennis Foy occupies the elegant, creamy space that belonged to the excessively self-conscious restaurant Lo Scalco.” That restaurant, I might add, won a Michelin star, but Bruni never got around to reviewing it. Whatever you thought of Lo Scalco, restaurants at that level shouldn’t go un-reviewed.

Today’s headline, “Knowing Their Place and Aiming to Fill It,” has an “Aw, shucks!” attitude. It is never a compliment to tell someone they “know their place.” It’s a bit like the massa telling the slave to be happy about picking the cotton. I don’t know about Pera, but I’m sure Dennis Foy thought he was opening a two-star restaurant. I’m not saying it is two stars, but it’s patronizing to give him one, and then congratulate him for “knowing his place.”

Bruni says that Foy is “an ‘if you happen to be’ as opposed to a ‘you have to try’ restaurant.” The trouble is that almost no one “happens to be” on Church Street between Walker and Lispenard Streets. It’s not a “happen to be” block.

I suspect Pera will be just fine with Bruni’s one-star review. As he notes, “Its jazzy look and feel are unmitigated delights, and jazzy isn’t so easy to come by on its patch of Manhattan, in the shadow of Grand Central Terminal.”

Overall, we are left with a sense that Frank was slumming it this week. Both restaurants slightly bored him.

Etats-Unis

Note: Click here for a more recent review of Etats-Unis.

Etats-Unis is an informal 30-seat restaurant on the Upper East Side—and the unexpected recipient of a Michelin star.  It is one of the most accessible and least pretentious restaurants to have been accorded that honor.

The restaurant opened in 1991. After a less-than-ecstatic Diner’s Journal write-up from Bryan Miller in 1992, it received two stars in the Times from Ruth Reichl in 1993. Remarkably for a restaurant of its age, not much seems to have changed.

Despite the French name, the cooking at Etats-Unis isn’t moored to any geographic region. It is hearty comfort food that could vaguely be described as New American. The menu changes daily, based on available seasonal ingredients, with only five appetizers and an equal number of entrees on offer. Portions are quite large, and generally rich in high-calorie ingredients.

The wine list is reasonably priced, and I was gratified to see a large selection of half-bottles, an option far more restaurants should offer.

I started with grilled scallops ($16) on a bed of squash. The scallops were seasoned with a dash of pepper, and like much of the menu, grilled on a charcoal oven. There were three of them, which was more than generous at the price; many a scallop appetizer would come with just one or two. The squash was at room temperature, which to my preference wasn’t warm enough. I couldn’t tell if this was a miscue, or deliberate.

My friend’s mozzarella salad ($16) had an almost ethereal creamy softness.
 
Braised shortribs ($28) came in an enormous portion, especially considering the heap of spinach and a steamed artichoke on the side. I couldn’t find any fault with this dish, but after the large appetizer I was already filling up, and had to leave half of it behind.

My friend’s rack of lamb ($36) was also excellent, and (as you would expect) a large portion, with a mound of crisp potatoes au gratin.

 
There are four desserts available, but two of them are baked from scratch, and have to be selected at the time you order the rest of your meal. Not realizing what we were in for, we both took the plunge. Even at a restaurant with more restrained portion sizes, either of these desserts could easily be shared. Other tables seemed to know this, and in hindsight I think the server should have said something.

Date pudding ($10) came bathed in carmelized rum sauce and whipped cream. It would win the award for richest dessert in town, if it wasn’t for the chocolate soufflé ($12), which is an even more sinful choice. They were excellent, but we were by now completely stuffed, and finished less than half of both.

There is not much space to maneuver when the restaurant is full, but despite that limitation, service was without fault. The kitchen is tiny. For its size, the quality of what comes out is remarkable.

Etats-Unis (242 East 81st Street between 2nd & 3rd Avenues, Upper East Side)

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

Dinner at Varietal

Note: A few weeks after our visit, Frank Bruni reviewed Varietal for the Times, awarding (without much enthusiasm) one star. Within days, executive chef Ed Witt was fired, and pastry chef Jordan Kahn announced that he was leaving to start another project in California. Wayne Nish (formerly of March) replaced both Witt and Kahn, but the restaurant was not able to survive, and has since closed.

*

We first visited Varietal for dessert about a month ago, having heard about pastry chef Jordan Kahn’s inventive creations. Kahn, who previously worked at The French Laundry and Per Se, is a major talent. We were smitten, and promised ourselves we’d return for a full meal.

Varietal is a restaurant that you desperately want to root for. It has no irritating vanities, such as an overwhelming décor, a globe-trotting absentee chef, or snooty staff who act like they’re doing you a favor. To the contrary, Varietal is an earnestly serious restaurant, with a service team who genuinely want you to be pleased. At least five different people, from the owner on down, asked us if we had enjoyed ourselves.

Alas, Ed Witt’s savory courses don’t live up to Kahn’s desserts. Indeed, the letdown is so great, that we struggle to imagine how it could have happened. Did we order the wrong things? Did we catch Witt’s kitchen on an off night? How can a restaurant so serious about its desserts fumble the rest of the cooking so badly?

The amuse bouche was a small spoonful of Cured Tasmanian Trout with fennel and olives. The olives were too dominant, completely obliterating the trout. At another table, my friend saw four diners grimace in unison as they tasted it.

Everything on the menu comes with a long list of ingredients, often with funky names, and usually at least one too many. We were both intrigued by Prawns with Chamomile Consommé, Baby Carrots, and Forbidden Rice. The dish consists of a few small bits of pre-sliced shrimp, flecks of rice, and a bland salty broth that could have come out of a soup can,  added tableside. The dish is entirely uninteresting. We had no idea what was “forbidden” about the rice. At $13, it was one of the lower-priced appetizers.

Entrees are expensive, with most over $30. My friend had the Roasted Pork & Cider-Tobacco Braised Pork Belly ($31), which read much better than it tasted. The roasted pork was like a dull sausage, while the pork belly was surrounded by an unpleasant layer of fat that hadn’t been fully rendered.

Duclair Duck ($34) was a bit more successful, with a deliciously crunchy exterior contrasting the tender meat. But Marcona almonds and baby turnips seemed utterly superfluous, and a small cylinder of “Medlar braised leg” (whatever that means) was far too dry. For that matter, what is “Duclair” duck?

That brought us to dessert, which seems to be the only attraction for which the restaurant can be seriously recommended. Whatever you order, it takes a while to arrive—the reason is abundantly obvious when you see the photos. They are works of art, and it seems almost a crime to bite into them. But they are just as much fun to eat, even if one cannot begin to figure out how they were made.

My friend had the Wolfberry (lime sabayon, tonka bean, broken macaroons, ketjap manis; $14) , which we had so much enjoyed when we had the dessert tasting a month ago.

I wanted to try something different, so I had Absinthe (liquid sable, black sesame, ricotta, sour apple sorbet; $12), another happy choice on a menu where one really cannot go wrong.

Service was generally excellent, with only a few minor lapses that are hardly worth mentioning. The staff dress in dark suits and ties, and comport themselves with all due seriousness. With only a little bit more polish, I could easily imagine awarding three stars for service, if only the food lived up to it.

The room might be accused of sterility, with the all-white walls adorned only with large photos of grapes. But the chandelier made of inverted wine glasses is a work of sheer genius. At the bar, there is a companion sculpture made of wine glasses tilted horozontally (not really clear in the photo below, despite my best efforts). 

You would expect a restaurant named Varietal to have a serious wine program. Indeed it does, although it may be far too over-priced for its own good. When we sat down, we were presented with a champagne menu, with no choices below $17. This seemed to us grossly excessive, when you consider that we had an excellent glass of sparkling wine last week at The Modern for just $15. The main wine list has some reasonably priced choices, along with some insanely excessive ones.

Varietal appears to be struggling. The dining room was only about half full, surely not a good sign on a Friday night. The front bar area seemed to be doing a brisk business, but it is not large enough to support the full restaurant. Most of the patrons were a lot younger than we are, and they probably won’t be choosing from the higher end of the wine list. In a dining room dominated by twenty-somethings, who will order the $500 bottle of dessert wine?

Four new reviews of Varietal are on the way. The coming week will see reviews from the New York Observer, New York Sun, and Adam Platt in New York. The owner told us that Frank Bruni has already visited three times, so his review is surely no more than a few weeks away. Varietal probably needs a couple of good reviews to pull in the crowds.

If Varietal survives, I suspect my friend and I will be back again for dessert. We would not be drawn back for a full meal unless future reviews suggest a considerable improvement over what we experienced. Jordan Kahn’s superlative desserts deserve to play on a stage with a much better supporting cast.

Varietal (138 W. 25th Street between 6th & 7th Avenues, Chelsea)

Food (savory): No stars
Food (dessert): ***
Service: **½
Ambiance: **
Overall: *

Frank Bruni and the Fine Dining Deathwatch

Frank Bruni, the New York Times restaurant critic, has launched an all-out assault on fine dining. Bruni’s influence is difficult to measure. But there is no doubt that the city’s most influential critic has his knives sharpened against restaurants that offer classic, traditional luxury. Anyone planning such a restaurant must assume that the likelihood of recognition from the Times is close to nil.

By “fine dining,” I mean the traditional trappings of excellent restaurants: white tablecloths, a first-rate wine program, fine china and stemware, elegant service, and of course a serious chef with a top-notch kitchen brigade. In so defining it, I am not suggesting there is anything wrong with restaurants that serve great food without some or all of these trappings. Indeed, like most people, the vast majority of my meals are not consumed at luxury restaurants.

But there is a place in our city for traditional fine dining — the kinds of restaurants normally associated with three or four New York Times stars. During Frank Bruni’s tenure, proper recognition for these types of restaurants has all but disappeared.

In roughly 32 months on the job, Frank Bruni has issued 17 three-star reviews. Taken on its own, this is a reasonable pace. When you look at the characteristics of those restaurants, the results are sobering.

One restaurant, Blue Hill at Stone Barns, isn’t even in New York City. As far as I know, it’s the only NYT starred restaurant that is not in the five boroughs. It is an anomaly.

Another seven restaurants were previously reviewed by other critics, including:

• Two restaurants demoted from four stars (Alain Ducasse, Bouley)
• Three restaurants held at three stars (Babbo, Felidia, Picholine)
• Two restaurants promoted from two stars (Blue Hill, Eleven Madison Park)

Nobu 57 is a strange case, as it was technically a new restaurant, but it is a virtual clone of the original Nobu, which was already a three-star restaurant. Bruni could hardly have rated Nobu 57 anything other than three stars, unless he was going to re-rate the flagship restaurant, to which it is largely identical.

Hence, of the sixteen NYC restaurants that have received three-star reviews from Bruni, eight of them were either pure re-reviews, or in the case of Nobu 57, the clone of one. That leaves just eight truly new NYC restaurants that have received three stars from Frank Bruni.

Of the remaining eight restaurants, five of them are notable for their comparative informality: A Voce, Bar Room at the Modern, BLT Fish, Perry St., and L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon.

That leaves just three traditional “fine dining” restaurants that have earned three stars on Frank Bruni’s watch: Country, Cru, and Del Posto. Two out of the three are Italian or Italian-influenced (Cru and Del Posto). This leaves Country as the only new fine dining non-Italian restaurant that has won three stars from Bruni over a 32-month period.

Against this is a much longer list of fine dining restaurants that clearly were designed for and expected three stars, but received less: Alto, Cafe Gray, Gilt, Le Cirque, The Modern, and most recently, Gordon Ramsay. The message is clear: If you are opening a non-Italian fine dining restaurant in New York, the odds of a three-star review from Frank Bruni are slim. If the restaurant is French or French-influenced, the odds go down to near zero.

The odds against earning four stars are even worse. Frank Bruni has awarded four stars to no restaurants that opened during his tenure. He did review one four-star restaurant that was not a re-review: Per Se, which opened before Bruni started, but which no other Times critic had yet reviewed. With Per Se’s clone, The French Laundry, regularly appearing on lists of the world’s greatest restaurants, the decision was practically made for him. To have awarded anything less than four stars to Per Se would have taken Bruni’s credibility to the breaking point.

Even at Per Se, Bruni’s award of four stars seemed almost regretful. What finally persuaded him? Of all things, the vegetable tasting—surely Per Se’s least often ordered menu option. He also complained of ostentation, and a menu “too intent on culinary adventure or too highfalutin in its presentation and descriptions of dishes.” Where, if not here, would culinary adventure be expected? Where, if not here, would “highfalutin” presntation be acceptable, if not indeed demanded?

Bruni’s reviews of fine dining restaurants are full of comments suggesting he is hostile to the genre. The food at Cafe Gray is “fussy”; at The Modern, “over-thought and overwrought”; at Alto, “something too restrained”; at Gilt, the chef “sometimes doesn’t know when to pull back, pipe down and let superior food speak for itself”; at Gordon Ramsay, “low-key loveliness…in place of big excitement.”

His brutal demotions of Alain Ducasse and Bouley are especially telling. Ducasse was done in by an out-of-order toilet and a slightly snooty sommelier. The Bouley review dragged in a bunch of unrelated gossip about David Bouley’s other activities, and wondered whether his heart was still in it—that, notwithstanding a comment about “serious talent in the kitchen.”

The after-effects of Bruni’s smackdowns have ranged from devastating to irrelevant. At Ducasse and Gilt, chefs were fired, and Ducasse closed altogether. The Modern and Bouley still seem to be doing just fine. But to the extent Frank Bruni’s reviews have any influence, anyone who dares open a serious non-Italian fine dining restaurant is taking an almost unacceptable risk. The city’s principal restaurant critic will probably not acknowledge excellence even if he trips over it.

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: ★★★★

Pair of 8's

Note: Pair of 8’s closed in June 2007. The Chef, Matthew Hamilton, moved to Belcourt in the East Village.

*

Remember Uovo? It was a sleek restaurant in the East Village (Avenue B & 11th Street) that got plenty of buzz when it opened in June 2005. But what it didn’t get was a liquor license or a review from Frank Bruni. Fifteen months later, the place closed. Chef Matthew Hamilton has now resurfaced at the other end of town, at Pair of 8’s, a restaurant that takes its name from the nearest cross street: 88th Street on the Upper West Side, a neighborhood not known for fine dining.

That background has nothing to do with my reasons for visiting Pair of 8’s last night. It caught my eye after a reasonably enthusiastic one-star review from Frank Bruni about a year ago. It was one of the few serious restaurants close enough to Lincoln Center that I hadn’t tried yet. I don’t know what happened in the meantime, but the original chef is gone. Matthew Hamilton is now in charge of the kitchen. As of last night he’d been there less than a week.

We weren’t that hungry, so we ordered entrees only. Our server recommended Coffee Barbecue Braised Brisket ($24), which was as good as it sounds. But the accompanying homemade sauerkraut and chick pea pancake were both extremely dull.

That was nothing compared to the Pair of 8’s Burgers ($16), which my friend considered an over-priced outright disaster. Two three-ounce mini-burgers (one beef, one lamb) were more like meatballs, overcooked, and overwhelmed by two little buns. French fries were soggy.

Spiced apple bread pudding for dessert ($9) came piping hot, and was delicious. My friend played it safe with vanilla ice cream ($7).

For what is basically a modestly priced neighborhood restaurant, Pair of 8’s has far too few wines below $45. However, there’s a good selection by the glass, and each pour comes in a quartino (really a glass and a half). We weren’t that hungry, so we settled on a nice cabernet at $14 by the glass. A program of humorous themed wine pairings (e.g., “Frankenwine”), mentioned in the Bruni review, seems to be gone now.

Our server was a bit confused about the menu, telling us there were no specials, even though we very clearly heard servers recite them at other tables. He was a bit irritating in other ways too—for instance, asking us if we’d like our check, instead of waiting for us to tell him when we were ready to leave. (Though doing a good business, the restaurant was not yet full when we left at 7:30 p.m.)

The room is attractive and comfortable. What it needs is more competent execution from the kitchen. As this was Matthew Hamilton’s first week, it is clearly too soon to judge his work. On the other hand, there is no real excuse when a restaurant is charging full price. I’m willing to give Pair of 8’s another chance—but I’ll probably have to find another friend to try it with.

Pair of 8’s (568 Amsterdam Avenue between 87th and 88th Streets, Upper West Side)

Food: Fair
Service: Acceptable
Ambiance: Good
Overall: Uneven