Dovetail

[Kalina via Eater]

John Fraser must be floating on air. Dovetail, his new restaurant, scored a rare “triple triple”: three-star reviews from Adam Platt, Restaurant Girl, and most importantly, Frank Bruni. Just before the Bruni review came out, I snagged a Friday night reservation for a few weeks away, figuring that it was about to become nearly impossible to get into this place.

I was a big fan of Fraser’s work at Compass (so was Bruni). If ever a chef deserved his own place, it was Fraser. And he was gutsy enough to put it on the Upper West Side, a neighborhood where upscale restaurants haven’t traditionally thrived. Compass, at least, is close enough to Lincoln Center to attract a pre-show crowd; Dovetail most likely will not.

Location doesn’t matter now: with nine stars to its credit, and counting, Dovetail is a certified destination. Even on the Upper West Side.

The Richard Bloch design suggests some nervousness about the restaurant’s mission. In the entrance lobby, a floor-to-ceiling glass-enclosed “wine wall” and a large host stand make Dovetail look upscale and stylish.

The main dining room looks much humbler, with bare wood tables and exposed brick that would be more suitable for a neighborhood place. (An overflow dining room downstairs looks even more spartan.) Wisely, he added carpeting and padded walls to absorb the sound, but it isn’t quite good enough. With tables that are awfully close together, you don’t get much privacy.

Menu (click to expand)

Servers in conservative ties and crisply pressed white coats look and act like they parachuted in from a much fancier place. I was pleased that they seated me before my girlfriend arrived, and that they let us linger over cocktails without pressing us to get on with it. But after we ordered, the amuse-bouche, appetizer, and entrée all came out at speed.

By contemporary standards, Dovetail is a mid-priced restaurant, with appetizers $11–18, entrées $24–34. A five-course tasting menu is only $65, and on Sundays there’s a three-course prix fixe at just $38. And it is virtually all excellent. As my girlfriend put it, “This is what Adour should have been.”

A sommelier noticed that I was puzzling over the wine list. When I asked her for a red under $60, she came back with three options well below that price, including two in the $40s. It was a refreshing change of pace from wine directors who invariably suggest wines right at your maximum, or indeed even above it.

 

A duo of amuses-bouches offered sashimi-quality tuna on a skewer coupled with salmon roe on a white spoon. The bread service was a warm slice of cheddar corn bread.

 
Idaho Potato Gnocchi; Pork Belly

Both appetizers were hits: potato gnocchi with veal short ribs and foie gras butter, and pork belly with porcini mushrooms, spinach, and a fried hen egg.

 
Halibut; Rack and Leg of Lamb

The entrées offered a bit less excitement, but halibut was expertly done. My girlfriend thought that rack of lamb was a bit tougher than it should be, though I didn’t find any problem with the piece of it that I tasted.

The ambitious food is somewhat let down by both the ambiance and service, but they certainly won’t stand in the way of Dovetail being a tremendous success.

Dovetail (103 W. 77th Street at Columbus Avenue, Upper West Side)

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

Cercle Rouge

[Kalina via Eater]

Cercle Rouge has been through a tough first 2½ years. Once touted as “Tribeca’s Balthazar-to-be,” it seemed destined for an early demise after the State Liquor Authority threatened to revoke its license, because it was adjacent to a mosque. An Eater Deathwatch followed.

At around that time, the original chef, David Féau, departed, followed soon by his deputy, Michael Wurster. Since October 2006, Pierre Landet has been executive chef. Somehow, Cercle Rouge kept its license and survived. In mid-January, after 90 weeks on the Deathwatch, Eater’s official position is that Cercle Rouge is in “remission.”

It certainly didn’t become a “Tribeca Balthazar.” The initial excitement has long since died down. I walked in after work one day last week, shortly before 7:00 p.m., to find the restaurant practically empty. Business did pick up a bit during the hour I was there, but it was never busy.

Menu for Toulouse Cuisine Week

The menu now seems to be that of a standard French brasserie, though the chicken wings that critics raved about during the Féau era are still on offer. I suppose it’s a problem when chicken wings are the best dish at a French restaurant. They’re the only thing on the current menu that isn’t French.

Prices are in a wide range, with appetizers $7–18, entrées $17–38. Côte de Boeuf Béarnaise for two will set you back $68. Wines are reasonable; I was pleased to find a great half-bottle of Haut-Médoc for $38.

Last week, the restaurant was showcasing the cuisine of Toulouse, chef Pierre Landet’s native region (menu at left; click for a larger version). It was the promise of cassoulet that drew me there, though I was also eager to try those chicken wings once again.

 

The Chicken Wings ($8) are as fun as I remember with them. Somehow, the chicken is scrunched up at one end of the bone, making each one into a lollipop. They are lightly breaded and mildly spicy. The accompanying bleu cheese sauce seemed to have been made up hours before and stored in the fridge, and it wasn’t really suitable for dipping.

Cassoulet ($24) is the perfect antidote to a cold evening. White beans, carrots, braised duck, and sausage are cooked in a steaming hot crockpot. In this rendition, the vegetables were better than the meats, which were over-cooked and not as flavorful as they should be.

The space is comfortable and easy on the eyes. Service was attentive and enthusiastic.

Cercle Rouge (241 W. Broadway at N. Moore Street, TriBeCa)

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

Greenwich Steak & Burger Co.

[Bottomless Dish]

Note: Greenwich Steak & Burger Co. closed in December 2008.

*

It’s always nice to see a respectable casual dining option in TriBeCa, a neighborhood with more upscale restaurants than most. Greenwich Steak & Burger Co. opened in late February at the corner of Greenwich & Franklin Streets, where the TriBeCa Studio Deli had been.

It’s a much more attractive space than a such a casual restaurant would need to be, with tables generously spaced, high ceilings to dissipate the noise, and large windows looking out on Greenwich Street.

Although “steak” and “burger” are in the name, the menu is dominated by other things. Appetizers ($7–12) span a wide variety of cuisines, such as Tempura Mussels ($8), Lobster Quesadillas ($10), Smoked Salmon Pizza ($10), and Crab Wontons ($8).

There’s an assortment of soups ($6), salads ($9–12) and pastas ($12–15). Ten different burgers ($9–10, except for a Kobe Beef Burger, $18) offer not just beef, but also crab, tuna, salmon, turkey, and lamb, with seven sauces to choose from. Among eight entrées ($17–25), only three are steaks, the others being chicken, seafood and duck. Side dishes are $6.

The most expensive steak, New York Strip, is $24, and it comes with mashed potatoes. I would guess that a steak this cheap won’t be a meat-lover’s dream.

 
Warm Chips with Truffle Oil; Tuna Tartare

I ordered two appetizers. While I waited, the server dropped off a sleeve of warm chips coated in truffle oil. They are hard to resist, and if you’re not careful they could easily spoil your appetite.

It seems that almost every restaurant has a Tuna Tartare these days, so I was a bit skeptical when the server recommended it here. But this version was as enjoyable as any in town. Equally refreshing was the price: just $10. Yet another helping of warm truffle fries on the side didn’t add much.

 
Kobe Beef Sliders; Sweet Potato Fries

Kobe Beef Sliders were a bit over-cooked and under-seasoned. They came with a batch of Sweet Potato Fries, but by this time I was far too carbed out to enjoy them. Once again, though, one can hardly complain about the price: $12.

Greenwich Steak & Burger offers a more ambitious menu than its humble name would suggest. There’s probably an equal measure of hits and misses, but at low enough prices that one is happy to come back and try more.

Greenwich Steak & Burger Co. (369 Greenwich Street at Franklin Street, TriBeCa)

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

Craft

[The Wandering Eater]

Craft, Tom Colicchio’s landmark haute barnyard, has just celebrated its seventh anniversary.

Since my last visit, about two years ago, Tom Colicchio and Danny Meyer went through an amicable corporate divorce, with Colicchio leaving Gramercy Tavern to focus on his expanding Craft franchise. There are now Crafts in four cities, Craftsteaks in three, and a chain of ’Wichcraft sandwich outlets. There is still only one Craftbar (around the corner from the main restaurant).

With so many restaurants to tend, quality can suffer. The New York branch of Craftsteak opened to tepid reviews. Colicchio got to work, and he was able to right the ship, but it was a rare dent to his reputation. Craft lost its Michelin star this year, though no one is quite sure why.

Craft has recently introduced a seven-course tasting menu ($110), which I tried with a colleague a couple of weeks ago. The server mentioned that they’d sold only fifty of them so far—a pretty small number for a restaurant that is always jam-packed.

The tasting menu allows you to skip the most difficult part of dinner at Craft: deciding what to order on the long, complex menu, which changes daily. Everything on our tasting menu was prepared to the restaurant’s usual high standards, but I think the kitchen excels at larger portions that you can linger over. Their strength is the novel, not an anthology of short stories.

A serving of Poussin (i.e., chicken) is indicative of the way a tasting menu can titillate, but not satisfy. You’ve seldom had chicken this tender, this succulent. But when it’s reduced to a tasting menu portion, all you seem to get are a few tantalizing scraps. Ordering à la carte is still the way to go at Craft.

I certainly wouldn’t try the wine pairing again ($75), which didn’t offer any remotely interesting choices. For $150, we could have ordered a full bottle that blows the doors off, instead of putting up with a succession of totally unmemorable individual glasses.

Craft may have pioneered the “haute casual” style—three-star service without tablecloths—and no restaurant in town does it better. The wooden tables are large—to accommodate Craft’s trademark cast-iron serving pans and large sharing portions—and generously spaced. A diner seated at the banquette can easily walk between two adjacent tables without having to turn sideways.

Service was friendly and attentive.

 
Raw Madai (sea bream), French Mâche & Beet; Ragout of Escargot & Periwinkles

 
Poached Florida Pompano; Crawfish Risotto

 
Roasted Four Story Hill Farm Poussin; Roasted Venison Tenderloin, Parsnip Gratin, Bluefoot Mushrooms

 
Buttermilk Parfait & Passion Fruit Soup; Hazelnut Chocolate Bread Putting, Malted Milk Ice Cream

Craft (43 E. 19th St. between Park Ave South & Broadway, Flatiron District)

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

Ginza

Last week, I wanted to take my son to a Japanese teppanyaki restaurant—one of those places where the chef prepares the food in front of you on a hibachi grill and performs a bunch of slapstick knife and spatula tricks. Benihana was fully booked, but a bit of googling led me to Ginza in Park Slope.

Benihana basically invented this genre. I’ve been to teppanyaki restaurants in Tokyo, where the food is taken seriously, and there are no clown tricks. But every version of it that I’ve found in the U.S. (plus once in London) follows the same pattern: mediocre food, but a fun night out for kids and tourists: Disney meets Japan.

Craig Claiborne of The New York Times awarded two stars to Benihana in 1970, but it hasn’t been a serious restaurant in years. Ginza, at least, feels a lot less commercial. It’s in a narrow Fifth Avenue storefront, and with plenty of exposed brick it even feels cute. There’s a small seating area for those who want to order sushi, but four hibachi grills are the showcase. We saw plenty of families, most probably from the neighborhood.

The chef knew all of the standard clown tricks, but the food was pretty bad, starting with a humdrum salad and dull miso soup.

  

The chef gets the rice and vegetables started, then the shrimp, and throws in some fire for show (it has nothing to do with the cooking).

 

The shrimp are about done now, and so is the fried rice, to which the chef had added two fresh eggs. These are the best things we had at Ginza, mainly because they were not over-cooked, and the chef didn’t cut them into little pieces.

 

Now, the chef finished off the chicken. Three lovely chicken breasts were chopped up and fried to death, losing all of their natural mosture. In the photo on the left, you can see a strip steak on the grill, thick and nicely marbled.

But the same violence was inflicted on the steak, too: it is cut into tiny pieces and fried to death, so that almost none of the natural juices are left. The chef cut off a fatty piece on the end, and was about to throw it away, but we insisted he give it to us. At least it had some flavor.

Ginza is good fun for the family, but I wouldn’t go for the food. My son complained about the long subway ride from Upstate Manhattan into far-away Brooklyn, but his objections melted away when he saw the hibachi grills: kids adore this stuff.

Prices don’t break the bank. My girlfriend had the chicken and shrimp dinner ($20.95), with an extra side of vegetables ($7.00). My son and I had the chicken, shrimp and steak dinner for two ($47.95). Beers were $6 apiece.

Ginza (296 Fifth Avenue between 1st & 2nd Streets, Park Slope, Brooklyn)

Food: Fair
Service: Fine
Ambiance: Nice neighborhood place
Overall: Fair

The Payoff: WD~50

Yesterday, Frank Bruni upgraded WD~50 to the three stars that some of us believed it deserved all along:

[Chef Wylie Dufresne] pushes hard against the envelope of possibility and the bounds of conformity to produce food that’s not only playful but also joyful and even exhilarating, at least when the mad science pays off.

It pays off more frequently now than in the past, when his attitude was cheekier, his judgment wobblier and too many of his creations gratuitously perverse.

Foie gras with anchovies? Venison tartare with edamame ice cream? I’d often shake my head, drop my fork and glance longingly toward the exit.

When William Grimes reviewed WD-50 in The New York Times shortly after the restaurant’s opening in 2003, he gave it two stars, saying that for all Mr. Dufresne’s ingenuity, he demonstrated “a certain contempt for the pleasure principle.”

…

But most of the dishes I tried over the last few months were knockouts, their measured eccentricities in the service of something other than eccentricity itself. These dishes validate the kind of experimentation that culinary pioneers like Mr. Dufresne undertake, and they reflect a thoughtful, mature equilibrium between what’s merely edgy and what’s truly enjoyable.

I’ve quoted Bruni at more length than usual, so that I can ask a question: has the restaurant really changed that much since the original two-star review? Or have Bruni’s tastes just caught up with what Dufresne was doing all along? It’s difficult to say, because there remain plenty of people who still think that the cuisine at WD~50 makes no sense at all.

In all of Bruni’s re-reviews, he tries to exaplain how the restaurant is different than before. But usually there is something far more specific—a change of chef being the obvious example. Bruni does admit that the restaurant “isn’t right for everyone or every mood,” a rare concession in a three-star review. Is there any restaurant that’s right for everyone or every mood?

Eater and New York Journal both took the three-star odds. We both win $2 on our hypothetical one-dollar bets.

	Eater		NYJ
Bankroll	$68.50		$84.67
Gain/Loss	+2.00		+2.00
Total	$70.50		$86.67
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Won–Lost	32–14		33–13

First Look: Terroir

Note: Terroir in the East Village closed in January 31, as part of the culinary divorce between chef Marco Canora and sommelier Paul Grieco. The East Village location is now a wine bar called Fifty Paces, which Canora owns. Terroir Tribeca remains open, under Grieco’s control, and there is also a Highline outpost in the warmer months.

*

It takes a lot to draw me over to First Avenue on a weeknight, which is about as far out of my commuting path as I could get without leaving Manhattan. But when I heard that sommelier Paul Grieco (Hearth, Insieme) was opening a new wine bar, I had to give it a try.

It’s called Terroir, for the French word that describes the “sense of place” that gives each wine its personality. Grieco’s partner, Marco Canora, is in charge of the food, which includes several favorites from his tenure at Craftbar, and other snacks that go well with the informal bar setting. There isn’t much of a kitchen in the tiny space at Terroir, but a lot of the food comes from Hearth, which is just 30 yards down the street.

The vibe is very East Village-y, including the gentle price point. There are over twenty wines offered by the glass, from just $5 to $19, with many at $10 or less. All are also offered by the half-glass. The variety is hard to characterize, but rest assured anything Paul Grieco offers will be compelling.

The wine list at Hearth is famously verbose, but for now the much smaller list at Terroir is limited to the bare facts. “There’s not much literature in it yet,” Grieco said. “Right now, it’s like an e. e. cummings poem.” I suspect it won’t be that way for long.

The food menu fits on one page: bar snacks ($4–5, or 6 for $22); fried stuff ($7); salads ($7–8); bruschetta ($6–7); charcuterie ($4–5, or assortment $21); cheese ($3.50, or 6 for $20); soup ($8); panini ($9) and large plates ($15), with generally four or five choices in each category. The large plates include such choices as veal & ricotta meatballs, braised duck leg, sausage, and broiled sardines.

I ordered the charcuterie assortment ($21), which came with about nine different kinds of hand-cut meats (which is more than I saw listed individually on the menu), a terrific pork terrine, and sliced bread. Canora explained each one, but I won’t attempt to duplicate his descriptions.

I asked Grieco to pair wines with it. He chose a contrasting white from southern Italy and a red from France; for both, he opened a fresh bottle and gave me a small taste before pouring a glass. I was charged half-glass prices ($4.00/$4.75) for what seemed to me generous pours. They were wonderful choices, as I have come to expect from anything Grieco recommends.

The small space was full, but I had no trouble getting a bar stool after about five minutes’ wait. This being opening night, a lot of the customers were friends of the owners, stopping in to say hello. For such a small space, it seemed to be well staffed, with everyone pitching in: Canora cleared plates; Grieco dried glassware.

Now that Canora and Grieco have three restaurants, there is one problem: I don’t know where Grieco will be. I trust that the kitchens can execute Canora’s cuisine in his absence, but who will be there to recommend wines? Wherever Grieco is working on any given day, that’s where I want to dine.

Terroir (413 E. 12th Street east of First Avenue, East Village)

Ko Envy

[Kalina via Eater]

David Chang’s latest restaurant, Momofuku Ko, is all set to open on March 12. Always attuned to his own self-promotion, Chang chose a Wednesday, so that Florence Fabricant can announce the opening in that day’s Times food section.

Dinner service for Friends & Family began this week, and already the blogosphere is a-ga-ga. Ruth Reichl files a review that sounds like it would be four stars if she still wrote for the Times. She is ready to fellate Chang. Ed Levine keeps his pants on, but loves the place too.

At least two lucky eGullet members have photos posted (here, here). Pro photographer Kathryn Yu has a beautiful set up on flickr (here). The photos even show David Chang himself in the kitchen; and there, we thought he hadn’t actually cooked anything in years.

eGullet founder Steven A. Shaw isn’t one of the fortunate few to have dined there yet, but he’s already a skeptic:

Those dishes all looked entirely within the capabilities of the Ssäm Bar kitchen (indeed, as noted above, variants of several of these dishes have been served at Ssäm Bar over the past few months). Maybe the portions in the Ko photos are smaller and the plate compositions slightly more precise, but that’s about it….

I’ve been as enthusiastic about the food at Ssäm Bar and Noodle Bar as just about anybody, and have made the case that Ssäm Bar is the best restaurant in New York right now, so I’m not saying that it would be a bad thing for the Chang team not to be able to cook food any better than what they’re serving at Ssäm Bar. It’s already fantastic. But it won’t get better by virtue of being put on smaller plates with dollops of caviar.

Momofuku Ko hasn’t got a phone. An online reservation system is the only way to get in (preview here), with bookings accepted up to a week in advance. As there are just 14 seats, you can expect this to be New York’s toughest table—at least for a while. I’m picturing thousands of foodies in their pajamas with fingers poised on the refresh button at 12:01 a.m. every day.

Such is the hype that even the URL is a subject of speculation. Eater, who’s in-the-know, posts that “The system will go live sometime between now and Saturday.”

Momofuku Ko (163 First Avenue at E. 10th Street, East Village)

Rolling the Dice: WD~50

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 the city’s lone successful example of haute molecular gastronomy, WD~50. The Eater oddsmakers have set the action as follows (√√ denotes the Eater bet):

Zero Stars: 8-1
One Star: 5-1
Two Stars: 3-1
Three Stars: 2-1 √√
Four Stars: 5,000-1

The Skinny: WD~50 currently carries two New York Times stars, per William Grimes in June 2003. It also carries a Michelin star, and for whatever it’s worth, three stars on this website.

Frank Bruni’s re-reviews almost always come with a change of rating, unless there has been an intervening event to justify a fresh look—and there has been no such event at WD~50. The restaurant certainly hasn’t regressed in the last five years, which suggests the rating has nowhere to go but up.

The X-factor is that Bruni generally doesn’t like food you have to think about. The few examples of avant-garde cuisine that have come along during his tenure have not won favorable reviews. This would also be his third 3-star review in just five weeks.

But we have to agree with Eater that this review is pointless unless Bruni upgrades the restaurant to three stars. One can never put it past Bruni to waste a review slot, but we’re not betting he will. Expect Bruni to give Wylie Dufresne credit for staying in the kitchen at WD~50, when most chefs of his calibre (and fame) would surely by now have opened a second restaurant…or a third, or a fourth.

The Bet: We agree with Eater that Frank Bruni will award three stars to WD~50.

Olana

[Kalina/NYMag]

Note: Olana has closed. Click here for our obituary.

Olana opened in late February on a slightly gloomy stretch of lower Madison Avenue. The restaurant is named for the Upstate New York Persian-style home of the artist Frederic Edwin Church (1826–1900). A Hudson Valley theme is supposed to run through Olana’s DNA, though we found it somewhat imperfectly realized.

Frederic Edwin Church’s home, Olana [olana.org]

Al di Meglio, formerly of Osteria del Circo, is running the kitchen, and his Italian roots are evident on a menu where pasta dishes shine. We noted plenty of ingredients that, as far as we know, are not indigenous to the Hudson Valley, such as sea urchin, octopus and king crab. Others, like Roasted Rabbit and Organic Chicken, could have come from local sources, but the menu didn’t say so.

More puzzling was the wine list, which was reasonably priced, but followed no plan of organization that I could detect. It had only one wine from New York State—a white from the South Fork of Long Island.

The space is beautifully appointed in deep, plush red. There is a gorgeous semi-circular bar that already appears to be a hit with the neighborhood’s after-work crowd. In the dining room, large bright glass panels showing naturalistic upstate scenery were a bit jarring in the clubby-looking surroundings.

The restaurant is offering a preview menu for the first two weeks, at 15% off. Service seemed a bit confused at times, as one might expect in the opening days. One server sounded like a brash Texan, but another called us monsieur et madame. Olana is clearly intended to be upscale and, by today’s standards, relatively formal. One can only hope that they’ll pull it off.

The menu is divided into appetizers, pastas (available in appetizer or entrée portions), fish and meat, plus side dishes. There are roughly a half-dozen in each category. I failed to note the prices, but they’re at the high end. You can also construct your own 4, 5, or 6-course tasting menu, choosing any items from the menu. We had the four-course tasting ($62, before the discount).

 
Amuse-bouche (left); Risotto with sea urchin, king crab and black truffles (right)

The amuse bouche was a delicate tarte with pear and tomato jelly. I loved the first course, an exquisite risotto with sea urchin, king crab and black truffles. My girlfriend tried another pasta dish, the chestnut crespelle with ricotta, mushrooms and pine nuts, which she liked, but was surprised to find was more like a crepe than a pasta.

 
Armagnac and Orange Poached Flounder (left); Roasted Rabbit (right)

We had mixed reactions to the fish course. I thought the kitchen had a deft touch with an Armagnac and Blood Orange Poached Flounder, but my girlfriend thought that Striped Bass was dull.

An impressive entrée of Roasted Rabbit was stuffed with almonds, apricots and foie gras. It also seemed to both of us that the whole production was wrapped in bacon, though the menu did not say so. My girlfriend didn’t want to eat Bugs Bunny, so she had the Grilled Berkshire Pork Loin, which was just fine, but not nearly as impressive.

 
Ice Cream (left); Petits-fours (right)

We both wimped out on dessert, mainly because we were full. There are more interesting choices than ice cream, but that was all we were in the mood for. A nice plate of petits-fours was, unfortunately, lost on us.

On this early showing, Olana appears to be serving ambitious cuisine, much of which is very good indeed. I can’t fathom why they opened with an obvious “Hudson Valley” theme, and then offered a menu and wine list that fails to fully exploit it. But if that is rectified, Olana’s quiet elegance could make it a compelling addition to the restaurant scene.

Olana (72 Madison Avenue between 27th & 28th Streets, Flatiron District)

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