The Payoff: Nish

This week, Frankie Fiveangels made a winner of both Eater and NYJ, awarding the predicted two stars to Nish. Bruni seemed to love the food—indeed, the tone was more enthusiastic than a few of his three-star reviews have been.

The review trotted out more of Bruni’s trademark assault on traditional fine dining:

To trace the changes in upscale restaurants over the last few decades, you can survey the losers: Lutèce and white linens; servers in tuxedos and diners in ties. You can salute the winners: Nobu and filament bulbs; mix-and-match menus and polyglot cuisines.

Or you can look at a place that doesn’t quite fall into either category, a survivor that hasn’t thrived, now relaxing its guard to restore its vigor. It’s called March, or at least it was for 16 years, until the first week of January, when it was reborn as Nish, which is really March after a stint in whatever the opposite of finishing school would be.

It’s March minus some of the manners and mannerisms, March in (nicely pressed) jeans. It’s also an interesting answer to challenges that currently face fine-dining establishments. How do you present a sophisticated experience in an accessible way? In a dressed-down era, what still qualifies as a relished indulgence, and what’s just a prissy vestige of bygone days?

Do those challenges really exist? I mean, the restaurant business is challenging in general, but is there any good reason to single out fine dining in particular? I mean, look at the successful high-end restaurants that have opened in just the last few years: Per Se, Masa, Asiate, Country, Del Posto, The Modern, Cru, Gordon Ramsay. To those, add a much longer list of those that have been open five, ten, fifteen or more years, and are still thriving: for starters, Jean Georges, Le Bernardin, Daniel, Bouley, Oceana, La Grenouille, Chanterelle, Le Perigord, L’Impero.

The excerpt above is full of Frank’s trademark phrases, betraying his hostility to traditional luxury restaurants, despite the fact that many of them are still doing land-office business: “white linens”; “mannerisms” (like what?); “accessible” (suggesting that many restaurants are not); “prissy” (the cousin of “fussy,” one of his favourite words).

Yes indeed, Lutèce has closed. But so has the Second Avenue Deli. If you are determined to manufacture a story, you can cherry-pick whatever facts seem to support your theory, and ignore those which do not. It is undeniably true that high-end classic French restaurants in the Lutèce mold have become scarce. But fine dining itself has not. In a “dressed-down” era, sometimes people still do want to dress up.

To round out the week, we present the running scorecard. Eater and NYJ both win our two-star bets on Nish at 4–1 odds.

	Eater		NYJ
Bankroll	$3		$7
Gain/Loss	+$4		+$4
Total	+$7		+$11
*
Won–Lost	3–1		3–1

Degustation

Degustation is the newest restaurant in Jack & Grace Lamb’s East Village mini-empire, anchored by the Michelin-starred sushi emporium, Jewel Bako. The two restaurants are located at adjacent storefronts, and they are physically connected via a narrow passageway. But they couldn’t be more unalike.

The menu at Degustation is loosely reminiscent of a tapas bar, although many of the dishes are well adrift from their Spanish moorings. Small plates range from $4–15, and the server suggests that three or four is enough for a meal. There’s also a tasting menu for $50, offering five savory courses plus dessert, and we went that route. (Click on the thumbnail at right for a full-size image of the menu.)

Slow poached egg, rice cracker crusted asparagus (left); Scottish langoustine (right)

The first course was arguably the best: a slow-poached egg with Serrano ham in a cheese foam, with rice cracker crusted asparagus. We were oohing and ahhing at the progression of flavors. Up next, a Scottish langoustine (shown on the menu as Cigalas) was split and cooked on the plancha. Nothing more was done with it, and it was gone after a couple of bites.

Grilled Spanish Mackerel (left); Grilled Quail (right)

Grilled Spanish Mackerel on a bed of apples had a crunchy crust, but was perfectly moist and tender inside. Grilled quail with pistachios and endive was delightful, yielding more meat than I expected from such a tiny bird.

 
Grilled Ribeye (left); Apple Tart (right)

For the last savory course, grilled ribeye was once again topped with foam, a needless repetition. Not much was done to the meat, but it was top-quality beef and perfectly prepared. The dessert, an apple tart, was not especially memorable.

The restaurant is tiny, with just 19 seats at a rectangular bar that “wraps around” the kitchen. Three chefs and three servers struggle a bit to avoid tripping over each other, but most of what they produce is delightful. We were seated right next to the finishing station, and we received a miniature culinary education while watching many of the dishes receive their finishing touches.

Most of the clientele are couples, as the bar line-up doesn’t really work for larger parties. Degustation is sometimes listed as a romantic restaurant, but I wouldn’t really think of it that way, unless you’re plotting a foursome, as the next couple is only a few inches away.

Not long after Degustation opened, Frank Bruni awarded two stars in the New York Times, in a double-review that conferred just one star on its older sister restaurant, Jewel Bako. There’s other evidence that perhaps Jewel Bako is no longer the main attraction. While we were there, we saw servers carrying plates out of the bar area. It turns out that Jewel Bako takes Degustation’s overflow.

We had a terrific time at Degustation. At $50 for five courses plus dessert, the tasting menu has to be reckoned one of the better deals in town.

Degustation (239 E. 5th St. west of Second Avenue, East Village)

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

Rolling the Dice: Nish

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 Nish, the casual makeover of the former three-star March. Eater’s official odds are as follows (√√ denotes the Eater bet):

Zero Stars: 5-1
One Star: 8-3
Two Stars: 4-1 √√
Three Stars: 90-1
Four Stars: 15,000-1

The Skinny: For the first time in a while, almost any outcome is possible (except for four stars). March was a three-star restaurant. The last time he was there, Bruni loved the food, but he found the servers’ cult-like reverence for chef Wayne Nish a little off-putting. He also thought that its “dowager refinement” was overdue for a makeover — precisely as Nish has now done. Bruni’s track record is that he actually likes restaurants better when they’re more casual. If the food is as good as Steve Cuozzo says, Nish could be headed for the trifecta.

But Cuozzo also found irritating service glitches, and if Bruni found the same, he’s likely to blow the whistle and march off a one-star penalty. I also suspect the cult-of-the-chef mentality—something Bruni seldom finds endearing—isn’t totally gone. Indeed, given the name change, that factor could be even more prominent than before. If Bruni isn’t as wowed by the food as Cuozzo, then there’s no telling how low we could go.

The Bet: Eater—betting against its own odds—is taking the two-star action. We think that the chances of a three-star payoff are a whole lot better than Eater says, making the 90–1 odds awfully tempting. But we think the chances for a singleton are very real too, so we will compromise in the middle, and bet on two stars.

Fussy Frank

The March 6th Village Voice carried an interview with Frank Bruni, in which he was asked what he would choose to eat for his last meal. His choices should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the Times restaurant critic’s predilections: a porterhouse steak, toro-stuffed maki rolls like the ones they serve at Masa; and “some buttery taglierini with heart-of-season white truffles shaved over it. Just like you’d get in the Piedmont region of Italy, which is one of my favorite areas in the world for eating.”

Steak? Check. Sushi? Check. Italian food? Check. Those are the foods Frank loves.

But another phrase in the interview caught my eye: “my final meal wouldn’t be a fussy labor of extraordinary technique.”

Frank uses that word “fussy” a lot. I’ve found the word, in its various forms, in at least a dozen of his restaurant reviews. (He has also used it in articles about other subjects.) I thought this was a little remarkable, because “fussy” isn’t all that common a word.

“Fussy” is never a compliment: no one aspires to be “fussy.” And Bruni virtually always uses it to describe high-end luxury dining, a niche of the restaurant industry for which he has very little use. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Bruni associates “extraordinary technique” with “fussy labor.” Perhaps there is extraordinary technique that Bruni doesn’t consider fussy, but judging from his reviews you’d be hard pressed to identify it. Fussy, starchy, stuffy, effete, highfalutin’ — those are the words Frank usually uses for fine food presented in luxurious surroundings.

For those who wish to keep track, here are all the Bruni uses of fussy (and its variants) in restaurant reviews:

Review of Anthos (16 May 2007):

And with Ms. Arpaia he opened Anthos, the restaurant you might get if you triangulated between Onera and Dona. It has the former’s resoundingly Greek soul. It has the latter’s fussy tics and more sophisticated wine list, with sommeliers who can guide you through the impressive advances of Greek winemaking.

Review of Momofuku Ssam Bar (21 February 2007):

By bringing sophisticated, inventive cooking and a few high-end grace notes to a setting that discourages even the slightest sense of ceremony, Ssam Bar answers the desires of a generation of savvy, adventurous diners with little appetite for starchy rituals and stratospheric prices.

They want great food, but they want it to feel more accessible, less effete. They’ll gladly take some style along with it, but not if the tax is too punishing. And that’s what they get at Ssam Bar, sleek, softly lighted and decidedly unfussy.

Double-review of Bar Room at The Modern and Eleven Madison Park (10 Jan 2007):

The Modern is divided into a fussy dining room and a more freewheeling bar area, where the food is less expensive, though not really and truly cheap.

Review of Freemans (20 September 2006):

[The server] said we needed to give our whole order at once, so our meal could be properly paced and we could have “a much more pleasant experience.” Of course that prohibition had nothing to do with our enjoyment and everything to do with the kitchen’s convenience. It also had no place in a restaurant as studiously unfussy as Freemans, but it exemplified the real attitude here.

Review of A Voce (10 May 2006):

It was just a matter of time before the right financial backers beckoned and Mr. Carmellini struck out on his own. The only real question was what shape that venture would take.

Would it be French and somewhat fussy? Mr. Carmellini had as much of that as of anything else in his background. Before Café Boulud, he worked at Lespinasse and Le Cirque.

Review of Del Posto (1 March 2006):

The ceremony surrounding main courses can indeed be fussy, with glistening slabs of flesh exhibited in their cooking vessels for adoration before being taken away and plated.

Diner’s Journal write-up of BLT Prime (24 June 2005):

The L and T mean Laurent Tourondel, whose manifest destiny is to attach his monogram to a great many B’s. The B means bistro, which none of the BLT restaurants really are. The word, or rather letter, serves to signal that an unfussy format accompanies Mr. Tourondel’s very fine food.

Review of Cookshop (30 November 2005):

The food is amply portioned, fairly priced and completely sophisticated but not remotely fussy.

Critic’s Notebook, “The Contemporary Dining Scene, Est. 1985” (12 October 2005)

About the same time [1985], a graduate of hotel and restaurant management school named Drew Nieporent and an emerging chef named David Bouley began their own experiment. Their goal was to recast the first-rate, fussy, uptown French restaurant as an affordable, approachable refuge with a downtown address, wines from California as well as France, and prices within reach of people who were not rich.

Review of Café Gray (15 December 2004):

The ambience doesn’t really suit the food, much of which is more ambitious and fussier than cafe or brasserie fare.

Review of En Japanese Brasserie (24 November 2004):

Even En’s identification as a Japanese brasserie suggests a have-it-all, connect-the-dots sensibility: it wants both the healthful allure of an ethnic cuisine in continued ascendance and the timeless appeal of an unfussy, teeming environment in which you can pass many a merry hour with copious drink as well as food.

Diner’s Journal write-up of The View (29 October 2004)

Both were more successful than an oyster and clam plate and a goat cheese terrine, the fussy presentations of which were undercut by the humdrum reality of how they tasted.

Review of Mas (7 July 2004)

Mas is the kind of earnest, tasteful restaurant that this city — that any city — can always use. It nicely splits the difference between fussy and unfussy.

The review of Mas, which contains his first known use of the word after becoming chief restaurant critic, is also the only time that he used the word “fussy” while making a compliment.

Barbès

Barbès is a comfortable French–Moroccan restaurant in Murray Hill, named for a Paris neighborhood known for its North African immigrant population. It is less than a block from the Pierpont Morgan Library. Indeed, it was an evening concert at the PML that drew my friend and me to a pre-show dinner at Barbès.

 
Tomate Montrachet (left); Couscous Royale (right)

I started with the Tomate Montrachet ($9.75), a warm tomato and goat cheese salad in a red wine vinaigrette. It was competently done, if rather dull. For the main course, I had the Couscous Royale ($20.75), which comes studded with lamb, chicken, and Merguez sausage. Frank Bruni raved about this dish in his one-star review, but I found it a bit dry. It came out rather quickly, so clearly all the ingredients were prepped in advance, and perhaps had simmered a bit too long.

My friend ordered two appetizers, which I didn’t photograph, but I noted that either one of them could have been an entrée in many restaurants. She particularly enjoyed the Confit de Canard, which Frank Bruni also liked.

After the concert, we came back for dessert. I was rather lax in my note-taking, but I believe this was the Warm Apple Tart ($7), which was wonderful: the best thing I had all evening.

The dining room was considerably busier later on, but on both visits the service was fast and attentive. Tables are rather closely spaced in the 50-seat dining room, and the sound track was a little too loud for our taste.

Portions are generous and prices moderate, with appetizers $7.75–12.75, and entrées $17.75–26.75. There are an ample number of reasonably priced wines, including the Crozes-Hermitage we had for around $35.

The food is uneven, but if you have a craving for Moroccan food, there isn’t a lot of competition. For that, and for being a decent sensibly-priced option in its neighborhood, Barbès wins a star.

Barbès (21 East 36th Street near Madison Avenue, Murray Hill)

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

The Struggle for Survival at Colors

An article in yesterday’s Times chronicles the struggle for survival at Colors, the year-old restaurant co-op founded by former Windows on the World employees. The article notes, “visits to Colors on several Saturday nights, which should be the busiest nights for most restaurants, show there is rarely a wait for a table. Getting a last-minute reservation is almost never a problem.”

A year ago, I rated Colors at one star. I was probably too generous. The colleagues I dined with, who are usually pleased with my recommendations, said it was the only bad suggestion I had ever given them. Other critics were apparently underwhelmed. As far as I recall, Colors didn’t receive a rated review from any of the mainstream media, an omission I take as an act of kindness.

To stay afloat, Colors has reduced staff, lowered the minimum wage, and kept the lid on overtime. The concept has also changed somewhat. The white tablecloths are gone, and there is no entree priced above $25. The same New York Strip that was $33 when we visited, is now $24. Monday nights are BYO.

The staff remain perplexed by Colors’ failure to catch on:

Figuring out the reasons for the restaurant’s troubles since the opening is difficult. It could be a combination of factors — prices, the location, competition, or merely the whims of restaurant patrons. The menu is deliberately international, with dishes including a Japanese-inspired bento box and South American ceviches, some based on workers’ family recipes.

Frankly, I still think that the mongrel menu is the culprit. When you are offering such a wide variety of dishes with no thematic connection, it’s unlikely that any of them will be truly great. However, at its new gentler price level, perhaps Colors deserves a spot on my second-chance list.

The Payoff: Sfoglia

His Frankness didn’t let us down this week, awarding two stars to Sfoglia, as we expected. Eater made the very reasonable one-star bet, based on what the restaurant most probably deserves. But we strongly suspected that a small, casual, family-run Italian joint in an out-of-the-way neighborhood would float Frank’s boat. And so it did.

We win our $1 bet at 6–1 odds, while Eater loses $1.

	Eater		NYJ
Bankroll	$4		$1
Gain/Loss	–$1		+$6
Total	+$3		+$7
Won–Lost	2–1		2–1

Otto

Otto (pronounced “Oh–Toe”) is the most casual of the Mario Batali–Joseph Bastianich series of restaurants. There is a large bar area (the Enoteca) that serves wine and bar food, and a dining area with table seating.

The name of the website (ottopizzeria.com) indicates the restaurant’s theme. The menu is dominated by eighteen kinds of pizza ($7–15), both “classics” and house creations. Antipasti include a wide variety of cheese, crudo, and salads. Only six pastas are offered (all $9). The place is family-friendly, and I saw many tables with children.

As I wasn’t very hungry, I ordered only the Penne con Noci e Zucca, with hazelnuts, butternut squash, and smoked ricotta. It was prepared with a light touch, with the flavors pleasurably balanced.

Service was slow, although at 4:30 p.m. on a Sunday afternoon there was no good reason for it. After I sat down, there was a long pause before anyone came to my table; another long pause before water came; another before bread. The pasta also took its sweet time to arrive. The only thing the staff did quickly was to deposit a bill after I was finished.

The bread service consisted of two slices of baked Italian bread wrapped in wax paper, and bread sticks still in their commercial wrapper. I think a server was supposed to pour some olive oil onto a plate for dipping, but none arrived.

Otto must have the most serious wine program of any pizzeria. The wine list is substantial, and there are regular wine tasting classes on offer. I have some trouble imagining who orders the $375 Barolo to go with their $14 pizza. Indeed, quite a bit of the wine list seemed over-priced in relation to the menu, but who am I to question Mario Batali?

A review based on one dish can only be provisional, but Otto is clearly a cut above most pizzerias, and the food prices are quite reasonable. With the money you save, you can do some serious supping on the wine list.

Otto (1 Fifth Avenue, entrance on E. 8th Street, Greenwich Village)

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

Rolling the Dice: Sfoglia

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 Sfoglia, an Italian restaurant on the Upper East Side. Eater’s official odds are as follows:

Zero Stars: 4-1
One Star: 3-1
Two Stars: 6-1
Three Stars: 400-1
Four Stars: 25,000-1

The Skinny: Folks, this is a tough one. For the second week in a row, we are torn between one and two stars.

Several times, Bruni has given two stars to small Italian restaurants. He clearly has a soft spot for the genre. He also has a soft spot for restaurants in neighborhoods where the fine-dining options are scarce, which is precisely the case at Lexington & 92nd. Like last week, this is a restaurant that opened quite a while ago. He doesn’t have to review it; he’s choosing to review it, and that usually means he has Something Important to say. Bruni’s “choose to” reviews have been, more often than not, two stars.

But Bruni already wrote a blog entry about Sfoglia over seven months ago, shortly after Adam Platt’s rave review in New York. He found “a mix of delights and disappointments,” along with “brusqueness and haughtiness.” Indeed, I found similar glitches when I reviewed Sfoglia in September. Bruni noted that restaurants sometimes flounder when they can’t handle the sudden influx of curious diners after a favorable review comes out.

It is rare that a restaurant can overcome a mediocre first impression. But the fact that Bruni is choosing to review it now almost certainly suggests that things have improved — otherwise, why bother? Has Sfoglia improved enough to get over the two-star hump?

The Bet: Adam Platt awarded three stars to Sfoglia. Bruni’s ratings and Platt’s have tracked fairly closely, and as far as I recall, they have never been more than one star apart. We are therefore, for the second week in a row, going out on a limb, and betting (against the Eater odds) that Sfoglia will receive two stars from Frank Bruni.

Paradou

The outdoor garden at a quieter moment than we experienced it

When Paradou opened in mid-2001, the Meatpacking District had not yet completed its metamorphosis from a seedy industrial district that was home to more prostitutes than restaurants, into the bastion of high-concept tourist dining that it has now become. It’s hard to name many Meatpacking restaurants that can be seriously recommended chiefly for their food. Paradou, which means “paradise,” is one of the few.

That’s not to say that Paradou hasn’t succumbed somewhat to the spirit of the neighborhood. When Eric Asimov of the Times reviewed it in January 2002, it was just a tiny Provençal bistro serving wine and sandwiches, with scarcely more than about half-a-dozen tables. It now has a large outdoor garden that’s enclosed during the winter, turning Paradou into a full-size restaurant. That garden might be pleasant for al fresco dining in the summer, but it entirely lacks the charm of the intimate front room. Tables are scrunched together, and on a Saturday night the space got noisy indeed.

Beet Tarte TatinSince the early reviews, Paradou has also added a new chef, Kfir Ben-Ari, who has expanded the offerings considerably. The menu changes seasonally, and prices are in a fairly wide range. Appetizers are $7 (soup du jour) to $30 (caviar). Entrees are $19 (chicken) to $76 (a thick-cut veal chop and a whole lobster for two). Side dishes are $6, desserts $6–9. There’s a serious cheese program, presented on a separate menu, which we didn’t sample.

I started with the Beet Tarte Tatin, which validated my new addiction to beet appetizers. As usual, beets were paired with goat cheese, this time atop a puff pastry, with walnuts and other garnishes hovering near the edge of the plate. 

My girlfriend had the French Onion Soup, which I didn’t try, but it looked hearty enough, and she seemed pleased.

Poisson du JourMonkfish was the Poisson du Jour, here served on a bed of black beans and topped with carrots. I found the fish just slightly chewy, but the combination as a whole worked well. My girlfriend, who was in a steak mood, was happy with the Entrecôte with Potato Gratin.

The kitchen managed to keep things moving well despite the Saturday night crowds. Servers and runners were attentive, but seemed a bit rushed, and several times dropped things (nothing important) on the floor, like silverware and menus.

In an unusual arrangement, Paradou offers a considerable number of wines by the quarter or half-liter, in addition to a larger selection by the bottle, with a quarter-liter being good for about two glasses. In the Times, Eric Asimov found this format inconvenient, but the quarter-liter prices seem more than fair. We ordered a full bottle, which unfortunately didn’t please us, but I don’t hang that on the restaurant.

Paradou has worked hard to remain relevant in a neighborhood dominated by fancier neighbors. On Saturday mornings, there are cooking lessons ($40) for children under 5 (Times story here). The weekend brunch special ($25) includes “all you can drink” Belinis, Mimosas, and Kir Royales. A Monday to Thursday weeknight special from 6:00–7:30 p.m. ($20.07) offers a plate of cheese, paté and salumi with a glass of red or white wine.

I wouldn’t say we were wowed by anyting we had at Paradou, but I suspect the restaurant is a lot more pleasant on weeknights, when it isn’t overrun by the Meatpacking Crowd.  The hearty Provençal fare may not be remarkable, but it deserves to be taken seriously, in a neighborhood where so little else can be.

Paradou (8 Little West 12th Street between Ninth Avenue and Washington Street, Meatpacking District)

Food: *
Service: *
Ambiance: no stars for the garden in wintertime
Overall: *