Cru

Note: This is a review of Cru under Chef Shea Gallante, who left at the end of June 2009 to rejoin his former employer, David Bouley. As of November 2009, Todd Macdonald was his replacement. Prices on the wine list were slashed by 30 percent, and Macdonald’s new menu was alleged to be “easier, simpler, faster, cheaper.” That didn’t work, and as of September 2010, Cru was closed. Its replacement is Vegas transplant Lotus of Siam.

*

There’s a popular impression that traditional luxury dining is on the decline. Frank Bruni hardly ever misses an opportunity to tell us so. The trouble is, Frank can’t count—or he refuses to. If he did, he’d realize that more of these places have opened in the last four years than have closed.

Cru is a restaurant that defies the alleged trend: it has actually become fancier. Servers that once dressed in black now wear suits. The original à la carte menu has been ditched for an $84 three-course prix fixe. In less than four years, the tasting menu has about doubled in price, from $65 to $125.

Then there’s the wine list. It boasted 65,000 bottles four years ago,  over 150,000 bottles today. Most of the collection is stored in a purpose-built wine hanger in upstate New York, with supplies at the restaurant replenished daily. The sommelier said, “We buy aggressively at auction.”

As it did before, the list comes to you in two hefty volumes, each the size of a phone directory. A 1983 Hermitage was $150, a price the sommelier said was lower than that vintage attracts at auction these days. I could well believe it, as one seldom sees a 25-year-old Rhone in New York at anything less than the price of a monthly mortgage payment.

This space on lower Fifth Avenue was once considered cursed, as it played host to one failed restaurant after another. But Cru was an instant hit, and it has stayed that way, which means the owners don’t have to dumb it down or make it more casual—options its less successful brethren have had to consider.

The chef here is Shea Gallante, a former chef de cuisine at Bouley. Cru’s ascent seems almost to mirror the latter restaurant’s decline. One must wonder when someone from the next generation will crack the four-star ceiling. Given the dinner we had, Gallante looks like he could be well on the way.

The menu seems to have broadened since the early days. Frank Bruni, who awarded three stars, said it was “tilting heavily toward Italy, nodding slightly toward Spain.” Aside from a gnocchi starter—and who doesn’t serve that these days—the influences here no longer seem grounded in Italy.

I’ve been to Cru only once before, about three or four years ago. I didn’t write a review of that visit, but while I certainly recall liking Cru, I don’t recall coming away quite as impressed as this time.

 

The kitchen sent out a plate of canapés (above, right) while we pondered the wine list. Shortly thereafter came the amuse-bouche (above, left), a fennel panna cotta with caviar.

 

Gallante had a twist on Foie Gras “Torchon” (above, left). It came in a cigar-shaped cylinder, held together with what seemed to be a shaved cucumber. A sauce described as “peach nectar” was poured at tableside. His Potato Gnocchi (above, right) were as light as a dream, with tangy rabbit sausage, speck, pollen and spring garlic.

 

We were just as pleased with a Roasted Pekin Duck Breast (above, left), which came with grilled eggplant, leeks, poached morrels and mustard-seed jus. Cuts of Porcelet Pig (above, right)—some places would call it a trio of pig—had chanterelles, golden raisins, tomato and crisp vegetable salad.

 

If Cru had an early failure, it was the dessert program. We love Will Goldfarb, but his wacky creations were a poor fit for a classically elegant place like Cru. Panned by just about everyone, he quickly left. The menu doesn’t note the current pastry chef, but he or she deserves to be better known.

The palate cleanser (top left) was a buttermilk sorbet with strawberry and elderflower geléee. For dessert, I had the Macadamia Nut Cheesecake Crumble (top right), which worked a lot better than it ought to, with an apricot-lemon thyme jam, hazelnut chocolate praline, and smoked chocolate chip ice cream.

Even wackier was the Poached Rhubarb Gratinèe (bottom left), a raspberry-rhubarb crips with—of all things—white asparagus ice cream. You wouldn’t expect ice cream made from a vegetable to make a great dessert, but this one did. The asparagus only lurked in the background, its aggression muted by Tahitian vanilla.

We finished with petits-fours (bottom right).

The service here is top-notch. The table settings include some of the fanciest restaurant flatware I’ve seen, made by the French manufacturer Christofle. The captain and the sommelier were both informative and had plenty to say, but never in a way that seemed intrusive or pompous. Our only complaint was that the runners who dropped off the bonus courses (amuses-bouches, etc.) were practically incomprehensible, a problem many restaurants have.

In addition to the prix-fixe and tasting menus, the captain told us about an additional option. Request five, seven, or nine courses, and the chef will cook for you. “Even I don’t know what he’ll come up with,” the captain said. I was tempted, but I figured we ought to try a smaller sample of Chef Gallante’s food first.

Based on this visit, Cru’s Shea Gallante has us convinced. Next time, we’re ready to put ourselves in his hands.

Cru (24 Fifth Avenue at Ninth Street, Greenwich Village)

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

Hundred Acres

Hundred Acres is the latest brainchild of two haute barnyard cult figures, Marc Meyer and Vicki Freeman. Between them, the husband-wife team already have two hit restaurants to their credit, Five Points in NoHo and Cookshop in Chelsea. Both are variations on a similar theme: market-driven menus leaning heavily on produce from local farmers.

Last year, they acquired the old SoHo mainstay Provence. They were sentimentally attached to the restaurant, as it was the place where they became engaged. Their original plan was to keep it French, but Gallic cooking wasn’t really in Meyer’s soul, and Frank Bruni found the food uneven. Meyer told the Times that Provence was packed during the weekends, but weekday business was slow.

So after a bit of remodeling, the space now looks like—you guessed it, a gussied-up farmhouse. Meyer and Freeman are once again doing what they do best.

The menu here is more downmarket than either of their other two places, with a much gentler price point. Appetizers are $10–12, entrées around $15–20. Your mileage may vary, as the menu changes often, but these prices are about as low as you see at a serious restaurant these days.

We were both attracted to the “Trio of Toast” — three crisp bruschette topped with rabbit, smoked fish, and liver respectively. It’s daring to serve a dish like this, as many diners find at least one of those ingredients a turn-off.

We liked the liver the best, and the fish was solid too. The rabbit had cooled off a bit too much, and it tasted oily.

 

You don’t see pollack—a member of the cod family—on many restaurant menus. It was cooked in parchment and topped with peas. The preparation was first-class, the fish moist and flavorful.

My girlfriend had a lamb sausage burger. The sausage itself was terrific, but the plate was overwhelmed with toppings and garnishes. Shoestring fries weren’t very interesting, and after a couple of tastes we left them alone.

We finished with a warm rhubarb tart.

You’ve got to give Meyer credit. Run down the roster: a trio of toasts with rabbit, smoked fish and liver; pollack; a lamb sausage burger. They’re all the work of a chef who wants to challenge diners, not to pander. Good for him!

We noticed, though, that the most popular dish seemed to be the fried chicken. Perhaps diners at Hundred Acres aren’t quite ready for Meyer’s version of barnyard cooking.

The wine list is not extensive, but there were plenty of options under $50.

The execution here was slightly uneven, but they’ve been open only a month, and I assume they’ll get the kinks worked out. Service was much more polished than one would expect for such an inexpensive restaurant.

Hundred Acres (38 MacDougal Street between Prince & Houston Streets, SoHo)

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

The Payoff: Gottino and Terroir

In today’s Times, Frank Bruni hands out a pair of one-star cupcakes to Gottino and Terroir, two fine restaurants masquerading as wine bars:

Both are trawling an easygoing confluence of Italian soul and finger food. And they’re reeling in enough— both menus have dozens of options beyond salumi and cheese — to force the question, are Terroir and Gottino restaurants in wine-bar drag?

Ms. Williams seems terrified by that notion. On the phone recently she caught herself using the words lunch and dinner and quickly reversed course, saying she didn’t want customers looking to Gottino for an actual meal.

“Just squeeze in, eat and drink, because it’s not a restaurant,” she said. “I don’t want people to have restaurant expectations. But if I tell people just to squeeze in, eat and drink, it’ll all be O.K.”

Since the “Restaurants” column doesn’t normally review wine bars, we figured Bruni would choose two that he liked. He acknowledged the “very real limitations and discomforts of both Gottino and Terroir, where space is tight, the mood is agitated, reservations aren’t accepted and you could easily wind up standing and waiting 45 minutes for the privilege of straddling a stool.” Also, “overall dining experiences are abbreviated, and not suited to many occasions.”

But make no mistake about it: Gottino and Terroir are those rare establishments that could be happy about a one-star review. Most likely, they were designed with no expectation of a starred Times review at all. It helps that both lend credence to Frank’s favorite meme, namely, “the increasing degree to which distinguished cooking pops up in the unconventional, informal settings that many food lovers often prefer.” Their menus are “unfussy compendia,” and they don’t “play by mustier rules.”

It also helps that both are Italian, which is always a guarantee of Frank’s attention—though not necessarily his love.

We took the one-star odds on both restaurants. On hypothetical bets of $1, we win $3 at Gottino and $2 at Terroir for a total of $5. Eater, which predicted zero and one star respectively, loses $1 at Gottino and wins $2 at Terroir, for a net of $1.

	Eater		NYJ
Bankroll	$90.50		$110.67
Gain/Loss	+1.00		+5.00
Total	$91.50		$115.67
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Won–Lost	42–20		45–17

Rolling the Dice: Gottino and Terroir

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 files a wine-bar twofer, looking in on Terroir (East Village) and Gottino (West Village). The Eater oddsmakers have set the action as follows (√√ denotes the Eater bet):

     Gottino
Zero Stars: 2-1 √√
One Star: 3-1
Two Stars: 6-1
Three Stars: 50-1
Four Stars: 10,000-1

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

The Skinny: We bettors are out of our element today, as neither of these is a traditional review target. It’s not even clear what the star system means when applied to a wine bar. But His Frankness has chosen them, so we’ll place our bets.

In our view, one star is the floor for both of these places. Bruni doesn’t normally review wine bars at all. With so many to choose from, why waste space on one he doesn’t like? The question is, could either of them get two?

At Gottino, the chef is Jody Williams. Her last experience with the star system is one she’d rather forget: a one-star hazing at Morandi that read like zero. (She has since left the restaurant.) We don’t think Bruni will pick on her again. Besides, the other critics have actually liked Gottino, including the Underground Gourmet for New York (three hollow stars out of five), Jacqui Gal for MetroMix (3½ stars out of five), and Robert Sietsema for the Village Voice.

Terroir is the work of two really smart guys, Marco Canora and Paul Grieco, who have two terrific restaurants already to their credit, Hearth and Insieme. Here as well, the reviews have been positive, including Ed Levine at Serious Eats and Paul Adams for The Sun. We liked it too, though our visit was on opening night, so we didn’t assign a rating.

The ceiling for Terroir is set by Canora and Grieco’s other two restaurants. Bruni awarded two stars to the more ambitious Insieme, while Amanda Hesser did the same for Hearth, which actually actually supplies many of the items that Terroir’s non-existent kitchen can’t produce itself. Terroir is lots of fun, but unless Frank is crazy it has to be a star lower than the other two places.

With Gottino, we have less to go on, but we’re having trouble imagining what a two-star wine bar would be like.

The Bet: We are betting that Frank Bruni will award one star apiece to Gottino and Terroir.

At Matsugen, even Vongerichten is a food blogger

Most chefs and old-line journalists look down on food bloggers with disdain. So what’s it like when a four-star chef turns into a food blogger himself? Here’s Jean-Georges Vongerichten on the opening of his latest restaurant, Matsugen:

My newest New York City restaurant, Matsugen, is open. I am thrilled to bring truly authentic, refined Japanese dishes to this great city in a warm, chic setting.

We have some of the best sushi and sashimi in the city, but Matsugen is ultimately a soba house. And what soba. These fresh noodles are the best I’ve ever had. Starting with whole buckwheat grains, we slowly grind them into fine, medium, and coarse flours each morning. Throughout the day, we prepare the doughs and cook the just-cut noodles to order. Here’s Marja, my wife, enjoying a bowl of hot soba.

Of course, I love our other Japanese specialties too, like homemade tofu and shabu shabu. Here I am enjoying some tempura at the end of a long night.

Merkato 55

 
 
Merkato 55: Gorgeous, but a ghost town

Note: Merkato 55 bit the dust in June 2009. It re-opened as a pan-Mediterranean restaurant, Le 55. A Brazilian super-model is the owner, and Philip Guardione, from the Four Seasons in Milan, is the chef. We wish them good luck with that.

*

What must it be like to invest a king’s ransom in a restaurant that flops? Perhaps the owners of Merkato 55 can tell us.

In this gorgeous space, chef Marcus Samuelsson tries to do for African cuisine what Jean-Georges Vongerichten did for Pan-Asian street food at Spice Market, just a few blocks away. But four years after Vongerichten’s success, the once trendy Meatpacking District is cursed. No restaurant with serious pretentions has succeeded here lately, and Merkato 55 now seems doomed. It was a ghost town at 7:00 p.m. on a Saturday evening. When we left an hour later, it was a ghost town still.

Reviews were mixed. Frank Bruni in the Times and Steve Cuozzo in the Post weren’t impressed, but Adam Platt in New York awarded two stars, and Restaurant Girl in the Daily News an amazing three. It appears that the dining public agrees with Bruni and Cuozzo. When a restaurant is nearly empty on a weekend evening, the prognosis must be grim indeed. Eater.com put Merkato 55 on deathwatch, and then pronounced it a shitshow.

Shrimp Piri Piri

It doesn’t help that Samuelsson’s performance is phoned in, and he is only a small-part owner here. Even during the opening period, he was hardly ever sighted. His attentions are no doubt focused on his flagship Swedish restaurant, Aquavit, and various other marketing gimmicks that have his name attached.

For all of that, the food at Merkato 55 isn’t bad, though it isn’t great either. The menu has various “small bites” from $3–13, appetizers $12–18, entrées $19–37, and side dishes $6–10. I’m not sure how “African” it is, and as Cuozzo noted, on a continent that is home to 53 nations and 900 million people, any concept of a single “cuisine” is probably in Samuelson’s imagination.

To start, my son and I shared Grilled Shrimp Piri Piri ($17), which were slathered in a forgettable, gloppy sauce on a bed of equally forgettable Baby Romaine lettuce.

 
Left: Merguez Sausage; Right: Chicken Doro Wat

An entrée of Merguez Sausage ($19) is not for those with big appetites, but the contrast of spicy sausage with watermelon and corn worked for me. I loved the Spicy Chicken Doro Wat ($27)—a luscious, tender chicken curry—but it may not be to all tastes: my son absolutely hated it.

 
Left: Steak Dakar; Right: Merkato Fries

Since my son had detested both the appetizer and the entrée, we ordered the Steak Dakar ($34). The kitchen did a respectable job with the steak, and it’s a suitable bail-out dish for those who mistrust the rest of the menu, but it’s no more African than the fries that came with it (also available as an $8 side dish). I found the fries too salty, but my son liked them.

The beverage menu offers several versions of infused rum punch, overpriced at $14. I found mine overly sweet, dominated by lime juice, and offering no more than a splash of rum.

Merkato 55 is a decent place. If I were in the neighborhood, I’d happily go back for the Chicken Doro Wat, though I’m not sure what else you can depend on. Service was attentive, but the staff had hardly anyone else to look after. I’ll be surprised if Merkato 55 is still around next year.

Merkato 55 (55 Gansevoort St. between Greenwich & Washington Sts., Meatpacking District)

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

Restaurant Outlook

Welcome back to Restaurant Outlook, a periodic, highly subjective listing of restaurants we’re paying attention to.

Fairly New

• Hundred Acres — This Marc Meyer/Vicki Freeman follow-up to Provence opened a few weeks ago. It’s in the Five Points–Cookshop haute barnyard vein. Reservation: June 27.
  
• Persimmon — David Chang isn’t the only one doing an Asian-inspired prix fixe in the East Village. Reservation: July 12.
  
• Forge — Consider us signed up for Marc Forgione’s suckling pig for two. Reservation: July 18.
  
• Matsugen — Jean-Georges Vongerichten does Japanese in the old 66 space. Naturally, there’s no website yet. Reservation: July 19.
• Duane Park — This sequel to Duane Park Café looks interesting, though there aren’t many reviews to go on. No plans to visit yet.
  
• Talay — Pan-Asian food in Harlem, and how often does that get a mention from Florence Fabricant? No plans to visit yet.
  

Forthcoming

All of these restaurants have been announced or mentioned in the press, but some of them may be a long way off.

• Corton — Paul Liebrandt in the former Montrachet space in early August, or thereabouts. ’Nuff said.
  
• Bouley 3.0 — David Bouley’s move to the Mohawk Atelier Building at 161 Duane Street. Expected “by the fall.”
  
• La Fonda del Sol — Mexican you can take seriously? Gael Greene thinks so, and so does Adam Tihany, who’ll be designing the space. Expected in “late fall.”
  
• Susur Lee’s first New York restaurant at 200 Allen Street on the Lower East Side, as yet unnamed, but also expected “come fall.”
  
• Brushstroke — another Bouley restaurant, at 111 West Broadway. Given the well chronicled problems getting this restaurant off the ground, I would be surprised to see it before 2009.
  
• SD26 — Tony May’s follow-up to the now-shuttered San Domenico, expected April 2009.

The Payoff: Bar Q

Just when we thought we had Frank Bruni figured out, he uncorked one of the weirdest reviews of his tenure, awarding two stars to Bar Q:

In terms of its variability from one stretch of the menu to another, Bar Q is a riddle, but it’s a riddle with a solution: don’t pay too much attention to the restaurant’s name, which alludes to barbecue, or to the culinary direction in which that name points you.

With the exception of pork-stuffed spare ribs, richer than a Russian plutocrat and sauced with an elementary school’s worth of peanut butter, the dishes that veer the closest to conventional barbecue or that give you bones to grab and gnaw on are among the least enjoyable and impressive.

Let us be clear: our complaint isn’t that Bruni awarded a different number of stars than we predicted. That has happened plenty of times. And our complaint isn’t that Bruni liked a restaurant we didn’t. That has happened plenty of times, too.

The trouble is that this review, even on its own terms, doesn’t read like two stars. We can’t recall a review in which he had so many complaints about the food and still awarded two stars—unless it was a “three-minus,” such as Gilt or Gordon Ramsay. Bruni’s critics sometimes bellyache about exceedingly casual places he elevated to two stars—Sripraphai and Franny’s come to mind—but at least he made the case for them as passionately as it could be made. With Bar Q, he didn’t even try.

It makes nonsense of the current rating at Annisa, Anita Lo’s other, and infinitely better, restaurant nearby. Annisa carries the same two stars (Grimes, 2000) as Bar Q, a misguided judgment Bruni shows no signs of remedying.

Lastly, he also commits a cardinal no-no, at least in my book: complaining about the tough life restaurant critics (and those who dine with them) lead:

A restaurant critic’s most practiced companions know that the questions to be asked in advance of a meal go beyond the address, the hour and the (fake) reservation name.

More important bits of information: is the visit to the restaurant a first one or a follow-up? And if it’s a follow-up, what are they in for? Is the critic doing them a favor, or are they doing him one?

As I ushered several of my most loyal and keenly inquisitive sidekicks into Bar Q for Visit 2, I tiptoed around the answers. I stressed that I was paying the check: drink up! I emphasized that Bar Q belonged to Anita Lo, whose cooking at Annisa can be sublime.

We know that full-time critics have it rough (I know I couldn’t hack it), but keep it out of the review.

Eater and I both predicted a one-star review. We both lose $1 on our hypothetical one-dollar bets.

	Eater		NYJ
Bankroll	$91.50		$111.67
Gain/Loss	–1.00		–1.00
Total	$90.50		$110.67
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Won–Lost	41–19		43–17

Exit San Domenico, Enter SD26

Note: Click here for a review of SD26.

We finally know the fate of San Domenico, the old-school Italian mainstay on Central Park West. We’ve known for months that the May family had lost their lease—more accurately, that they were faced with an increase they considered prohibitive—but not what would happen next.

Today, as San Domenico closes for good, owner Tony May announced that the restaurant will move to 19 E. 26th Street at Madison Square Park, and be re-branded SD26.

We have to wonder about the timing: if May had announced this on Monday, he could have had it in the Times, which instead just noted the closing without any details about the return.

We want to be bullish on this place, but we can’t. Leaving aside our awful meal there last year, the new concept sounds like May took an inventory of all the fashionable restaurant memes, and just ticked off the boxes: a 350-seat dining room (more than doubling the current space); a 75-seat lounge; a market that sells the same products used in the restaurant; a “less-structured menu”; and don’t forget, “product-driven.”

None of these things are bad per se, but when you see all of them in one restaurant, you get the sense that the restaurant is just following a bunch of trends. By the time it opens, something else will be fashionable, and SD26 will already seem old.

Don’t get us started on the décor, which looks like a Meatpacking-district reject.

The owners hope for an April 2009 opening, which means the over-under is somewhere around next September.

Gray Kunz Retools His Kitchens

 
Left: Café Gray; Right: Grayz

Café Gray will be closing on Saturday, June 21, about a week earlier than originally planned. On my last visit, I found it almost a ghost town, so I’m not surprised they’re closing early. I won’t miss the ugly, poorly-designed dining room, though it was sky-high rents, and not the interior designer, that killed the place. A branch of A Voce, most likely destined for mediocrity, will replace it.

Meanwhile, Gray Kunz’s other restaurant, Grayz, will close on August 10, re-opening on September 1 “as a full-fledged restaurant…with a new format and a renovated downstairs dining area.” This is a welcome development.

The original concept for Grayz—allegedly a “lounge and event space”—was a blunder on all counts. I suspect that private events were supposed to pay most of the freight, and the lounge would have been gravy. The trouble is that catering is a feast-or-famine business: on the days it’s not booked, the restaurant earns zero. The downstairs “event” space was in use the first time I visited, but empty the second. In these tough economic times, I suspect the “empty” nights predominated.

The lounge space over-estimated the market for three-star bar food. To be sure, Kunz tweaked the concept over time. When I re-visited about a month ago, Grayz was finally serving a proper restaurant menu—a position it evolved into gradually. But he was still stuck with a lounge vibe, and the aftershocks of mixed reviews.

I assume that Grayz 2.0 will serve a Café Gray-like menu in the former event space downstairs, so that the upstairs can be what it was meant to be: a lounge. I’ve only had a peek at the subterranean dining room, but it looks like it could be turned into an elegant restaurant without much trouble—albeit, without windows.

Then again, if you know what Kunz did when he had windows—at Café Gray—perhaps that’s not much of a loss.