North End Grill

Note: This is a review under founding chef Floyd Cardoz, who left the restaurant in April 2014. His replacement is Eric Korsh, formerly of Calliope.

*

You’ve got to admire Danny Meyer’s sense of the moment. He put fine dining into Union Square before Union Square was hip. Then, he did it at Madison Square. Then, he built the nation’s best museum restaurant at MoMA—indeed, one of the city’s finest restaurants of any kind, regardless of location.

There are some lesser accomplishments: an overrated burger shack that will soon have more locations than McDonald’s (OK, I’m exaggerating); an undistinguished barbecue joint. But even ignoring those places, it’s a remarkable record.

He’s also loyal to those who are loyal to him. A year ago, he shuttered the pathmaking Indian restaurant, Tabla, the first Meyer establishment to close. You couldn’t call it a failure, as the place had been open for twelve years, but it had run its course. But he didn’t fire the chef. Instead, he kept the talented Floyd Cardoz on the payroll until he could find another gig worthy of his abilities.

It didn’t take long. North End Grill has just opened in Battery Park City, along with a branch of that overrated burger shack and that undistinguished barbecue joint. They’ll all be hits.

When the project was announced, Meyer noted the irony that Battery Park City has the city’s highest-income Zip code, but it has never had any particularly good restaurants. With the new Goldman Sachs headquarters around the block, Meyer figured it was time to give the neighborhood a try.

In that announcement, Meyer made the restaurant sound decidedly middlebrow:

“This fits in with my casual restaurants, like Union Square Cafe, the tavern at Gramercy Tavern, Maialino, and the Bar Room at the Modern,” Mr. Meyer said. “I don’t see this as a special-occasion place.”

He confirmed that Floyd Cardoz, formerly of Tabla, which closed at the end of 2010, will be the chef, with a menu dominated by seafood. A dining counter will face an open kitchen and there will be a bar for drinks, not food.

North End Grill is much better than that. It is not as fancy as Meyer’s two remaining upscale restaurants, Gramercy Tavern and The Modern, but it’s quite a bit fancier than the other places he compared it to—the Tavern Room, the Bar Room, or Maialino.

By today’s standards, it is fine dining. The Goldman Sachs crowd will generate expense account business. Meyer was smart not to surrender that opportunity, and Floyd Cardoz shouldn’t be wasted on tavern food.

Meyer hedged his bets in other ways: the bar does serve food, and there’s a long communal table facing an open kitchen. But the main dining room (in the back, and not immediately visible when you enter) is smartly appointed in white and ebony trim, with crisp white tablecloths, comfortable banquetts, tables generously spaced, and captains in tie and jacket.

Whether you choose the bar or a sit-down meal, you’ll enjoy eating here.

The menu is upper-mid-priced, with appetizers and salads $12–18, entrées $19–44 (most of them $26–34), sides $6–9. There’s a distinct seafood slant, which features in all the appetizers, but the entrées are about a 50 percent split between surf and turf.

It isn’t a bold menu, especially the entrées: halibut, scallops, salmon, pork chop, lamb, duck, turbot, chicken, steak—practically, the laundry list of all the mains a “bar and grill” restaurant needs to serve, lacking only a burger.

But I was there on the second night of dinner service, and I’m sure North End Grill—like every other Danny Meyer restaurant—will gain focus as the restaurant gains its sea legs. For such an early visit (not my usual practice), the kitchen and the service team were remarkably sure-footed.

Cod Throats Meunière ($15; above left) is what passes for critic bait on this menu: the throat of the cod, dredged in flour and served in brown butter. The server compared it to sweetbreads, which was a fairly accurate description.

In an early candidate for Trend of the Year, there is a whole section of the menu for savory egg dishes. If they’re as good as the Tuna Tartare with Fried Quail Egg and Crispy Shallots ($16; above right), then I’d like to try them all.

The Ashley Farms Poulet Rouge ($52; above), one of three “×2” dishes on the menu, was excellent.

So too was a side of Hashed Brussels Sprouts and Lentils ($8; right), which was like a rich, warm cole slaw.

The wine list, which is currently only one sheet of paper, offers a reasonable selection for a new restaurant, although the sommelier said that a longer and deeper list is on the way. For us, the 2007 Haut Médoc from Château Sociando-Mallet ($64) was just right.

The hard liquor department specializes in scotch, with dozens of whiskies in a wide price range. There are also several scotch-based cocktails; I tried the Stone Fence ($13), with, sparkling cider, Peychaud’s bitters, and soda.

This is a Danny Meyer restaurant, so it won’t surprise you that the service was spot-on, allowing for some obvious first-night nervousness that will surely have subsided by the time you read this. I wouldn’t be surprised if North End Grill is a three-star restaurant before long—or what passes for one, now that the classic kind is gradually disappearing. I’m a bit more conservative, but stay tuned.

North End Grill (104 North End Avenue at Vesey Street, Battery Park City)

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

Morso

It took a while to remember when I had been here before: the large, luxurious restaurant space at the base of an apartment building in Sutton Place. It was Savonara, a terrific Turkish restaurant that closed three years ago, before anyone (but me) could review it.

The Palace, Bouterin, and Sandro’s, are among the others who have occupied that fated space, and failed.

Now comes Morso (Italian for “small bites”) from the well-traveled chef, Pino Luongo. I’ve never been to his other places, such as Le Madri, Coco Pazzo, Tuscan Square, or Centolire. Most of them are long since closed. Centolire is still open, except when it’s seized.

Luongo is not shy about slamming other chefs, whether it’s Michael White, Andrew Carmellini, or Mario Batali: none can please him. Perhaps he had better worry about drawing crowds to Morso. A recent weeknight visit found the space more than half empty. Those it did attract were mostly over fifty.

It’s a nice-looking place, with the walls decked out in vintage 1960s European poster art. And three cheers for Luongo for putting out tablecloths and not drowning out diners with the sound system. You can have a comfortable, civilized meal, in a pretty room unlike any other you’ve seen, and you won’t need to shout to be heard. Why can’t we have more restaurants like that?

But Luongo went to a lot of trouble (and expense) to create a restaurant very few people will see. No one draws a destination crowd to this neighborhood in the shadow of the Queensboro Bridge. It’s a looooong hike from transit, the area (though safe) is unfashionable, and there are a lot of seats to fill.

There are two central conceits to the menu. Most of the selections are available in two sizes, morso (a smaller plate) or tutto (larger). They’re organized by main ingredient (vegetables, eggs & cheese, poultry, etc.), rather than the standard appetizer–pasta–entrée arrangement, so there is considerable flexibility in the way you organize a meal.

The morso plates are $10–24 (most $18 or less), the tutto plates $19–30. Where a dish is available both ways, there’s generally about $5–8 separating the two sizes. There are about a half-dozen items only available in the larger size, and these range from $26 (pork chop) to $58 (ribeye steak).

It’s a structure that lends itself to over-ordering and upselling, but our server was remarkably restrained, advising us that two morsos was enough. 

The appetizers were more successful than the entrées. My friend liked the Carciofi ($14; above left), a crispy artichoke salad with pickled fennel, olives, arugula, and citrus dressing.

And I adored the Uova ($14; above right), a soft poached egg with lamb sausage, chickpea fries, and a fontina cheese sauce. Puncture the egg and mop it up with the fries, and you have an instant classic.

The Maiale ($26; above left), or pork chop, looked promising: it’s a large hunk of meat wrapped in bacon, served with butternut squash gratin and winter greens in an apple-sage sauce, but the pork was slightly over-cooked.

Housemade Pappardelle ($16; above center) came with a brisket pot roast and a porcini mushroom sauce, but a large hunk of (concededly tender) pot roast on the side wasn’t well integrated into the rest of the dish. A side order of roasted Brussels Sprouts ($8; above right) was competently done.

I especially like the morso/tutto option on so many of the dishes. If I lived in the neighborhood, I would love having a place like this to drop in for something light, at times that I’m not in the mood for a big meal. And our meal was comparatively inexpensive, at around $125 (including drinks) before tax and tip.

But as I’ve noted in the past, mid-level Italian is the most over-saturated cuisine in New York. The chef is awfully impressed with himself, but hasn’t noted that food of this quality—or better—is available all over town.

Morso (420 E. 59th Street between First and York Avenues, Sutton Place)

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

Wong

Note: Wong closed in July 2014. Nine months later, it re-opened with the somewhat unappetizing name Chomp Chomp, serving “Singaporean Hawker Food.” (Plans for a Vietnamese restaurant in the space called Vuong were abandoned.)

*

For all of my complaints about New York Times restaurant critics, I typically can’t make much use of their advice—even when they are right. By the time they get around to reviewing a place, there’s usually enough press that I have a pretty good sense of what is going on, even if I haven’t already been there myself (which I often have).

Wong was different. It was totally off my radar until Pete Wells gave it an enthusiastic two stars, three weeks ago. I went to the restaurant on his say-so, and ordered the dishes he recommended. I almost never do that.

Ya know what? He’s right. Wong is a great restaurant.

The chef, Simpson Wong, is Malaysian. His cuisine purports to be “Asian locavore,” although many of the dishes defy ready classification. Naan bread (left), served before the meal, seems to be the main nod to India; and I saw nothing Japanese.

The menus seem to be freshly printed, and the staff eagerly assure you that “97 percent” of the menu, including even the beers and wines, is sourced locally (and of course, sustainable, seasonal, yada yada yada). I have never visited Wong’s earlier restaurants—the now-closed Jefferson or the still-open Café Asean—so I have no basis for comparison.

There isn’t a huge selection, which for an Asian restaurant is unusual. I find it admirable that the chef focuses on a few things he does well. There are just eight appetizers ($9–15), eight rice dishes and entrées ($17–31), three sides ($6–7), and three desserts ($8–10).

About half the dishes are marked with a stylized “W”, indicating that they’re house specialities. This silly custom ought to be abandoned: either serve a dish proudly, or not at all.

Hakka Pork Belly ($13.50; above left) is as good a pork dish as you’ll find; it shares the plate with little tater tots made from taro root. Sea Scallops ($15; above right), as Wells noted, come with little deep-fried duck tongue fritters that steal the show.

Cha Ca La Wong ($17; above), Wells tells us, is a pun on a famous Hanoi restaurant, Cha Ca La Vong, where the only dish served consists of rice noodles and partly-cooked fish that you finish yourself at the table. The version here comes fully cooked in a sizzling cast-iron skillet; the fish is Hake, topped with tumeric (a kind of ginger), just slightly spicy.

Lobster Egg Foo Yong ($24; above) is a tour de force, not at all resembling the traditional dish that many Chinese restaurants serve. This winning combination of lobster claw, leeks, shrimp crumble, and two fried duck eggs, is an early candidate for dish of the year.

We don’t usually order dessert but had to try the Duck à la Plum ($9.50; above), with the incredible roast duck ice cream, plum sake, and a crispy tuile 5-spice cookie.

Wells complained about the minimal wine list, but the white wine we tried, a Rhone-inspired Patelin de Tablas Blanc, paired well with the food, and was reasonably priced, at $39. (The server called it a white Châteauneuf-du-Pape, which might be a stretch, though I see what he means.)

Crowds at Wong have picked up since the Wells review came out. It wasn’t quite full on a Thursday evening, but our reservation was fairly early. And yes, they do take reservations, a welcome rarity these days for restaurants of this kind.

Service, in fact, is a strength here, with plates and silverware promptly cleared and replaced after every course Chopsticks come in an attractive woven leather sleeve, and are better than the disposable kind most Asian restaurants give out. Staff understand the menu and give sensible ordering advice.

But there is nowhere to hang coats, and the space is not at all comfortable. We got a seat at the so-called “chef’s table” (really a bar) facing the open kitchen, which is preferable to the cramped and closely-spaced tables. Wherever you sit, you’ll be on a chair or a stool so diabolically uncomfortable that you’d think David Chang was an investor.

Despite that, Wong is one of the most original restaurants to have opened in New York in quite a while. I would suffer its uncomfortable stools to have more, please.

Wong (7 Cornelia Street near W. 4th Street, West Village)

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

Veritas

Note: Veritas closed in October 2013. A restaurant called élan, from former Chanterelle chef David Waltuck, is expected to open there in 2014.

*

The owners of Veritas must have been frustrated with their Odyssean quest to find a chef worthy of their four-star wine list.

Founding chef Scott Bryan left in October 2007 with no destination in mind (he is now at Apiary). Journeyman Ed Cotton replaced him, couldn’t get reviewed, and was fired after just eight months. His replacement, the excellent Gregory Pugin, served the best food Veritas ever had, but he couldn’t get reviewed either, and the owners pulled the plug after two years and declining customer interest.

This time, there were no half-measures. One day in August 2010, management locked out the staff and closed abruptly for “renovations.” I assumed “renovations” were a prelude to winding up the business—it usually works that way. But three months later, the “new” Veritas duly re-opened with Sam Hazen as chef and partner, along with the original owners (mainly, wine mega-collector Park B. Smith).

I thought that this was total capitulation. Despite some pretty impressive restaurants on Hazen’s C.V. (Quilted Giraffe, Le Gavroche, Quatorze, La Côte Basque), he spent the last decade wallowing in mediocrity (Todd English Enterprises, Lucy’s Cantina Royale), and had created Tao, possibly the worst restaurant of the century, if measured by the number of copycats (all terrible) that it has inspired. If you had to pick one restaurant that encapsulates everything wrong with contemporary dining in New York City, it would have to be Tao.

And they chose this guy??

Gone was the $92 prix fixe, replaced by a menu said to be “more affordable.” Now, I’m all for affordability, but the open question was whether Hazen could offer anything better than over-priced stoner food, to go with co-owner Smith’s incredible wine collection. A three-star review from Sam Sifton was the first indication that, perhaps, Hazen was capable of better thngs than his resume suggested.

That new “affordability” is all relative. On Hazen’s New American locavore menu, appetizers are $13–22, entrées $29–49, desserts $11–13. That’s hardly bargain dining. But our food bill at the new Veritas was $107 for two (that’s before alcohol, tax, or tip), and we skipped dessert, an option the old menu wouldn’t have permitted. Remember, at the old Veritas it was $92 for one.

They’ve also banished the tablecloths. To be fair, even when table linens were fashionable, décor was never the strong suit at Veritas. The Brooklyn design firm Crème (Red Farm, Marc Forgione, Danji, La Promenade des Anglais) created a striking new look with painted white brick, stained wood accents, dark wood floors, filament bulbs, and floor-to-ceiling wine racks stocked with empty old bottles. It feels like a slightly derivative, more upscale version of what the one- and two-star restaurants are doing these days. But it is not unpleasant.

To my surprise, chef Hazen is serving very good, serious food, at the new Veritas. How he ever became involved with a shitshow like Tao is utterly beyond me, but the man hasn’t forgotten how to cook for real, and it seems he really is here to stay: he was in the house on a random Tuesday evening in January, with the restaurant about half full.

Wine is and always was the main point of dining at Veritas. Co-owner Park B. Smith told The Times that, to the 75,000 cellar that was already one of the city’s best, he’d added a “market list” with “quite a few choices for around $50 a bottle.” That is not really true: the majority of the market list is $60 or more (often way more), and you soon find yourself in the fifty-page reserve list, where practically all bottles are in three, four, and five figures.

Hazen’s menu is certainly as good as Veritas has served for most of its history (the all-too-brief Pugin era excepted), but it is not good enough to justify a visit unless you’re prepared to spend—and spend big—on wine. Even at a budget of $100 a bottle, 98 percent of the list will be out of your reach. It’s a pity that the $50–75 range is so anemic, but if you’re a wine lover you’ll drool with envy at the reserve list. Budget accordingly.

Châteauneuf-du-Pape remains a Veritas specialty. The section of the list devoted to it goes on for 3½ dual-column pages, with prices ranging from $105 to $5,500, and years ranging from 1978 to 2007. That nothing younger is offered (and indeed, the 2007s are not numerous) suggests that the restaurant is admirably waiting for younger bottles to mature before offering them for sale.

Anyhow: Châteauneuf-du-Pape is my own personal favorite, so there was no doubt what I would order. The 2000 Panisse Noble Révélation at $105 was sublime. (The staff decanted it, as they have done on past visits.) It only makes me wish I could afford more.

The amuse bouche (above right) was a warm winter vegetable soup. A choice of three breads was offered, along with soft butter. We both chose the house-made olive brioche, which was excellent.

Ibérico Ham ($19; above left) was offered as an announced special. Although there was nothing wrong with it, I thought that Hazen had defaulted to a luxury ingredient without doing much to augment it. In contrast, Merguez & Farm Egg ($15; above right) was superb, a hearty mix of spicy stewed tomatoes and lamb sausage.

Both entrées were well conceived, but were a bit less succulent than they ought to be. Striped Bass ($36; above left) is served crisp with the skin on, with eggplant, sweet peppers and sauce vierge. Wooly Pig ($37; above right), having a slightly more gamey flavor than other breeds, is brined in maple syrup overnight and served with a breaded stick of pork confit, which was excellent.

The evening ended with a plate of petits fours (right), and the staff gave us muffins to take home for breakfast. (The pastry chef is Emily Wallendjack, formerly of Cookshop.)

The staff are inclined to upsell, which we resisted. Sommelier Rubén Ramiro, having been asked for a recommendation around $100, suggested a bottle priced at $135. And the server had the temerity to encourage us to purchase a third entrée to share—the vegetarian item—although both entrées came with vegetables already.

Although it is easy enough to ignore the staff’s attempts to extract more money from the customer, it comes across as greedy and low-class, at a restaurant that is already very expensive.

But perhaps these compromises are the necessary evils to keep Park B. Smith’s extraordinary wine collection in the public eye. The “Brooklyn plus” décor is inoffensive; Chef Hazen’s cuisine is pretty good and might even be excellent on the right day. The service, aside from upselling, is acceptable.

Veritas (43 E. 20th St. between Broadway & Park Avenue South, Flatiron District)

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

Uva Restaurant and Wine Bar

I am leery of accepting dinner invitations from publicists, as it’s sometimes a signal that the restaurant is desperate.

At Uva Restaurant and Wine Bar, it is entirely the opposite. On a Wednesday evening, the charming, rustic space was bustling, full of the young, energetic, value-conscious diners that most people think the Upper East Side doesn’t have.

After it opened in 2005, Uva received just one professional review that I can find, a mostly favorable write-up from The Times in $25 & Under. It has received little media attention since then. Our visit was at the publicist’s invitation, and all of the usual caveats apply. However, between the four of us we were able to sample a good deal of the menu, and my friends didn’t hesitate to share their critical reactions, both positive and negative.

Uva is owned by the Lusardi family, whose sister restaurant down the block, Lusardi’s, serves a very similar Northern Italian menu in considerably more upscale surroundings. To the younger crowd that favors Uva, Lusardi’s is the old-fashioned white-tablecloth place where they’d take the grandparents. My age is about midway between most of Uva’s patrons and grandpa, and perhaps I’d probably enjoy the higher-priced (but much quieter) Lusardi’s a bit more. Uva is more cozy: with low ceilings and exposed brick right out of the downtown playbook, it does get loud in there.

But Uva has its charms, with 40 wines by the glass, most of them $12.50 or less; and 250 wines by the bottle in a wide range from $28 to a few reserve selections in three and four figures. (I assume Uva shares stock with Lusardi’s, which has a 500-bottle list.)

Although Uva is marketed as a wine bar, it has a full menu of antipasti, cheeses, pastas, and entrées. Portions are ample, and nothing costs more than $22. There is also a late-night menu from 11:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m., a rarity in this neighborhood.

Chisolino ($9.50; above left) is a dish I’ve not had before, an Emilian-style focaccia with Robiola cheese and preserved black truffles. This was one of the more satisfying and memorable dishes of the evening.

Of the two bruschette we tried (both $6.50), our table voted a slight preference for the Sundried Tomato Puree, Pesto & Pine Nuts (above left) over the Wild Mushrooms, Arugula & Parmigiano Cheese (above right).

The appetizer course was the evening’s best, with a quartet of excellent dishes:

1. Insalata di Barbabietole ($9; above left), a salad of red beets, goat cheese and fava bean salad. Some version of this dish seems to appear in every restaurant, but this was a fine rendition of it.

2. Involtini de Melanzane ($10; above right), eggplant stuffed with ricotta and spinach, baked in a pink sauce with mozzarela. This is a dish I’ve not seen before, and frankly one of the few eggplant dishes I have ever liked.

3. Polenta Tartufata ($9; above left), fresh polenta filled with robiola cheese in a black truffle sauce. This was probably my favorite dish of the evening, and like the stuffed eggplant, I haven’t seen anything quite resembling it before.

4. Burrata Barese ($13; above right), creamy mozzarella with yellow beef tomatoes, fava beans, and a balsamic glaze.

The pasta course (right) was competently executed, but less distinctive:

1. Gnocchi di Ricotta ($18), home made ricotta gnocchi in a creamy black truffle and chive sauce. (Truffles seem to figure in a lot of the dishes here.)

2. Pappardelle al Ragu di Vitelo ($17), house-made pasta ribbons sautéed with ragout of veal and montasio cheese.

3. Cavatelli al Pesto ($18), house-made pasta shells in a creamy pesto sauce with shaved ricotta.

All three were acceptable, but the sense of the table was that we’d had better versions of them elsewhere.

The entrées were all quite heavy, plated and sauced in a style that isn’t fashionable these days. Three of the four seemed to be swimming in the identical dark brown sauce, which was too much of a good thing.

Anello de Capesante e Speck ($22; above left), was the most striking of these dishes, with five scallops arranged in a pentagon held together with a string of smoked prosciutto, resting in sautéed spinach and a white wine sauce. The whole production had a rich, dusky flavor.

Polpaccio d’Agnello ($21; above right), a braised lamb shank, seemed (like most of the entrées) over-sauced.

Vitello Gratinato con Melanzane ($22; above left), veal topped with eggplant and soft pecorino cheese in a rosemary sauce, was a higher quality and more tender veal than the pounded-into-dust versions served at lesser restaurants.

Petto d’Anatra ($22; above right), a pan-seared duck breast in a thyme sauce, was served with sautéed oyster mushrooms, spinach, and fingerling potatoes. Here, the suace was so overwhelming that it was hard to taste much of the duck at all.

All four desserts we tried were excellent:

1. Torta di Mandate ($8; above left), an almond tart served warm with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce.

2. Baci Perugina Mousse ($8.50; above right), a chocolate and hazelnut mousse topped with chocolate sauce and toasted hazelnuts.

3. Salame del Papa ($6.50; below left), a chocolate “salame” Venetian style.

4. Fragole con crema al mascarpone ($7.50; below right), fresh strawberries topped with mascarpone cream.

There wasn’t a dud among these, but if I must choose, the first two were more memorable.

To summarize, the starter and dessert courses were clear winners. The pastas were about typical of a good Italian restaurant in New York, while the entrées struck us as a tad old-fashioned and somewhat heavier than many diners are looking for these days. Having said that, they are certainly good for the neighborhood, especially at just $22, a good $4–5 less than many places would charge.

The service was excellent, as you’d expect at a pre-arranged meal, but if Uva is packed on a Wednesday in January after seven years in business, they are probably doing something right.

Uva (1486 Second Avenue between 77th & 78th Streets, Upper East Side)

Bigoli

Note: This is a review under chef Alex Stratta, who left the restaurant in March 2012 after Eater.com put the restaurant on “deathwatch.” In a rare admission, the owners actually thanked Eater for getting deathwatched: “It got our butts in gear and forced us to make changes more quickly.

But Deathwatch is not escaped so easily. The restaurant closed in October 2012.

*

Bigoli is the new Italian restaurant from Vegas transplant and Top Chef: Masters alum Alessandro (“Alex”) Stratta.

Stratta trained with Alain Ducasse and Daniel Boulud, and his first few restaurants were in the elaborate French mold: Mary Elaine’s at the Phoenician in Scottsdale, Renoir at the Mirage in Las Vegas, and Alex at the Wynn (since closed), which earned two Michelin stars. He followed that up with an Italian place, Stratta, also at the Wynn, with which he is no longer involved.

Bigoli is a serious, comfortable, and mostly enjoyable restaurant. It’s also a little disappointing.

Stratta told The Times that he “didn’t want to do fancy any more.” You can hardly blame him: the city’s critics are skeptical of fancy restaurants, and they usually hate imported chefs. A Michelin multi-star concept transplanted from Vegas would practically be begging to get panned, no matter how good it was.

But “unfancy” Italian is the most over-represented cuisine in New York City. Does Stratta have a point of view? The opening menu is completely anonymous. If I stripped off the logo and showed it to a dozen food-savvy New Yorkers, none would guess where it came from. No dish would leap off the page: “Oh my, who’s serving that?” You’ve seen it all before.

The only possibility Bigoli allows at the moment, is to prepare the food well, at a fair price, in a comfortable space. That it mostly does, but so do many of its competitors. Antipasti are $9–15, pastas $19–25, entrées $23–49. Except for the obligatory prime ribeye and rack of lamb, all the entres are under $30. A wood-burning oven features prominently in an open kitchen, but the current menu gives no indication of which dishes actually use that oven—not that this feature is at all unique these days.

The meal opens with a helping of thick bread, a pesto dipping sauce, and a selection of olives. A Burrata appetizer ($15; above right) was rather an odd grab bag, with a lonely eggplant crostino, a thin slice of prosciutto, and a few salad greens.

As my girlfriend noted, when you put Seared Sea Scallops ($28; above left) on the same plate with roasted cauliflower, pine nuts, raisins, and brown butter, good things are bound to happen. I could do without the schmear of what looks like baby food on the right side of the plate, but the taste I had of the scallops was excellent.

Braised meats are likewise sure-fire—here, Tuscan Veal ($26; above right) with tomatoes, Swiss chard and chickpeas.

The wine list is a starter set. The Torcicoda Primitivo 2004 seemed like a good buy at $50, but the server returned with a bottle of the 2009 and had no idea that it wasn’t what I ordered.

After I pointed this out, his absurd retort was: “Don’t worry. It’s fresher that way,” apparently unaware of the principle that older bottles are usually more desirable.

A manager appeared and offered to take the bottle back if I didn’t like it. It was decent enough for a 2009 (still priced at $50), and I kept it, though it’s not the bottle I would have chosen had it been listed as a 2009 on the printed list.

Aside from that, the service was friendly and attentive, but the food took quite a while to come out, even though it was not busy on a Wednesday evening. The restaurant is only a month old, and I suspect it will get better, but there is some work to do.

Bigoli occupies an historic townhouse on a West Village side street. Eater.com commenters hated the décor, but we rather liked it: I don’t think the photos do it justice. The banquettes are comfortable, and the tables don’t seem as tightly packed as they often are at such places.

The chef told The Times, “we’re coming here with an incredible level of humility. New Yorkers really know food but I’m hoping they’ll be kind and patient.” Unfortunately, New Yorkers aren’t known for patience. If Stratta has bigger and bolder ideas for the cuisine, I can’t imagine what he’s waiting for.

We found Bigoli comfortable and pleasant, and if the entrées weren’t especially memorable, they were at least well made. For that, I would go back again. But I think the chef needs to do more to make Bigoli stand out from the mine run of good Italian restaurants, of which the city has no shortage.

Bigoli (140 W. 13th Street between Sixth & Seventh Avenues, West Village)

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

Slightly Oliver

Slightly Oliver is a new “cocktail-themed gastropub” on the Upper West Side. That description is both a selling point and a constraint, the former because there isn’t much like it nearby, the latter because in any other neighborhood it would seem derivative.

The basic idea, we must admit, has been tried before—but not here. If you’re in the area, you ought to be delighted to find Slightly Oliver (Cockney slang for “slightly drunk”), which is unique, as far as I know, on the Upper West Side.

The formula is tweaked for uptown sensibilities. The “commonwealth-inspired” menu (mostly comfort-food standards) breaks no new ground, but it is extremely well made. We tried eight dishes, and I’d be happy to have them all again. Prices are low: most entrées are $20 or less. Cocktails are in three categories: punches ($7); house recipes (described somewhat annoyingly as “tasty” cocktails) ($9), and prohibition-era classics ($12) — a good deal less than you’d pay downtown.

The owner is Stanton DuToit, who also runs Tolani Wine Restaurant a few blocks away, and formerly Sojourn on the Upper East Side. I didn’t much care for Tolani, though I haven’t been back in a while. The idea here seems more carefully edited and focused. DuToit is a trained winemaker, and the wine lists are a strength at both restaurants. As at Tolani, there’s a glass-enclosed wine room visible from the dining room; here, it shares space with a mad-scientist chemistry set that’s used to make home-brew infusions.

There are three connected spaces: a bar in front, a narrow corridor with several comfortable booths separated by gauze curtains, and a dining room in back. It feels more spacious and comfortable than most downtown restaurants with a similar proffer. We visited on New Year’s Day, when neither of the two back rooms were very crowded. There are plenty of exposed hard surfaces (brick, wooden tables) that could reflect sound, if the space were full.

Dislosure: My visit wasn’t pre-arranged with the management, but Mr. DuToit recognized me. He sent out eleven(!) different cocktails, all at no charge, and four comped dishes, in addition to the four we ordered and paid for.

We sampled a wide swath of the cocktail menu. There is a tendency to sweetness; I best liked the ones with offsetting bitter or spicy flavors. Among the punches, try the Last Night in Paris (Claro rum, spiced rum, absinthe, fresh mint reduction, pink grapefruit juice, house blended spices, whisky bitters).

Among the house cocktails (left), I preferred Oliver’s Cilantro (infused gin, Lillet Blanc, house made sour, and cucumber) and the Slightly Green Martini (vodka, green pepper reduction, dill elixir, house made sour mix). I did wince at the idea of calling something a martini that isn’t.

I especially liked the old standards, even if by then I was too, er, Oliver to finish them. The Negroni and the Manhattan, while both recognizable as the classics they are, both had an extra tang of spice that I don’t recall in other versions of them.

Over now to the food, the Chicken Liver & Foie Gras Pâté ($8; above left) was luscious and creamy, though there is not enough toast for it. The staff offered to send more, but I declined, knowing how much was coming.

There are several pizza-like dishes, which they call “flats.” The Spaniard ($12; above right) with chorizo, manchego, and piquillo peppers, was especially good.

There’s a section of the menu called “Stacks” (all $16) and though I’ve no complaints with these items, perhaps they’re comparatively skippable. Duck Spring Rolls (above left) made for a tasty snack food. Kobe Beef Sliders and Bittermilk Chicken Sliders (below left) were just fine, although you’ve had others just as good elsewhere.

Swiss Chard and Ricotta Ravioli ($14; above right) probably violated the legal limit on the amount of butter and cream allowed in one dish, but, oh my! They were absolutely fantastic.

There’s also an excellent rendition of braised short ribs ($18; above right), served here with celery root purée, braised leeks, and apple gastrique.

I would describe the Sticky Toffee Pudding ($8; right) as my dessert of the year, but it was New Year’s Day, so that isn’t saying much. I don’t remember a more enjoyable dessert last year either. Other desserts shown on the menu (a pecan bourbon pie, an apple–huckleberry crisp) sound equally appealing.

If I have a concern about Slightly Oliver, it’s the over-reliance on consultants. Jason Hicks of Jones Wood Foundry helps out in the kitchen (Mr. DuToit says he is there twice a week). Pre-opening publicity also included cocktail whiz Albert Trummer. You’d prefer to see a restaurant grow organically, rather than leaning on people whose main focus is elsewhere.

But in these early days the cocktails are mostly quite good, and if the menu is somewhat predictable by downtown standards, at least the kitchen is acing it. The location at Amsterdam & 85th doesn’t attract a destination crowd, so if Slightly Oliver is going to work, neighborhood folk will have to embrace it, which they should.

Slightly Oliver (511 Amsterdam Ave. between 84th/85th Streets, Upper West Side)