The Payoff: Benoit

Yesterday, Frank Bruni concluded the review cycle for Alain Ducasse’s latest and perhaps final New York restaurant, Benoit. The review says as much about Bruni’s limitations as it does about Ducasse’s, but in the end Bruni lands on the correct rating, one star:

Don’t get me wrong: Benoit isn’t a bad restaurant, nor is it a throwaway restaurant, not even close. It has many enviable, pleasurable virtues…

But Benoit is selling a dining experience so familiar it’s almost a cliché, and that puts a particular premium on seamless execution, lest the production feel phony and cynical.

Invention and surprise are mostly off the table, so consistency and panache matter all the more. With a museum-piece restaurant like this, the difference between timeless and somewhat tired — between utterly delighting and intermittently amusing — is in its fluency and diction.

One star is the correct rating because, by all accounts, Benoit is inconsistent. We agree with Bruni that when “invention and surprise are off the table,” consistency and excellence are all you have to offer. Even fans of the genre concede that Benoit has two many slips to justify anything better than one star.

We also agree with Bruni that the menu should change with the seasons, and if baba au rhum is going to be offered, it ought to be the tour de force Ducasse is so noted for, and not the pallid version of it offered here.

But Bruni also uses words like “fusty,” “frowzy,” “stereotype,” “cliché,” and “museum-piece.” None of these are meant as compliments, and all of them are directed at the concept, not its execution. While the latter may rightly be faulted, the former should not be.

The critical cogniscenti of this town were never going to warm up to Benoit, but Ducasse certainly could have put a better foot forward than he did here. He may very well shake things up, and make Benoit the standout classic French restaurant it was intended to be, but he’ll never again have the critics’ attention.

We and Eater both predicted one star for Benoit. We both win $2 on our hypothetical one-dollar bets.

	Eater		NYJ
Bankroll	$94.50		$118.67
Gain/Loss	+2.00		+2.00
Total	$96.50		$120.67
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Won–Lost	44–20		47–17

Rolling the Dice: Benoit

Every week, we take our turn with Lady Luck on the BruniBetting odds as posted by Eater. Just for kicks, we track Eater’s bet too, and see who is better at guessing what the unpredictable Bruni will do. We track our sins with an imaginary $1 bet every week.

The Line: Tomorrow, Frank Bruni reviews Benoit, Alain Ducasse’s classic French bistro. The Eater oddsmakers have set the action as follows (√√ denotes the Eater bet):

Zero Stars: 4-1
One Star: 2-1 √√
Two Stars: 4-1
Three Stars: 60-1
Four Stars: 10,000-1

The Skinny: The betting calculus is pretty easy this week. The high-water mark for this type of cuisine in New York is generally agreed to be Balthazar, which carries two stars at the Times, courtesy of Amanda Hesser. No one yet has suggested that Benoit is anywhere near as accomplished as Balthazar, which means one star is the best Ducasse could hope for.

Benoit already got the goose-egg from Adam Platt in New York, but Platt has little enthusiasm for French food, and even less understanding, even when it’s done perfectly. Bruni, to be sure, is no Francophile either, but we think he’ll grasp what’s going on better than Platt did. That’s a low bar to clear, but we think he’ll manage it.

Platt admitted that he was grading Ducasse on a tougher curve. There’s some fairness in that. When you visit a Ducasse restaurant, you expect something of the quality and attention to detail that the world’s most lauded chef is known for. By almost all accounts, Benoit is failing to deliver on its promise. Yet, if the restaurant is worth a star—which in BruniLand usually means “mediocre”—it shouldn’t be treated more harshly just because of who owns it.

We liked Benoit more than most of the critics, awarding two stars. But we wrote that review in the restaurant’s early days, before it even had a liquor license. We loved the chicken for two, but based on later reviews it seems the kitchen can’t reproduce it consistently. We hated the fries, but we assumed their sogginess would ultimately be rectified—it has not been.

We would be torn between one star and zero, but for the fact that Bruni boards the zilch train fairly rarely, and he did so just four weeks ago, with Ago. Yet, make no mistake about it, if this is a one-star review, it won’t be the kind Ducasse could be remotely happy about. It has been a doleful review cycle for this restaurant, and it isn’t about to get any better.

The Bet: We agree with Eater that Frank Bruni will most likely award one star to Benoit.

Subway Cars on the George Washington Bridge

If Robert Moses and other city planners had had more foresight, perhaps we would have subway or commuter rail lines across the George Washington Bridge, instead of just perpetually clogged car lanes. However, apparently they do use the GWB for transporting subway cars on flatbed trucks. That was news to me; I always thought they were delivered by barge to Brooklyn or the Bronx.

We happened upon this unusual sight a couple of weekends ago, just after the p.m. rush hour on a Friday night. Police stopped everyone else so that the subway cars could have the bridge for themselves. On the Manhattan side, they went onto city streets — most likely to 207th Street Yard.

Mia Dona

Note: This is a review under Chef Michael Psilakis, who has severed his ties with the restaurant.

A group of six food-board acquaintances had dinner this week at Mia Dona. We’d all been before and were impressed with Michael Psilakis’s inventive take on Italian cuisine.

Alas, Mia Dona has regressed to the mean. Between us, we tasted sixteen dishes. They were all competently done, but mostly routine—the kind of generic upscale Italian food that could show up on dozens of menus around town. There was nothing, say, to live up to the Calf’s Tongue appetizer I had last time, the kind of dish that makes you want to shout, “You have to eat here!”

Prices have inched up too, though that was to be expected. Mia Dona is still inexpensive by today’s standards, but the center of gravity for the entrées, formerly about $20, is now in the mid-twenties, and there’s now at least one entrée in the thirties. Dinner for six came to about $100 a head, including tax and tip. That included wine, but not a particularly expensive one.

It surely doesn’t help that Psilakis and his partner, Donatella Arpaia, are juggling about half-a-dozen projects apiece. The server said that both drop by frequently, but the point is that they’re only dropping by. Day-to-day, the restaurant is in less capable hands.

It also didn’t help that there were about three dishes on the menu they were out of or no longer serving—and that was at 7:00 p.m. on a Tuesday evening. One of our companions quipped, “What about spinach ravioli don’t you have, the spinach or the ravioli?”

  

Out of our first batch of dishes (above), I liked the Bigoli (bottom left) best, with sausage, broccoli rabe, lentils, and peccorino romano. A version of this has been on the menu from the beginning. Stuffed figs (top middle) weren’t bad.

  

Among the second batch, a Grilled Trout (bottom left) was the best. The skin was crisp, the fish tender, and the beet sauce elevated it above the typical treatment for this kind of fish. Lamb chops (top left) and hangar steak (bottom middle) were both solidly done, but unmemorable. Gnudi (top middle) were chewy. The server initially didn’t want to serve us Spiedini (bottom right), as they were out of some ingredients, but they whipped up an acceptable substitute.

   

We had two side dishes, but neither lived up to the terrific spinach we had last time. Among the two desserts we tried, a Panna Cotta (2nd from right) was pretty good, but again, fairly typical of modern-day upscale Italian restaurants.

If you happen to be in this section of East Midtown, Mia Dona remains a solid choice, especially as it’s still a pretty good bargain, even after the recent price increases. But it’s no longer a dining destination. For that, you’ll have to visit Anthos, or wait for the next Psilakis/Arpaia project.

Mia Dona (206 E. 58th Street between Second & Third Avenues, East Midtown)

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

The Payoff: Bar Milano

At Bar Milano, Christmas comes early today, with a two-star gift from Frank Bruni. Let’s go ahead and call it a one-star restaurant, as it properly is, and quote Frank’s evidence:

Italian cooking is about a lot more than pasta, but an Italian restaurant that bungles its pasta dishes is like a Las Vegas resort that doesn’t let you gamble. There’s still plenty to enjoy, but you’re likely to feel that the essential point and signature pleasure of the place have been lost.

Bar Milano bungles its pasta dishes. Not all of them, but too many, sometimes in small ways, sometimes in big ones. And by pasta dishes I mean the “primi” section of the menu, which includes a few risotto dishes. Bar Milano bungles them as well.

And:

…there are also less rewarding routes, along with an overall sense — surprising, frustrating — that a dedicated team of accomplished pros have undercut a potentially excellent restaurant with some significant missteps.

What they do well, they do superbly: a rabbit terrine, crunchy-edged duck breast with duck sausage and lentils. What they do less well — orecchiette with lamb, lobster risotto, tagliatelle with favas — is hard to overlook.

And:

The dining room conjures a spirit of its own. One design element trumps all others, and it’s one of the restaurant’s missteps: a long, mesmerizing wall of marble strips and rectangles in different colors.

The owners must have paid a fortune for it, and are still paying for it, in terms of the room’s awful acoustics. You can see — in the carpeting, in the fabric on banquettes — attempts to fix the problem, but the cure isn’t taking. At a crowded hour you’ll spend much of your interactions with servers asking them to repeat what they just said or repeating what you’ve just said. Bar Milano is like a cellphone with constantly bad reception.

And lastly:

Desserts aren’t one of Bar Milano’s strengths, but drinks certainly are… Throw back a few of these and you might not even notice the pasta.

To be sure, Bruni does find some good things at Bar Milano. But in the Times rating system, “two stars” allegedly means “very good.” In our book, it shouldn’t mean “half bad.” There’s some serious grade-inflation going on at Times HQ.

To be sure, we did predict that Bruni would award two stars here. But we thought he would write the kind of enthusiastic review that a two-star rating calls for. We and Eater at least got the prediction right. We both win $3 on our hypothetical one-dollar bets.

	Eater		NYJ
Bankroll	$91.50		$115.67
Gain/Loss	+3.00		+3.00
Total	$94.50		$118.67
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Won–Lost	43–20		46–17

Rolling the Dice: Bar Milano

Every week, we take our turn with Lady Luck on the BruniBetting odds as posted by Eater. Just for kicks, we track Eater’s bet too, and see who is better at guessing what the unpredictable Bruni will do. We track our sins with an imaginary $1 bet every week.

The Line: Tomorrow, Frank Bruni looks in on Jason Denton’s first post-Lupa solo act, Bar Milano. The Eater oddsmakers have set the action as follows (√√ denotes the Eater bet):

Zero Stars: 4-1
One Star: 3-2
Two Stars: 3-1 √√
Three Stars: 50-1
Four Stars: 10,000-1

The Skinny: The easiest thing about this week’s bet is to declare what Bar Milano is not, “a fun three-star place,” as its owners put it. In so declaring, the Dentons assured themselves of one thing: they will not receive three stars. That’s the curse of any restauranteur so foolish as to declare in advance how many stars they are gunning for.

We were torn between one star and two, but unlike Frank had the luxury of splitting the difference at 1½. As Eater notes, the reviews have been mixed, but Bruni has waited a while, and perhaps the kitchen has settled down. Lastly, Bruni loves anybody who has touched Mario Batali’s halo. If it’s a close call, that argues for rounding up.

The Bet: We’re not as confident as we’d like to be, but we’re betting that Frank Bruni will award two stars to Bar Milano.

Exit Country, Enter Country Steak

Note: After a failed Department of Health inspection, Country gave up the ghost. Plans for Country Steak, described below, were quietly abandoned. The downstairs café persisted a while longer, before it closed too. The upstairs space re-opened as Chef Laurent Manrique’s Millesime, while the downstairs is now known as Salon Millesime.

*

Yesterday brought the depressing news that Country will close at the end of the summer. Chef/owner Geoffrey Zakarian will replace it with a steakhouse, Country Steak. What a creative name!

We adored Country. I awarded four stars to my first visit there, and over three subsequent visits we continued to find it enchanting. Unfortunately, it was in a slow but steady decline. After our most recent visit, about two months ago, we thought the food barely merited three stars. The new chef de cuisine, Willis Loughhead, had turned the formerly exciting menu into an uneven lineup of mostly snoozers. But Loughhead was still in transition after the departure of the former chef de cuisine, Doug Psaltis. We hoped the downturn was temporary.

The market, alas, decided otherwise. About a month ago, Eater put Country on Deathwatch, after the restaurant offered a summer “Pay What We Pay” wine list promotion, among other distress signals. Zakarian retorted that reservations were up, and that they “look forward to business as usual in the dining room.” Readers were right to be skeptical, when the restaurant was giving away its wine list at wholesale prices—clearly not a show of strength.

We now learn that Zakarian was lying through his teeth. Here’s the explanation for the new steakhouse idea:

I’ve been trying to do a steakhouse concept for a while… I was looking for a location, and we’re already doing a lot of head-to-tail cooking at Country. So we’re just going to do it here. I’m installing a wood grill, and we’re going to open after our usual summer hiatus in September… We’re still looking at different woods, different methods.

Yeah, right. And when he denied the restaurant was in trouble—just four weeks ago—the steakhouse concept wasn’t already in the works?

The shift was enough to awaken Frank Bruni from his blogging slumber. He wonders why steakhouses — as if we didn’t have enough of them already — have been immune to the economic downturn. It’s the only populist restaurant genre where à la carte entrées routinely hover at $40 or higher; yet, you hardly ever see a steakhouse fail. Most of them, in fact, are routinely full, despite a steakhouse glut over the last few years.

It remains to be seen how far Zakarian will wander from the traditional steakhouse model. BLT Steak, Quality Meats, and Craftsteak are all examples of successful re-imaginings of the genre. V Steakhouse was perhaps the most conspicuous failure of that kind. One wonders whether Zakarian will leave the dining room’s refined elegance intact, or if he’ll try to make it “look” more like a steakhouse.

One hopes, as Bruni put it, that “the food at the forthcoming Country Steak will be more imaginative and surprising than that name.”