The Burger at ‘21’

You know the “21 Club,” right? You’ve driven by it a hundred times…wondered what it would be like inside? I’ve wondered too. Lunch with a friend provided the excuse to find out.

The restaurant has a long history, briefly chronicled in a recent William Grimes Q&A on the New York Times website. It actually started as a dive bar in the Village called the Red Head (no relation to the current restaurant by that name). The present incarnation is anything but a dive; in fact, it has some of the highest à la carte prices of any restaurant in the city.

It is not actually a “Club,” but it has a clubby feel. Most of the patrons seemed to be old-money regulars, whom the host greeted warmly. But they’re also mostly over 60, and therein lies the problem. Who will dine here twenty years from now? In a bid to attract the younger generation, last year, “21” stopped requiring neckties for gentlemen. Restaurants much fancier than “21” stopped doing so years ago. Jackets remain de rigeur, and most of the customers still wear ties anyway.

The space is cozy and comfortable, but in fact, not all that fancy. (I should clarify that we dined in the downstairs “bar room”; there is a more formal upstairs dining room that I have not seen.)

Prices are at nosebleed levels, with appetizers $15–24 and entrées $30–42. Prices are the same at dinner, but a few extra (more expensive) entrées are available. The website touts a lunch prix fixe at $30, but it was not offered to us.

My friend recommended the burger—famous enough that the Times has printed the recipe twice (here, here). It was a large, beefy mass, slightly over-cooked but still very good. The shoestring fries that came with it were perfect. But it’s $30, and I’ve had better ones at half the price.

The kitchen accommodated our request to share a Caesar Salad ($18); even after it was divided, there was plenty for each of us. A plate of cookies afterwards was free. Sodas were served in the bottle ($6 apiece), but there was no charge for a refill.

Still, $90 before tax and tip is an awful lot for salads and burgers. I won’t be rushing back.

21 Club (21 W. 52nd Street between Fifth & Sixth Avenues, West Midtown)

Review Preview: The Breslin

Tomorrow, Sam Sifton takes on the latest April Bloomfield/Ken Friedman production, the insanely crowded Breslin in the Ace Hotel. The Eater oddsmakers have set the action as follows: Goose Egg: 50–1 ; One Star: 4–1; Two Stars: EVEN; Three Stars: 10–1; Four Stars: 25,000–1.

We haven’t yet been to the Breslin, and we hear it’s practically impossible to get a table at the hours most people want to eat, unless you’re prepared to wait an awfully long time. Sifton probably didn’t endure those waits, but he cannot have been insensible to the plight of those who do.

We think that Eater is grossly over-stating the certainty of a two-star review. The Times dining section is being run by adults now, and two stars is no longer the default rating for ambitious comfort food served in a zero-star environment. To the contrary, we think Sifton comes into this place planning on one star, and the food would need to be an out-of-the-park home run to overcome the restaurant’s many drawbacks.

So, while a two-star review wouldn’t surprise us, we don’t think it’s four times as likely as a one-star review, as the Eater odds imply. We hope nobody is actually betting on our advice, as our predictions since Sifton took over have not been very accurate. Nevertheless, we will buck the Eater odds today, and bet on one star for the Breslin.

La Mangeoire

Note: This is a review under chef Christian Delouvrier, who retired at the end of 2014. He spent four years at La Mangeoire, but was not able to attract the city’s main restaurant critics to review it.

*

What a strange, strange trip it’s been for Christian Delouvrier. In the 1980s and ’90s, he was arguably the city’s most successful French chef, winning three stars at Maurice (1981–89), three at Les Celebrites (1991–98), and four at Lespinasse (1998–2003), where he replaced the legendary Gray Kunz.

When Lespinasse shuttered (one of the few restaurants ever to close with four stars), Delouvrier was temporarily sidelined until he took over as executive chef for Alain Ducasse at the Essex House (which ironically occupied the old Les Celebrites space) in 2004. Ducasse canned him within days after Frank Bruni demoted the restaurant to three stars the following year.

Things haven’t quite been the same for Delouvrier since then. He cooked at La Goulue in Boca Raton and Bal Harbour from 2006–09, with a couple of consulting gigs on the side. Last year, David Bouley hired Delouvrier to rescue his failing brasserie, Secession. We found the restaurant much improved, but the disastrous pre-Delouvrier reviews were too much to overcome, and Secession promptly closed.

Bouley offered Delouvrier a job at one of his other properties, but you sensed that wasn’t going to work out. Without much fanfare, he turned up last October at La Mangeoire, a neighborhood Provençal bistro on the Upper East Side that, as far as I can tell, has never had a Times review despite decades in business. “With this job I have returned to my roots,” he told the Times in December, when the news finally leaked out.

Our immediate reaction: “This is what Secession should have been.” The restaurant’s three small rooms immediately convey the feeling of a village restaurant in Provence. There are lush flower bouquets, hanging copper pots, French artwork on the walls, starched white tablecloths, wine racks in plain view, and a friendly maitre d’ who happily seated me, even though I was 20 minutes early.

La Mangeoire is not going out of its way to publicize its new chef. His name does not appear on the website or on the printed menu. You have to figure that for a guy who once had four stars, this is a come-down, and perhaps he still has his eye on something bigger. Or perhaps Delouvrier, now in his early 60s, simply wants to relax, and to cook the food of his youth.

The menu, which does not appear to be reprinted frequently, consists entirely of French standards. The appetizers ($10.00–13.50) number about a dozen; so do the entrées, each of which is offered in portions small ($13.50–22.00) or large ($19.50–33.00). The prix fixe is $28.

There was a long list of recited specials. One of these, an appetizer of scalloped potatoes with onions and goat cheese ($12; right), sounded so good that we both ordered it, and were delighted with the choice.

I’ve never been a fan of Coq au Vin ($24.50; above left), but I thought it would be a good test of the kitchen: sure enough, this preparation felt exactly right. The chicken was as tender as it should be, the sauce tart but not overpowering. Blanquette de Veau ($28.00; above right) was another recited special. The sauce seemed exactly right, as well, the veal more tender than I recall in past versions of this dish.

The Provence-heavy wine list shows some real thought, but when you ask a server for wines by the glass, he merely says, “Merlot, Cabernet, Malbec, Pinot Noir,” as if it didn’t matter which Malbec, Cabernet, etc., you were getting. A couple of the by-the-glass selections turn out to be not even French, which undermines the whole purpose of dining at the restaurant. Once we got a look at the list, we were pleased with a 2002 Dom Bernarde from Provence, for $44.

I have no idea whether hiring a well known chef has brought in new business. The restaurant was full on a Friday evening. Some of the patrons were clearly from the neighborhood; others, we couldn’t tell. It certainly wasn’t a stereotype old-fashioned uptown crowd, but a healthy mix of old and young. The location is technically in Turtle Bay, but the feel of the restaurant is Upper East Side.

Heaven only knows whether Christian Delouvrier will stay put for a while, but we can only hope he does. For now, La Mangeoire is your go-to place for Provençal classics. [Update: Chef Delouvrier called us, and assured us that he intends to remain at La Mangeoire for many years.]

La Mangeoire (1008 Second Avenue at 53rd Street, Turtle Bay)

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

Review Recap: Casa Lever

Yesterday, Sam Sifton awarded two stars to Casa Lever, finding that, although it does nothing innovative, it does many things very well indeed:

The service is appealing, comic-opera stuff. And the food, while basic, is often quite good. The spirit of Sant Ambroeus, a restaurant born in Milan in 1936 and mother to the society rooms in the Village, on the Upper East Side and Main Street in Southampton, has never been more serene. . . .

Is an appetizer of seared scallops with white asparagus and black truffle a good use of $18? That’s a question to wrestle, and there’s no correct answer. It’s the culinary equivalent of wondering whether Ferragamo shoes are worth the scratch. If they are to you, they are. The scallops are certainly well cooked.

We have to smile at this, as Frank Bruni most certainly would have insinuated that there is something deeply wrong with restaurants that charge a lot of money to those who have it to burn.

Predicting Sifton’s ratings is turning out to be a lot tougher than we expected. We and Eater were wrong again, losing a dollar on our hypothetical bets—a depressingly common outcome in the Sifton era. We’re glad to see that the Bruni era has ended, but it has made betting hazardous.

	Eater		NYJ
Bankroll	$10.00		$9.00
Gain/Loss	–$1.00		–$1.00
Total	$9.00		$8.00
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Won–Lost	6–4 (60.0%)		5–5 (50.0%)

Life-to-date, New York Journal is 75–32 (70%).

Macbar

In New York, just about any food urge can be satiated somewhere. But it’s hard to think of a place with a more laserlike focus on one—and only one—thing than Macbar, where Macaroni & Cheese is all you can get. The theme extends even to the décor, which is decked out in macaroni yellow. Look a bit harder, and you’ll see that the room is even shaped like a piece of macaroni.

If there was great public demand for such a place, I must not have heard about it, but the tiny slip of a storefront next to Delicatessen was available, so the owners grabbed it. I can’t imagine where they got the idea, but I salute the notion of doing one thing well, which Macbar does.

You could eat here a few times and not get bored, as they offer twelve varieties of mac & cheese. Many are obvious: the classic, four cheese, primavera, carbonara. Others are mash-ups with familiar dishes: mac reuben, mac stroganoff, cesseburger mc. Then there’s mac ’shroom, mac lobsta, mac quack (duck). You get the drift.

Each of these is available in small ($5.99–8.99), medium ($7.99–12.99) or large ($12.99–17.99). My son and I both ordered mediums, a size that made for a good-sized entrée.

You can also take your M&C elsewhere and combine it with something else, which wouldn’t be a bad idea. A lot of the business here is take-out. The are only a few tables; they’re small and not especially comfortable, but they suffice for a quick meal. Naturally, they’re yellow.

We ordered the mac quack ($11.99; above left) and the mac reuben ($10.99; above right). Both were terrific, but they make for a one-note dinner. They come in cute yellow containers shaped like—well, you probably guessed by now.

I don’t know if I would have gone without a 14-year-old, but if you’re in the area and have a craving for mac & cheese, macbar is your restaurant.

Macbar (54 Prince Street, east of Lafayette Street, Soho)

Review Preview: Casa Lever

Tomorrow, Sam Sifton reviews Casa Lever, the old Lever House space that now does Italian at nosebleed prices. The Eater oddsmakers have set the action as follows: Goose Egg: 100–1; One Star: 2–1; Two Stars: 3–1; Three Stars: 50–1.

We haven’t dined at Casa Lever, and none of the reviews we’ve seen suggest that it would be worthwhile. Perhaps Sifton will surprise us, be we find it hard to believe that the guy who slammed Aureole and SD26, and gave a tough two to Oceana, will turn into a cupcake when he reviews this place.

Unlike Eater, we think the goose egg is far more likely than the deuce, but we will make the safe and seemingly obvious bet: one star.

Katz’s Delicatessen

Katz’s Delicatessen is one of the seminal NYC restaurants that everyone is supposed to try. Then again, many New Yorkers haven’t been to the Statue of Liberty either, and it has been here longer than Katz’s—just barely.

Over the Christmas holiday, we finally rectified that omission. Deciding what to order wasn’t a challenge. The menu sprawls a bit—perhaps more than it should—but the pastrami sandwich is the signature item. In a one-star review for the Times in 2007, Frank Bruni reported that the pastrami out-sells the corned beef two-to-one; they make 1,000 of them a day.

The setting is bare-bones, and the cavernous space is far from charming. As you enter, you’re handed a little blue ticket. We aren’t sure what it is for, but a sign warns that if you lose it, you’ll pay an extra $50.

You can get in line for counter service, or get table service. Fans will probably tell me that if you haven’t been to the counter, you haven’t been to Katz’s. We chose table service anyway.

Bruni warned that table service is “not that efficient,” and he was right. A waitress plopped down a plate of pickles soon after we arrived, but we sat quite a while before she took our order, and quite a while longer for our drinks to arrive. I warned my son, “Drink your root beer slowly, because we might not be able to get another one.”

When the food finally came, the staff never seemed to know who had ordered what, or even which table to serve.

That pastrami sandwich almost makes up for it. At $14.95, they’re not giving them away, but you get an ample portion of thickly cut, fatty, smoky beef. There is really nothing more to it than that. A side of fries is extra ($4.50), though they do them very well. A Reuben ($15.75) wasn’t quite as impressive: the bread needed to be toasted, or at least warmer.

Although Katz’s is a Jewish deli, we didn’t notice any employees who appeared to be Jewish. The décor consists of many photos of famous customers, and signs that have been around since before most of those employees were born. One of these (mentioning that Katz’s caters parties) still carries a telephone number that pre-dates all-digit dialing.

We were fortunate to visit when there was no line, and were seated immediately. Good thing, too. This is not the most pleasant place to consume an expensive pastrami sandwich, but at least it is a good sandwich. I will be in no rush for the next one.

Katz’s Delicatessen (205 E. Houston Street at Ludlow Street, Lower East Side)