Butter

Note: Butter “closed for renovations” in late 2013. The closure turned out to be permanent, as such closures often do. The space is now home to the revived Asia de Cuba, whose original incarnation closed in October 2011.

*

I mentioned to a friend that I’d be dining at Butter on Saturday night. She replied, “Butter used to be a huge celeb hotspot about 2 years ago.” We saw no celebrities, but the place was packed. On entering, I was greeted by the same attitude Eric Asimov noted in his one-star review for the Times shortly after Butter opened in 2002:

From the outside, it’s difficult to fathom why Butter, which opened not long ago a few doors down from the Public Theater, requires a pair of grim hosts posted like sentries in a glass-walled vestibule, their arms mentally crossed. As with London beefeaters, I felt compelled on a recent visit to try to make them laugh, but I decided that they must have serious work to do, like fending off people who want to be seated before their full party has arrived.

Butter’s survival shows that a one-star review need not be fatal. Butter is still humming along, despite food that we found quite uneven.

The amuse bouche was a spoonful of undistinguished orzo with truffle oil. The bread service came with a small triangle of butter that looked like it was spiced with chives. I was intrigued, but it turned out to be nothing special. You’d think a restaurant called Butter could find a way to hit a home run with—the butter. For the appetizer, we both started with the foie gras terrine, which was above average.

For the main course, my friend ordered the ribeye steak, a slab of meat the size of Pittsburgh. Alexandra Guarnaschelli, the executive chef, previously cooked at Nick and Stef’s Steakhouse, and at least she can get a steak to the right temperature. But the accompanying bed of mushy kale was practically inedible. It tasted like it was made hours earlier and left sitting under a heat lamp. My pork chop brought even less joy. It was tough and over-cooked, and came with a vegetable medley that had suffered the same sad fate as the kale.

Far too much of the wine list was priced over $50 a bottle. We took our revenge by ordering from near the bottom of the list, a $40 Blaufränkisch (the only Austrian wine on the list). We should do that more often. It was delightful; indeed, better than anything the kitchen sent out.

As we were leaving, we peered into the kitchen, and found it a cluttered mess. “Messy kitchen = mediocre food,” we concluded. I don’t recall the prices of everything we ordered, and the menu on the web is outdated. Appetizers were in the $10–21 range, and entrees $19–35.

The physical space at Butter is visually arresting. The high vaulted ceiling dissipates some of the sound, but it still gets rather noisy when the restaurant fills up. On the lower level, there’s an informal cocktail lounge with a DJ. Halfway through our meal, my friend said, “A hundred people must have gone downstairs since we’ve been sitting here.” But the dining room was full too, which means people must find more merit to the place than we did.

Butter (415 Lafayette Street between Astor Place and E. 4th Street, NoHo)

Food: Fair
Service: Acceptable
Ambiance: Attractive, but noisy
Overall: Don’t bother

Smörgås Chef

My friend spent a year in Sweden during high school, and she’s gets nostalgic for Swedish food. The options in Manhattan are limited. We’ve been to the fancy and expensive Aquavit once, and to the more informal Aquavit Cafe twice. I hadn’t realized there was anything else like it, until the other day I stumbled upon Smörgås Chef in the West Village.

It turns out there are three Smörgås Chefs, including one on Stone Street in the Financial District, just a ten minute walk from home. We paid a visit on Friday night. Though not full, there was a decent crowd—mostly neighborhood residents, we would guess. It’s a small, charming space. Our server informed us that the chef-owner, Morten Sohlberg, designed the tables as well as the bottle lamps hanging in the window. (See photo.)

The West Village location is larger, and has more of Mr. Sohlberg’s handiwork, but the quiet informality of the Stone Street space appealed to us. The street itself is a time warp; somehow, developers missed it when all the skyscrapers were being built in the late 20th century. For years, Stone Street was an eyesore and was used only as a parking lot, before preservationists had it declared a landmark in 1996. Closed off to traffic, it is now a home to restaurants and clubs. Most of the construction dates to 1836, and no building on the street is older than 1929.

 

We started with two quintessential Swedish dishes. I had the Gravlaks (smoked salmon) with mustard sauce ($10), which was just about perfect. My friend said she was pleased with the Herring Sampler ($8).

 

Alas, we didn’t have equally good luck with the main courses. My Rack of Lamb ($28) was dry and over-cooked. My friend was happier with the Swedish Meatballs ($18) — not as good as Aquavit’s, but perfectly respectable.

Though not as polished or elegant as the Aquavit Cafe, Smörgås Chef is priced a dollar or two lower per item. It’s in the neighborhood, and it’s nice to know we can drop by anytime. Perhaps that over-cooked lamb was an anomaly. I’m sure we’ll be back.

Smörgås Chef (53 Stone St between Hanover Sq & Coenties Alley, Financial District)

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

Stars — Here and Elsewhere

Note: Click here for an updated look at the star system.

After my post on Momofuku Ssäm Bar, a commenter wondered how my enthusiasm for the restaurant could be reconciled with my 1½-star rating on a four-star scale. “Overall, this review makes little to no sense,” she wrote.

There’s a separate page where I explain my Rating System. I’m using the same four-star scale the New York Times employs. Many other media outlets follow the identical system, or something close to it. While the system is far from perfect, it does allow comparisons (for those who care) between my ratings and other people’s.

If all you know is that the top rating is four stars, you might think that 1½ stars is pretty bad. It’s an understandable reaction, but nevertheless incorrect. One star means “good,” and two stars means “very good.” There is nothing inconsistent about writing an enthusiastic review and awarding 1½ stars. After all, I’m saying the restaurant is “better than just ‘good’.”

If you read more of this blog (index here), you’ll find other enthusiastic 1½-star reviews. This is consistent with the mainstream press. The New York Times doesn’t use half-stars, but Frank Bruni, the current critic, has written numerous two-star rave reviews. I am quite sure that if the mainstream critics review Momofuku Ssäm Bar, it will earn either one star or two, with two being more likely.

The New York Times rating system has its critics. When the same system has to accommodate restaurants as different as Momofuku Ssäm Bar and Per Se, perhaps the rating by itself doesn’t mean very much. You could argue that if Momofuku is the best damned ssäm bar in town, it ought to get four stars. But that’s not the system we have, and you just have to get used to it. I could set up my own system, but I’m sure I’d make different mistakes, and then my ratings would have no connection to anyone else’s.

Star ratings are not great carriers of information. But if you are accustomed to the system, the ratings at the bottom of my reviews do faciliate comparisons with what other media outlets have done.

Momofuku Ssäm Bar

Note: Click here for a more recent review of Momofuku Ssäm Bar.

Is it possible to be hotter than Momofuku Ssäm Bar? Well, I suppose you could be The Waverley Inn. Aside from that, Momofuku Ssäm Bar is about as hot as it gets, with practically monthly mentions in New York magazine, the Times, and elsewhere.

The restaurant, an offshoot of the successful Momofuku Noodle Bar, also in the East Village, is named for ssäm—basically a Korean burrito. The chef, David Chang, can be commended for his guts in choosing a name that sounds like moth-er fuck-you, although it means “Lucky Peach.” He can also be commended for having one hell of a publicist.

The concept has changed almost monthly since Momofuku Ssäm Bar opened last summer. At first, it was just a lunch burrito bar. When Dana Bowen reviewed it in the Times, late-night dinner service had only just started, and then, only after 10:30 p.m. The starting time for dinner kept moving earlier, and now it is served at the times normal people eat. Like 7:30, which is when my friend and I showed up yesterday, when there was about a 5-10 minute wait for seats at the bar.

The menu is in a bunch of categories; you are encourated to order tapas-style, and share. The server recommended that we choose six items, and as usually the case with such recommendations, it was probably one too many.

Seasonal Pickles ($9) had a lively taste, with the ones pictured on the left packing quite a bit of heat.

Wellfleet Oysters ($15 for half-a-dozen) were cool and fresh.

Three contrasting hams are offered on the menu. We had the Edwards’ Wigwam Smoked Ham ($10) from Surrey, Virginia. This was fresh and light to the taste, but we needed more than the two slices of bread that came with it.

The restaurant claims that they serve “no vegetarian-friendly items.” This isn’t strictly true, as Brussels Sprouts ($11) and a number of other dishes (like the pickles) demonstrate. Of course, perhaps there’s more to this dish than meats the eye. It was so crisp and smokey that it could almost have been bacon. [See update below.]

Finally we got to one of the dishes Momofuku Ssäm Bar is named for: Hanger Steak Ssäm ($19). To eat, you place a piece of steak on a leaf of lettuce, add rice and sauce, and wrap the whole thing up like a soft taco. It’s a little unwieldy, but a pleasure.

I was full by this point, and barely tasted Seafood Stew ($29). My friend loved it though, calling it a spicy bouillabaisse. A pair of small-tined forks would have been helpful, for prying the meat out of the mussels.

There is much more to explore at Momofuku Ssäm Bar. If you can muster a crowd, consider ordering the whole pork butt ($180), which is slow-braised all day. We saw one at an adjoining table, and our mouths were watering. The party of seven couldn’t finish it.

Although it is crowded and loud, service is friendly and fun. The servers are well informed about the menu, and patient about explaining it. The kitchen doesn’t really know how to pace the food. Like most tapas-style restaurants, plates come out when the kitchen is ready, not when you want them. Our first four courses appeared rather quickly, but there was a noticeably long wait for the fifth and sixth. In the meantime, we enjoyed a bottle of sparkling shiraz ($35), an oddity I don’t remember seeing anywhere else.

Momofuku Ssäm Bar (207 2nd Avenue at 13th Street, East Village)

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

Update #1: My statement about the restaurant’s purported absence of vegetarian choices sparked a few comments. Yes, I am aware that a vegetable dish may have come into contact with an animal-based product during its preparation. Similar items appear on menus all over town. Unless the restaurant has told you so (and most don’t), one can never assume a complete absence of animal derivatives. I therefore thought that the unusual comment on Momofuku’s menu was worthy of a mention.

“Vegetarian” is an umbrella term that covers many different approaches to eating. (See Wikipedia.) Many people who call themselves vegetarians would eat a number of items on Momofuku’s menu. The strictest vegetarians might not, but they would probably find themselves frustrated at many restaurants in New York. I have no reason to think that Momofuku is in a category by itself.

One commenter seemed to think that this was “Bad, incomplete reporting” on my part. I am not writing Consumer Reports, just a journal of my impressions of restaurants I’ve visited. I don’t claim to be exhaustive, as I think would be obvious to just about anyone. And I cannot imagine that any strict vegetarian would be depending on me (a confirmed carnivore) as her source for restaurant recommendations.

Update #2: After posting this entry, one commenter wondered how my 1½-star rating could be reconciled with my apparent enthusiasm for the restaurant. I’ve responded to that in a separate post. After thinking about it, I did update the food rating from 1½ stars to two, but the overall rating remains at 1½ stars.

Cafe Cluny

Cafe Cluny, the new French-American bistro, is so West Village: the quaint corner lot at an intersection no one can find without looking at a map; the low tin ceilings; the tables packed tighter than sardines; the short and uncomplicated menu.

And the attitude. The afternoon of my reservation, Cafe Cluny called to confirm I was still coming. No problem, that. But then they added that my reservation would be forfeited if we were more than fifteen minutes late, and that no one would be seated until the entire party was present. Any more regulations, and they will have to publish a rule book.

It turned out they were mighty friendly when I got there, and despite what I was told over the phone, they did seat me before my friend arrived. Luckily I am not overweight, as anyone larger would have struggled to squeeze into the tiny space without knocking things off of the adjacent table.

We both tried the soup du jour ($9) — I believe a butternut squash — that was creamy and delicious. Duck breast confit ($27; above) was competently prepared, but it came atop a measly puddle of puréed potatoes and what was advertised as brussels sprouts, but didn’t seem to be. The standard table knife (which had to do double duty as a butter knife) wasn’t adequate for cutting into the duck.

Our server tried hard, but she was one of those unhelpful waitresses who thinks every selection you ask her about is “terrific,” no matter what it is.

Two entrees, two soups, one side dish, two coffees, and three drinks between us added up to $136.56 before tax and tip. While nothing we had was objectionable, I think one can find far more pleasant ways to spend that kind of money in this town.

Cafe Cluny (284 West 12th Street at West 4th Street, West Village)

Food: Average
Service: Average
Ambiance: Crowded
Overall: Average

Porchetta

Note: Jason Neroni and the owner of Porchetta had a nasty split in April 2007, and the restaurant closed, re-opening as Carniceria, a Latin American steakhouse helmed by Alex Garcia of Calle Ocho and Gaucho Steak Co. fame. That restaurant didn’t last long, closing in September 2007.

*

It seems like forever ago (more like seven years) that Wylie Dufresne pioneered the Lower East Side restaurant revolution at 71 Clinton Fresh Food. Dufresne left 71 Clinton to open the ground-breaking WD-50. 71 Clinton drifted for a while, until Jason Neroni took over in March 2004. Many were smitten, including Frank Bruni, who awarded two stars. I was was not.

A year later, Florence Fabricant reported in the Times that Neroni was leaving to become the personal chef for “some kind of billionaire,” and 71 Clinton was closing. The gig with the billionaire didn’t last long, and by November Neroni was back in town, cooking at Porchetta in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn. The critics have mostly been pleased, but Frank Bruni, who loves to hand out stars to casual restaurants in the outer boroughs, could muster only one.

I am sure the owners of Porchetta fancied themselves a two-star restaurant, on the theory that if Dressler and The Little Owl could get two, then so could they. Alas, this time Frank Bruni is entirely correct. Porchetta is a decent casual restaurant, and no doubt a step up for its neighborhood, but we tasted nothing that justifies the schlep from Manhattan. The review seemed to be good for business, though. The restaurant was full on Friday night, and several walk-ins were turned away during our short visit.

The menu offers the traditional Italian appetizers, pastas, and main courses. The pasta portions, however, are not large. We started with the potato gnocchi ($13). Even allowing for the lack of depth in the photo (above), you can see it is not a large portion. The light texture of the gnocchi was heavenly, and I loved the quilt of duck proschiutto and crushed black truffles.

Frank Bruni raved about the short ribs ($20), but we were less impressed. We weren’t fond of the puddle of puréed mustard greens surrounding the brick of short ribs, which were adequate but not ethereal. “Not as good as Café Gray,” as my friend put it.

It so happens my friend and I were immediately drawn to the identical choices—the gnocchi and the short ribs. Our server seemed to think this was a bad idea. When we placed our order, she tried mightily to persuade us to order different items, and share. We found her assertiveness a bit presumptuous, and stuck to our guns. (Yes, Virginia, we did discuss our order before telling you.)

At many casual restaurants, the wine list makes the difference between a moderately priced meal and an expensive one. We were please to find good red wines under $40, and indeed, none over $69. We were quite happy with a bottle priced at $38.

The dining room at Porchetta looks like two or three failed decorating projects gone badly awry. In one corner is a black-and-white striped design suitable for a redneck rec room, with a wooden moose head and two more sets of fake antlers with light bulbs on the end. The rest of the room has two different wallpaper designs, as if the owner started a renovation and ran out of money.

You’ll have a decent meal at Porchetta, but it’s not the revelation Jason Neroni’s fans would claim. It’s solid Italian food, in a city that has plenty of it.

Porchetta (241 Smith Street at Douglass Street, Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn)

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

Dylan Prime

Note: Dylan Prime closed for most of 2013 due to a tax deficiency. It re-opened after re-modeling in late 2013 with new chef Michael Bernardino, and Kerry Heffernan consulting on the menu. This review is of the original Dylan Prime.

*

Dylan Prime is an haute steakhouse in Northwest TriBeCa. To an extent, it’s built on the standard model, with steaks à la carte and side dishes that plump up the bill. It departs from that model by offering the alternative of fully composed plates that are a bit more creative. The setting is also much more elegant and refined than the standard-issue NYC steakhouse.

I’ve dined at Dylan Prime a few times, always ordering standard steakhouse dishes. I always found them competently done, if not spectacular. To me, the restaurant’s primary virtue was its proximity to the office (just two blocks). It’s also a reasonable choice if you want to bring guests to an elegant steakhouse that doesn’t play to stereotypes.

Last night, I wanted to try one of the chef’s compositions, the Carpetbagger Steak ($41). The chef must consider this his signature item, as the website offers a video of how it is prepared—an honor bestowed on no other dish. An 11 oz. Filet Mignon is sliced open and stuffed with Blue Point Oysters, and it’s served on a bed of spinach and baked potatoes.

The video shows the oysters being added before the filet is cooked. From the taste, I would have guessed they were added afterwards, as they weren’t as warm as the inside of the steak. My reaction was that neither ingredient benefited from the presence of the other. The menu promised a Guiness and Brown Sugar Sauce, and this too is shown on the video. My dish was served dry, however. Obviously someone in the kitchen screwed up, and I only noticed the omission when I got home and rechecked the website.

Side dishes are $8. Winter squash risotto with parmesan and honey was an amazing deal, considering that an order of french fries would have been the same price. That risotto was also the best thing I tasted. Like most steakhouse side dishes, it’s not a realistic portion for a solo diner on top of an entrée, unless you have an extraordinary appetite. I left half of it behind—not for lack of enthusiasm—and hadn’t even ordered an appetizer.

The dessert menu offers a number of cocktails called “Pie-tinis” and “Cake-tinis,” named for well known flavors of pies and cakes. Examples include Apple Pie à la Mode, Keylime Pie, German Chocolate Cake, or Strawberry Cheescake. I tried the Amaretto Cheesecake martini ($12). Sure enough, it tasted exactly like a liquefied spiked cheesecake, with a gingerbread crust on the edge of the glass, and crushed almonds floating on top.

I had wondered whether Wolfgang’s TriBeCa, which opened last spring just a few blocks south, would leech business away from Dylan Prime. But the restaurant was nearly full on a Wednesday night. Wolfgang’s, of course, is nearly always full too, demonstrating that the steakhouse format remains almost indestructible, despite the high check size.

As a pure steakhouse, Dylan Prime is not as good as Wolfgang’s, but the space is far more attractive and serene. Notwithstanding the snafu with the Carpetbagger Steak, in general I have found that Dylan’s does everything competently. Service is a tad slow, but friendly.

Dylan Prime (62 Laight Street at Greenwich Street, TriBeCa)

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

Parea

Note: Parea is now Parea Prime, a Greek steakhouse.

*

Parea is probably the most seductive of the new wave of haute Greek restaurants. The walls are sculptured in the shape of an undulating wave. In the ceiling, there’s a leafy gauze backlit with a warm orange glow. The center of the dining room is dominated by a long communal table, with tables for two or four tracing the room’s periphery.

 

The menu advises that the appetizers are recommended for sharing. We ordered the spicy sausage ($12) and the tiropita ($15), the latter being doughy dumplings filled with light cheese and minced meat. They arrived together and were gone rather quickly. 

We both ordered the strip steak ($28), violating our usual practice of ordering steak only in steakhouses. We were rewarded for our bravery, as it was quite good, with a nicely marbled texture and exterior char. The steak was not as thick as most steakhouses serve, but this is not a critique—steakhouse portions are often obscene. It came with “greek fries,” which had a consistency somewhere between baked and deep-fried potatoes, and which neither of us could finish. There was a yogurt-based sauce (lower left-hand corner of the photo), which I used as a dipping sauce for the steak.

Portion sizes were large—not only at our table, but at others we spied on. Though the appetizers were modest, we were plenty full after our strip steaks.

Frank Bruni complained about excessive noise in a two-star review shortly after Parea opened, but it was not busy when we visited for dinner on a Monday holiday. Service could have been better. No spreading knives were supplied for the bread service, and a busboy looked at me like I was crazy when I asked for another knife to eat the appetizers with. Our server never even asked us for a beverage order. By the time I noticed this, we were already in the middle of appetizers, so we skipped wine for the evening.

Despite some service lapses, we enjoyed the comfortable space and inventive menu, and would be happy to return.

Update: On a subsequent visit, Parea was considerably less impressive. Service was inattentive, and several dishes came out of the kitchen cold.

Parea (36 E. 20th Street between Broadway and Park Avenue South, Flatiron District)

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

SUteiSHI

 

Front Street is quickly becoming the center of Lower Manhattan’s nightlife revival. It’s the spine of several blocks between the South Street Seaport and the Brooklyn Bridge that fortuitously managed to avoid the modern redevelopment that obliterated most of the original low-rise buildings downtown. There are a few other isolated pockets like it, but on Front Street, with its cobblestones and distressed brick facades, you actually feel like you’ve left the canyons of Wall Street far behind.

SUteiSHI (spelled thus), which opened in early December, is a new example of what Front Street could become. It’s an edgy Japanese restaurant and sushi bar, with family-friendly service and a surprisingly fun menu. The left side of the menu features classic rolls, sushi, and sashimi; the right side features the chef’s original creations. Prices are modest, although an omakase can take you all the way up to $120, if you want to go that far.

Spicylicious shrimp ($14) was incredible. The golden sauce touched the perfect spicy and sweet notes, and the shrimp were both hot and crunchy.

A smoked salmon and avocado roll, with a sprinkling of fish roe ($10) was competently done, but the flavor was rather dull.

For dessert, the mochi ($6) were excellent: ice cream scoops (mango, chocolate with red beet, coffee) in a doughy flour crust, resembling dumplings. I had a small caraffe of warm sake to drink, which was just $5.

The décor is industrial chic. There are garage doors on one wall, which I’m sure will be wide open in the summer, with perhaps an outdoor café. From its perch at the corner of Front Street and Peck Slip, there are gorgeous views of the Brooklyn Bridge.

The clientele was a mixture of young professionals and families. I saw two parties there with children (don’t fret; they were well behaved), including the unusual sight (in Manhattan) of a child at the sushi bar. Service was excellent; at one point, the matre d’ even came over to my table and offered me a selection of magazines to read.

There is much more on the menu at SUteiSHI that looks like it’s worth exploring. As it is just a five-minute walk from my apartment, I suspect I’ll soon be a regular.

SUteiSHI (24 Peck Slip at Front Street, South Street Seaport)

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

La Vineria

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

*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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