dell'anima

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

*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Payoff: Cabrito

Today, as we half-expected, Frank Bruni files a largely redundant one-star review of Cabrito:

Visited on its best nights and judged by its best dishes, Cabrito is the Mexican restaurant so many of us dreamed about for so long … .

Much of the time, that is. There’s a qualification in the first sentence up top and a digression right here because Cabrito is afflicted by an inconsistency that’s puzzling, even maddening, in the sense that you don’t want anything challenging the exhilaration you can so easily and rightly feel about this special place.

There are dishes that don’t seem, by nature, to rise to the caliber of others, and dishes that aren’t dependable from one visit to the next.

In the wagering department, we took a literal “roll of the dice” on two stars, and lose a dollar on our hypothetical bet, while Eater wins $2.

	Eater		NYJ
Bankroll	$108.50		$128.67
Gain/Loss	+2.00		–1.00
Total	$110.50		$127.67
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Won–Lost	50–23		51–22

Rolling the Dice: Cabrito

The Line: Tomorrow, Frank Bruni reviews Cabrito, the West Village Mexican place helmed by Fatty Crab alumnus David Schuttenberg. The Eater oddsmakers have set the action as follows (√√ denotes the Eater bet):

Zero Stars: 4-1
One Star: 2-1 √√
Two Stars: 5-1
Three Stars: 500-1
Four Stars: 20,000-1

The Skinny: When we heard about this review, our initial reaction was, “Why bother?” It seemed like an obvious one-star place, which in Timesspeak usually means “uneven.” Julia Moskin more-or-less delivered that verdict in a May 2008 Dining Brief. Why give it more ink, just to deliver the same message a mere eight months later?

The only other clue comes in Frank Bruni’s year-end retrospective, in which he says that Cabrito’s “best dishes — including the carnitas with salsa verde and the roasted poblano peppers in cream — match those at just about any Mexican restaurant in New York.” If he thinks Cabrito is a category-killer, it just might be enough to push it over the edge to two stars, provided there aren’t too many duds on the menu.

To be sure, the Eater odds accurately reflect the probabilities, but we think two stars are definitely in play here. This review will almost certainly be an “enthusiastic one” or a “two with caveats.” He has more often done the latter than the former.

The Bet: Our record when we literally “roll the dice” has been mixed, to say the least. Nevertheless, we’ll go out on a limb and predict two stars for Cabrito.

Bar Breton

 

Note: Bar Breton closed in February 2012. It has been renamed La Quenelle with the same chef/owner, Cyril Reynaud. He has dropped crêpes and will serve a more traditional French menu. Fleur de Sel, his other restaurant referred to in the review below, has also since closed, so it is not surprising that he wants to use this space to do something a bit more elaborate.

*

Bar Breton opened about six weeks ago in the Flatiron District. It’s the casual sibling to Fleur de Sel, Cyril Renaud’s Michelin-starred place nearby.

Like many restaurants named “Bar X” these days (Bar Boulud, Bar Blanc, etc., etc.), there is a bar, but it’s beside the point. The menu offers a mix of French brasserie standards along with savory crêpes known as galettes. There are four of these ($12–18), along with small plates called niacs ($8–12), soups & salads ($10–14), mains ($16–26), sides ($5) and desserts ($6–8).

The niacs and galettes are in varying sizes. Some of the niacs are just nibbles, and others are full-blown appetizers. Some of the galettes are appetizers, and others can stand in for main courses. There’s a potential for confusion, but our server’s guidance was spot-on.

The whole menu fits on a page, and except for the burger, it stays true to Chef Renaud’s Brittany roots. It is also terrific food at a budget price. Our bill for two, including a bottle of wine for $32, came in below $100 (before tip). That isn’t easily done these days.

There is a $35 “restaurant week” menu, which I believe will be available at least through the end of February. You get four courses for that price, which is a great deal, though we chose to spend less than that by getting two courses each à la carte.

To start, we had the Salt Baked Potato with braised oxtail ($12; above left) and the Suckling Pig & Foie Gras Terrine ($11; above right). Both came from the niacs section of the menu.

I loved the Braised Lamb Shank galette with roasted winter vegetables ($18; below left). My girlfriend had the burger ($16; below right). I didn’t try it, but I did try the fries, which were perfect. Our theory is that no brasserie has any business serving fries unless it can nail them. Bar Breton did.

I have only one minor complaint. The back of the long, narrow space is separated from the kitchen by two swinging doors that let in a lot of bright light. It slightly mars the ambiance of what would otherwise be a nice room. Obviously it is a casual room, but a sturdier partition could have blocked out the kitchen light.

On a Friday night, the space was close to full by 8:00 p.m., which is always encouraging for a new restaurant. Service was fine, including a nice basket of fresh bread. In a tough economic climate for restaurants, this is one that deserves to succeed.

Bar Breton (254 Fifth Avenue between 28th & 29th Streets, Gramercy/Flatiron District)

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

The Payoff: Daniel

Today, Frank Bruni re-affirms four stars for Daniel. A new Adam Tihany décor sealed the deal:

Daniel was always fancy; now it’s genuinely gorgeous, too. And that’s almost reason enough to reaffirm the four stars the restaurant was awarded by William Grimes in The New York Times in 2001.

But the contemporary French menu and the service make their own contributions, usually measuring up to the extremely high standards the restaurant has established.

All in all Daniel remains one of New York’s most sumptuous dining experiences. And while it yields fewer transcendent moments than its four-star brethren and falls prey to more inconsistency, it has a distinctive and important niche in that brood, a special reason to be treasured.

Among the handful of elegant restaurants that maintain the rituals once synonymous with superior cuisine and cling to an haute French style, Daniel is the most straightforward, the one with the fewest tics or tweaks. It’s the truest link to the past.

The review invites at least two meta-critical questions. First, should a restaurant that is “prey to…inconsistency” be rewarded with four stars? And second, is this consistent with what Bruni has done in the past?

To the first, there is no clear answer. I gave Daniel four stars myself, so I certainly cannot disagree with Bruni’s conclusion. Even at the highest level, in a forced ranking some restaurant would be the least wonderful four-star place, just as some restaurant would be at the top of the three-star heap. Bruni has put Daniel on the better side of that line, and I won’t argue with him.

But if Bruni’s oeuvre has a consistent theme, it’s that classic luxury doesn’t matter. Even when luxurious places got good reviews, one always sensed that Bruni would rather be elsewhere—that he believed fine dining was only for old fogies. In almost five years on the job, I cannot think of another review in which he actually celebrated luxury as something worthwhile, as he does here:

In fact there are moments during a meal at Daniel when you may well wonder why it isn’t more expensive, given how much staff is required for service like this…how much plotting goes into the ceremony.

At restaurants considered much less exclusive, you could spend only $30 less on a similar amount of food, and you wouldn’t get anything approaching Daniel’s bells and whistles. These flourishes make you feel that you’ve slipped into a monarch’s robes, if only for a night, and turn an evening into an event.

Take note of the dotted circles, a visual motif woven into the restaurant’s new design. They’re on the welcome mat outside. And on the carpeting inside. And on the china, the cotton damask napkins and even the plush, thick paper hand towels in the restrooms…

It’s for coddling this thorough that lovers of fine dining turn to restaurants like Daniel, which safeguards a graciousness that deserves to survive any change in fashions and fortunes.

Where did this Frank Bruni come from?

Eater correctly predicted that Bruni would award four stars to Daniel, and wins $2 on a hypothetical one dollar bet. We thought that Bruni would demote Daniel to three stars, and lose a dollar.

	Eater		NYJ
Bankroll	$106.50		$129.67
Gain/Loss	+2.00		–1.00
Total	$108.50		$128.67
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Won–Lost	49–23		51–21

Felidia

By coincidence, I dined at Babbo and Felidia on consecutive evenings last week. The two restaurants are related, as Felidia is owned by Lidia Bastianich, while her son Joe is a partner in Babbo.

We had the pasta tasting menu at Babbo, and as I noted in my blog post, the savory courses ended in a whimper. There’s no reason why a progression of five pastas can’t all be terrific, but in this case there was a failure of imagination at the end of the sequence—nothing bad, but too bland. And the bread service was disappointing, with neither butter nor olive oil in sight.

At Felidia, we had the five-course market tasting menu (~$75)—one of several multi-course fixed menus the restaurant offers. I wasn’t taking notes that evening, but we started with an excellent beef carpaccio; then a salad-like substance that was the only dud; then an excellent quinoa risotto and an even better duo of squab. I wouldn’t rush back for the bread service, but with several spreads in lieu of butter, it was at least acceptable.

The wine list has moderated a bit since my last visit. There are plenty of budget-busting bottles, if you want them, but I had no trouble finding reasonable options under $50.

Service was excellent, but for one serious faux pas at the end. Our server said, “We need the table for another party, but please feel free to have a drink at the bar.” I don’t think any three-star restaurant has ever asked me to vacate a table, and I don’t believe we lingered longer than one normally would at this type of restaurant.

But if they’re going to invite you for a drink, they should at least follow through. Instead, we were left to fend for ourselves, and when we got downstairs the bar was packed three deep. It was obvious that the offer of a drink was only a ploy to turn the table. I am glad that Felidia is not struggling for customers, but this should have been handled better.

Felidia (243 E. 58th Street between 2nd & 3rd Avenues, East Midtown)

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

Rolling the Dice: Daniel

The Line: Tomorrow, Frank Bruni reviews one of the few remaining grandes dames of French cuisine, Daniel. The Eater oddsmakers have set the action as follows (√√ denotes the Eater bet):

Zero Stars: 500-1
One Star: 499-1
Two Stars: 498-1
Three Stars: 4-1
Four Stars: 2-1 √√

The Skinny: Daniel currently carries four New York Times stars, courtesy of Mr. William Grimes. It is the last remaining four-star restaurant that Bruni has never reviewed. He has, however, written obliquely about the restaurant on several occasions, and it has never been positive.

Here he is in December 2004:

I dropped by Cafe Boulud the other night. I went because I had recently visited the chef Daniel Boulud’s other two Manhattan restaurants but not this one, which happens to be many of my acquaintances’ hands-down favorite of the three. I can see why. It doesn’t have the starched self-consciousness of Daniel or the cheeky swagger of DB Bistro Moderne.

And then in August 2007:

Under Mr. Carmellini Café Boulud had thrived: for many diners, it was the most consistently enjoyable of the restaurants owned by Daniel Boulud, more relaxed than Daniel, less scattershot than DB Bistro Moderne.

And here he was in October 2007, commenting on the Michelin Guide’s two-star rating for Daniel in relation to the three stars given to Jean Georges:

Putting the restaurant Jean Georges ahead of Daniel — giving it three stars to Daniel’s two — is a more defensible judgment call, consistent with the appetites and appraisals of many of the city’s most discerning diners.

In all of these comments, Bruni’s enthusiasm falls well short of the rapture one expects at a four-star restaurant. Unless Bruni has been wowed lately to a degree he wasn’t before, I cannot see how Daniel can remain a four-star restaurant. Bruni’s well known abhorrence of classic French luxury dining is another factor not in Daniel’s favor.

We’ve long believed that Daniel’s days in the four-star club were numbered, as soon as Bruni could find a replacement. There are currently just five such restaurants, and that total has remained remarkably stable over the years. When Bruni demoted Alain Ducasse and Bouley from four stars to three, other restaurants replaced them.

What would be Daniel’s replacement? I had once thought that either Eleven Madison Park or Del Posto could be the lucky winner, but in a blog post on New Year’s Eve, Bruni strongly suggested that neither one was ready. Among Bruni’s known favorites, that leaves only Momofuku Ko as a potential promotion candidate—a review that would put Bruni on the map like no other. Among traditional restaurants, the newly relocated Bouley is the best candidate, though we don’t see it happening.

We don’t discount entirely the possibility of four stars tomorrow: Boulud could have upped his game since Bruni’s earlier visits, or maybe the Brunz just feels itchy because he hasn’t given four stars to anybody in almost two years. But given Bruni’s long-standing disdain, both for Daniel itself and the style of dining it stands for, we just don’t see it.

The Bet: We believe that Frank Bruni will award three stars to Daniel.

Babbo

The pasta tasting menu at Babbo has been on my “to do” list for several years. I finally got around to it on Friday. (A copy of the menu is below; click for a larger image.)

Everything was very good, but the savory courses ended with a whimper. The last two — “Domingo’s Pyramids” (pyramid-shaped pasta pillows with braised beef), and Pappardelle Bolognese — were items any decent cook could make at home. Babbo prepared them perfectly, but the degree of difficulty seemed low.

Among the earlier courses, my favorite was a ravioli (called Casunzei) filled with layers of beets and goat cheese. I also loved a black tagliatelle with parsnips and pancetta. The three dessert courses were fine, but again, two of the three were not especially complex.

The bread service was peculiar, in that it came with neither butter nor olive oil, nor indeed anything but the bread itself (served cold). The omission was clearly not an accident, as we noticed complaints about it at other tables.

I have no complaint with the price: $69 for eight courses (five pastas, three desserts) is an outrageously good deal. I even found a good wine for just $34, a level seldom seen these days in practically any restaurant, much less one of Babbo’s quality.

Babbo remains one of the city’s toughest reservations to get. The reservation line opens at 10:00 a.m. for one month out, and the line is usually busy for hours. By the time you get through, they’re usually sold out, or close to it. The best they could offer on a Friday evening was 5:45 p.m.

On past visits (here, here) I’ve dined at the bar (or the Enoteca, as they call it). Indeed, no one at Babbo seems to use the bar for its usual purpose—pre or post-dinner drinks. By the time I arrived at around 5:30, every stool was taken, and place settings laid for dinner. I was therefore dismayed that the staff would not seat me in the dining room until my girlfriend arrived, as there is literally nowhere to wait. By the time we left, the scrum around the host stand was nearly impassable. We felt sorry for the people who were actually trying to eat in that space.

Once we were finally seated, Babbo offered a much more refined experience. There are a lot of very good things on the menu, but on the whole I am not sure it’s worth the trouble.

Babbo (110 Waverly Place between MacDougal St. & Sixth Ave., Greenwich Village)

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

Benoit

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

After mostly horrendous reviews at Benoit, Alain Ducasse demoted executive chef Sebastien Rondier to chef de cuisine late last year. His new boss is Pierre Schaedelin, formerly of Le Cirque, who had been Martha Stewart’s personal chef for the last two years. We liked Benoit (earlier review here), but the negative critical reaction was unmistakable.

A friend and I had dinner at Benoit the other night, my first visit since Schaedelin’s arrival. In a brief interview for TONY last week, Schaedelin spoke about some of the new menu items. One of them is a choucroute garnie ($32), a weekly special served on Thursdays. It’s an enormous plate of sumptuous sausages and cured meats served over sauerkraut. We skipped appetizers, and I still did not finish it. My friend had the Cassoulet ($26), which she graded B+. A cheese plate ($17) was also quite good.

Business was slow. When we left at around 7:40 p.m., there were still tons of empty tables. Service was attentive, and managers came by several times to ask if we were enjoying ourselves—a trend I’ve observed at numerous restaurants lately. If they’re looking to make improvements, transferring bar tabs to the table would help. I asked, but the bartender shrugged: “It’s too late. I already entered it in my system.”

The menu has changed considerably, and it is no longer presented inside a picture frame that takes up half the table. We didn’t have French Fries this time, but I noted that they’re no longer served “L’Ami Louis style.” Given the disaster they were before, it has to be an improvement.

It’s still early in Schaedelin’s tenure, but I like what I see so far. Benoit deserves more attention than it is getting.

Benoit (60 West 55th Street between Fifth & Sixth Avenues, West Midtown)

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

Center Cut

Note: Ka-Boom! Jeffrey Chodorow fails again: Center Cut closed in August 2009. Ed’s Chowder House, from chef Ed Brown of eighty one, replaced it.

*

I dropped in at Center Cut a couple of weeks ago for a pre-show dinner. I wasn’t feeling very hungry, so I ordered the $39 prix fixe. You choose four dishes, served in pairs on rectangular plates that look like two normal dinner plates fused together.

An heirloom tomato and mozzarella salad was very good, but so-called five-alarm chili tasted about three alarms less bold than it should be. Despite the standard advice about non-steak entrées at steakhouses, I ordered shrimp scampi, which turned out to be excellent. But a side dish of Balsamic Caramelized Cippolini Onions misfired: I gave up after a few cloying bites.

The prix fixe comes with a cookie plate as a standard dessert. The cookies looked terrific, but I was full and didn’t try them.

The bread service is wonderful—a fluffy roll the size of a large brick, served hot. The rest of the service was also very good—a significant improvement over my last visit. The only Chodorow Moment® was the attempt to upsell a Wagyu steak for $10 more.

There have been some menu tweaks. The “Flintstone Ribs” I had last time are no longer available. So too the Glazed Korean Short Ribs that Gael Greene had. Those, unfortunately, were two of the more interesting items on the original menu.

Business was much more brisk than I expected. Center Cut isn’t selling out, but I suspect they’re more than covering the rent.

Center Cut (44. W. 63rd St. between Broadway & Columbus Ave., Upper West Side)

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