The Payoff: Fiamma

This week, Frank Bruni awarded three stars to yet another Italian restaurant, Fiamma. Perhaps sensitive to the fact that it seems to be the only cuisine he likes, Bruni tries to argue that it’s not really Italian:

Would you find these entrees in Italy, even up north? Maybe, in a very fussy restaurant. In most others, no. And who cares? They’re prepared with finesse and they’re the definition of luxury, no matter the geography, no matter the language… Fiamma is about as Italian as a poodle in a Prada scarf. [Say, what???]

The review once again uses Frank’s favorite insult, “fussy”. Somehow, Fiamma managed to overcome that liability. It doesn’t happen often. Bruni insists that the cuisine “owes its classically indulgent soul to France.” Somehow I suspect that if a northern European chef were in the kitchen—Gabriel Kreuther, for instance—two stars would be the maximum.

One never knows with Bruni, but based on other reports I’ve read, I can’t quarrel with the rating, although Eater and I had forecasted two stars, and thus lose $1 on our hypothetical bets.

	Eater		NYJ
Bankroll	$61.50		$70.67
Gain/Loss	–1.00		–1.00
Total	$60.50		$69.67
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Won–Lost	25–9		25–9

Rolling the Dice: Fiamma

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 Fiamma, the one truly serious establishment in Stephen Hanson’s galaxy of crowd-pleasing one-star restaurants. 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: 4-1
Four Stars: 25,000-1

The Skinny: This is technically a re-review, as William Grimes had awarded three stars to Fiamma’s predecessor, Fiamma Osteria, with Michael White at the helm. Earlier this year, White decamped to run the kitchens at Alto and L’Impero (three and two stars respectively, per The Bruni), and Hanson hired Fabio Trabocchi to replace him. Fiamma is the only restaurant in Hanson’s portfolio that critics have taken at all seriously, and he is surely itching to keep all three of his stars.

I haven’t been to Fiamma, but Bruni often telegraphs where he’s headed. In a blog post just one week ago, he complained about the custom of covering tablecloth stains with a fresh napkin, which he called the Napkin of Shame. And yes, he had been “shamed” at Fiamma. (I still don’t get what’s “shameful” about it, but hey, that’s The Bruni: the rituals of fine dining are lost on him.)

Anyway, he didn’t have much to say about the food, but what he did say wasn’t promising:

The meal progressed, a rich, saucy meal, because Fiamma’s new chef, Fabio Trabocchi, cooks in a rich, saucy style. One course departed, another arrived, and so on and so forth. We’ll delve into this deeper when review time comes around.

I don’t remember eating with particular abandon. In fact I remember eating in a restrained fashion, wary of the cumulative effect of all this richness and all this richness and all this sauciness.

My take? Those aren’t the words of a critic who was really enjoying his meal. If Frank is obsessed about napkins, he’s not loving the food. That’s why a three-star review is looking like a real long-shot.

But he didn’t imply it was awful either, as it would have to be for a former three-star restaurant to be double-demoted to one star. So Eater’s two-star prediction is looking pretty good.

The Bet: We predict that Frank Bruni will award two stars to Fiamma.

Bondi Road

Note: Bondi Road closed in October 2012, to make way for a new location of Calexico.

*

Bondi Road and The Sunburnt Cow are a pair of Australian-themed restaurants operated by chef/owner Heathe St. Clair. They are both fairly casual, with nothing on either menu above $16. Bondi Road, the newer of the two, opened on the Lower East Side sixteen months ago to fairly positive reviews (New York,  RG).

I get the sense that Bondi Road was meant to be a bit more ambitious than it is now. Restaurant Girl mentioned a $30 tasting menu that no longer seems to be on offer. The restaurant does not take reservations, but we had no trouble getting bar seating at 8:15 p.m. on a Saturday night. The space was already starting to clear out by 9:30, which is not a good sign, and may explain why I received a publicist’s invitation to dine there.

  

Fried foods are the kitchen’s strength. My son loved Coconut Shrimp ($9; above left), and everyone was dipping into my order of “Salt N Pepper Squid” ($9; above center). The breading was just light enough to add flavor without overwhelming the squid. But Tuna Tartare ($12; above right) was a real dud. The tuna was not sushi quality, and an unattractive lump of it wasn’t rescued by a mango chilli yogurt sauce or an olive tapenade.

 

My son thought that an order of New Zealand Mussels ($10; above left) were “just okay.” My girlfriend and I both ordered the Barramundi ($15; above right), which comes grilled, breaded or fried, and with your choice of side dish. I asked for it grilled, but it came out fried anyway, and I decided to give it a try. I thought they nailed it, but my girlfriend found her order too greasy. However, everyone agreed the french fries were excellent.

Blue curaçao figures in several of the mixed cocktails. I had one called the Wipeout  ($9), a mixture of blue curaçao, sprite, and several white liquors, served in a tall glass. One or two more of those, and they would have needed to carry me home. My girlfriend was less impressed with Sex on Bondi Beach ($9), which sounded like fun, but tasted like a bland orange–grapefruit juice.

The food at Bondi Road is fun (if a bit uneven), and some of it is even very good, but the format works against it. The space, dominated by the bar, is cramped and dark, and the small, high tables would be more suitable for an ice cream parlor. Australian waitresses and a loop of beach videos playing on a projection TV are the only real reminders of “Down Under.” However, with $9 appetizers and $15 entrées, it’s a good budget-conscious choice if you happen to be nearby.

Bondi Road (153 Rivington Street between Suffolk & Clinton Streets, Lower East Side)

Koi

In a city flooded with big-box Asian-themed restaurants, Koi arrived relatively late. As Frank Bruni put it in his zero-star review 2½ years ago:

Koi recreates a popular, buzz-bedecked establishment with the same name and same principal owner in Los Angeles, and it belongs to a well-worn Japanese genre that includes, in Manhattan, Megu, Geisha, Ono, Matsuri and En Japanese Brasserie. These restaurants invest in flashy design, mix colorful cocktails and construct menus that hedge any daring bets with the safety of sushi rolls and versions of dishes popularized by Nobu, the less flamboyant, more dependable sire of this expanding brood.

I didn’t bother with Koi back then, but when I was looking for something new to try in Madison Square Garden’s general vicinity, suddenly its moment had come.

Our visit to Koi almost didn’t happen. I booked on OpenTable for 5:30 p.m., but the restaurant was closed when we arrived: the Bryant Park Hotel staff told us that Koi wouldn’t open until 6:00. We took a twenty-minute walk, and when we returned they were open. The snafu was never explained, but we headed off to our table and were out in plenty of time for a 7:30 show.

Early critics complained about a “you need us more than we need you” attitude and music so loud you could barely think straight. Thankfully, none of that was on display last Friday evening, either because management actually learned something from the reviews, or because Koi’s fifteen minutes of hotness are up. I suspect it’s the latter. We saw families with small children, and our server asked, “Where y’all from?” I suspect that most of the patrons now are tourists.

As at Nobu and other restaurants of its ilk, the menu at Koi is mostly “small plates,” which you’re encouraged to share, along with standard offerings of sushi, sashimi, and rolls. Our server was well informed about the menu and provided patient guidance.

We started with a trio of appetizers. Tuna Tartare ($15; above left) with avocado and crispy wontons was as good a preparation of that dish as any in town. Our server steered us to Crispy Rice topped with spicy tuna ($16; above center), but we weren’t as wowed by it as he was. I believe the third appetizer was the Creamy Rock Shrimp Tempura ($17; above right),  which had a nice cruncy–spicy texture.

 

The so-called “signature rolls” at Koi avoid some of the usual clichés. My son was pleased with a shrimp roll ($16; above left), which had the shrimp outside the rice, instead of the opposite. A Baked Crab hand roll ($9; above right) had a doughy wrapping, rather than the usual rice paper, but it was a bit bland.

The better items on the menu are good enough to make Koi a solid standout in the neighborhood, but it’s not really distinct enough to be a destination.

Koi (40 W. 40th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, West Midtown)

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

Craftsteak

Note: Craftsteak closed at the end of 2009. After modestly remodeling the space, the same team opened Colicchio & Sons in early 2010.

*

Craftsteak had a tough start, with most of the reviews citing the same peculiar flaw: the kitchen didn’t know how to cook a steak. With prices running about $10–20 per steak higher than the going rate in Manhattan, that wasn’t going to fly.

I visited Craftsteak 1.0 twice (here, here). Frankly, I might not have bothered to return after the first time, but I was so sure Tom Colicchio would right the ship that I figured it was worth another look. The second visit was, if anything, even worse than the first. I was still sure that Colicchio would fix it somehow, but I wasn’t going to rush back.

Tom Colicchio got busy. He fired his chef de cuisine, bought new kitchen equipment, and continued to tweak the menu. His efforts finally paid off with a rare re-review from Frank Bruni, elevating the restaurant to the two stars that I’m sure Colicchio intended it to have. More than a year after my last visit, I thought it was time to give Craftsteak another try.

Craftsteak 2.0 is much improved, though not without its flaws. The menu is still far too sprawling, with 20 different steaks and 35 side dishes. Ten of those steaks are variations on the New York Strip — corn-fed, grass-fed, or Wagyu; 10, 12 or 18 ounce; aged anywhere from 28 to 65 days. Who needs so many options?. Colicchio should offer New York Strip the two or three ways he thinks are best, and ditch the others.

 

The amuse-bouche was a bit of a dud: a thin pâté buried too deep in a cast-iron bowl, with just three skimpy crackers to mop it up with. Parker-house rolls were much more successful, and it was all we could do not to eat all six of them.

 

Our favorite steak is the ribeye: naturally, there are two versions: 14-ounce grass-fed ($55) or 18-ounce corn-fed ($52). We chose the latter, as it’s four ounces heavier and three dollars cheaper. And finally, Craftsteak served a steak for the gods: tender, beautifully charred, evenly marbled, full of mineral flavor. There was no need for four steak sauces: they were first-class, but why offer only two spoons?

Rounding it out was a plate of gnocchi ($11), soft, light and creamy enough to make you forget every other gnocchi you’ve ever had.

The dining room was full, but we had no trouble getting walk-in seating at the bar. The tables there are just as big, and it’s the same menu. Servers aren’t quite attentive enough. I would almost be tempted to award three stars for the food, if I did not suspect that a menu as vast as Craftsteak must have some duds, and perhaps we were just lucky enough not to order any of them. But on the strength of this visit, it appears that Craftsteak is finally delivering on its promise.

Craftsteak (85 Tenth Avenue at 15th Street, Far West Chelsea)

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

Montreal Journal: Marché de La Villette & Les Bouchées Gourmandes

Marché de La Villette

Rounding out our Montreal journal are two casual places along rue St. Paul Ouest where we had breakfast and lunch.

Marché de La Villette has only been in existence for about four years, but it has the look of a comfortable bistro that has been there forever. There’s a take-out counter featuring an array of salads, quiches and terrines, but there’s a full-service all-day menu too. We’ve been there several times, but only for breakfast/brunch. It’s not exactly a bargain, with breakfast for two coming to around CA$40, but you don’t leave hungry, and everything is prepared to a high standard.

 

Pictured are: Crèpe with ham and brie (upper left), Cheese platter (upper right), Omelette with salad (lower left), and your humble correspondent (lower right).

It’s a pity I didn’t have my camera the first day that we visited La Bouchées Gourmandes, which is just down the street from Marché de La Villette. It’s primarily a sweet shop, but there’s a breakfast and lunch menu too. The crèpes were outstanding — if anything, lighter, fluffier, and more textured than those at La Villette. We went back the next day for hot chocolate and a tart.

The place appears to be operated by a husband–wife team, with no one in the front-of-house except the wife. She moves at her own pace: that tart took her quite a while to produce, even though it was already in a display case and needed only to be plated.

But as long as you’re in no hurry, it is well worth a visit.

Marché de La Villette (324, rue St. Paul Ouest, Montreal)

Les Bouchées Gourmandes (310, rue St. Paul Ouest, Montreal)

Montreal Journal: Au Pied de Cochon

 

Although we would have but two evenings in Montreal, one restaurant from our last visit impressed us enough that we were determined to go again: Au Pied de Cochon, literally “The Pig’s Foot.”

Chef Martin Picard has a cult following that almost any chef would envy. I cannot find a single negative review of the place. Maybe it’s because Picard is bribing diners with the most fattening foods imaginable, and serving them in eye-popping combinations no one else would dream of.

I wrote a fairly detailed eGullet post the last time we visited, so  I won’t repeat the background. The only thing that’s new since then is that Martin Picard now has his own cookbook. Like everything else at Au Pied de Cochon, Picard did it his own way, and published the book himself.

And the restaurant is, if anything, even harder to get into. We booked our table a few weeks in advance, but all they could offer me on a Saturday evening was 6:00 p.m., and we had to vacate the table by 8:00. This didn’t deter us: for all of the restaurant’s charms, it is really not a place to linger. The space is cramped, loud, and not especially comfortable.

We had the same server as last time, and once again he advised that an appetizer to share would probably be ample, given the vast portion sizes. I didn’t take note of our wine selection, but the list seemed more expensive than last time. We settled on a respectable red for $65.

We started with the Plogue à Champlain ($23; above), a hunk of foie gras with a buckwheat pancake, bacon, onions, potatoes, and maple syrup. The server explained that a friend of Picard had served this to him at breakfast, and he was so thunderstruck that he added it to the restaurant’s menu. And it was good enough to make you think that God made foie gras and maple syrup to be eaten together every morning.

 
Pot-au-feu ($60) is one of the few dishes actually advertised as being a portion for two. It’s traditionally a fairly humble dish, but you can count on Picard to spruce it up with foie gras, prairie oysters, and Guinea Hen, along with typical ingredients like boiled beef, bone marrow, and vegetables. We thought that the beef and vegetables turned out especially well, while the Guinea Hen didn’t really repay the effort to pry off the bone what little meat was left.

When we visit Montreal, there’s always a feeling of “so many restaurants…so little time.” But with much of the menu at Au Pied de Chochon still unexplored, it will probably still be a must-visit the next time we come to Montreal.

Au Pied de Cochon (536, rue Duluth Est, Montreal)

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

Montreal Journal: La Chronique

 
Interior shot (left); Chefs Marc de Canck and Olivier de Montigny (right)

My girlfriend and I spent a fun long weekend in Montreal last year. We enjoyed it so much that she suggested a return visit to celebrate my birthday. The question was: where to eat? Last time, we had a terrific meal at Toqué, and we wanted another meal in that class. An eGullet contributor suggested La Chronique.

The restaurant, located well apart from the central business district, occupies a fairly humble-looking space that belies the ambitious food. Belgian chef Marc de Canck has been at the helm since it opened in March 1995, joined more recently by his assistant Olivier de Montigny. It has garnered a mention in various international publications, including a favorable write-up from New York Times critic Eric Asimov in 1999.

The à la carte menu offers appetizers from CA$15–25 and entrées $34–45; there are only about half-a-dozen of each. We chose the seven-course degustation for $100 per person, with wine pairings another $50 or $100 (we had the latter). The explanations of the wines were unusually detailed, extending at times to full-blown tasting notes à la Wine Spectator.

I present the menu selections and paired wines below in French, followed in each case by our notes: 

 

La mise en bouche en surprise du moment [above left]

La Lotte farcie de homard, crème de ptd et pois verts à la truffe [above right]
France, Saint-Aubin 1^er Cru Les Frionnes, Hubert Lamy 2004

The amuse-bouche was a small daub of gravlax with crème fraîche. The first appetizer was a fairly complex presentation of monkfish stuffed with lobster, with a potato foam, green peas, and purple basil. The lobster had a nice sweeness, balanced by peach and almond notes in the paired wine.

 

Bar de ligne rôti, ravioli d’artichauts et sa vinaigrette tiède aux tomates séchées [above left]
France, Sancerre, Les Culs De Beaujeu, François Cotat 2005

La noix de ris de veau aux cèpes, foie gras et courge musquée [above right]
Amerique, Santa Rita Hills, Foley Pinot noir, Foley Estate 2005

Next came artichoke ravioli with red peppers and dried tomatoes, accompanied by the very smooth François Cotat Sancerre, which offered hints of grapefruit, green tea, aged in oak. I’m no great fan of artichokes, but I could appreciate the artistry of the dish.

After that, sweetbreads and foie gras in a chocolate and butternut squash purée. If you put so many ideas into one dish, the result could very well be mush. Instead, our note at the time was: “This is incredible.” The accompanying pinot noir offered hints of cherry and vanilla.

 

Le duo de boeuf Angus, endive caramélisée et girolles [above left]
Italie, Bolgheri, Ornellaia, Tenuta san Giudo 2002

Le plateau de fromages fermiers d’ici et d’ailleurs [above right]
Italie, Monferrato Rosso, Pin, La Spinetta 2003

The last savory course was a filet of black angus beef, with a braised beef tail, braised endive, onion, and veal jus. This seemed less memorable than some of the other dishes. The accompanying Italian wine came with a tasting note that almost defied detection by mere mortals: black olives, leather, plum, blackcurrant, strawberry, and cherries.

The server brought around a cheese platter, from which we chose six, all of which were wonderful, including a couple of unpasteurized cheeses that could not legally be served in the U.S.. The tasting note for the wine: tobacco, coffee, chocolate, red fruits, and blackcurrant. 

La clafoutis aux pêches, caramel salé et glace vanille
France, Barsac-Sauternes 1^er Cru, Château Climens 1995

Dessert was a light pastry with peaches, salted caramel, and vanilla ice cream, along with a sauterne. Tasting note: pineapple, mango, fig, and honey.

Service throughout was first-rate, and the timing of the courses—always tricky with a tasting menu—was just about right. The food at La Chronique has a bit less of the “wow” factor than at Toqué, but it must surely be one of the top handful of dining experiences in Montreal.

La Chronique (99 rue Laurier Ouest, Montreal)

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

The Payoff: Tailor

This week, Frank Bruni concluded the review cycle for Sam Mason’s Tailor, awarding a very weak one star. Although a one-star rating supposedly means “good,” this was one of those reviews that actually sounded like it meant “not-so-good”:

Mr. Mason’s personal vision trumps your pleasure. His conviction matters more than your response. This, I suppose, is the very definition of artistic integrity. But it’s not the prescription for a great restaurant.

Tailor is certainly an ambitious restaurant, and an interesting one. It has the courage to showcase the kind of experimental cooking — eccentric, provocative flavor combinations; unusual textures like foams, powders and that most appetizing of au courant coinages, “soils” — that’s been a tough sell in New York…

Mr. Mason, who made his name as the pastry chef at WD-50, belongs to a group of brainy iconoclasts (Will Goldfarb, Pichet Ong) who are challenging the usual segregation of savory and sweet. At Tailor, for example, the ice cream with a rum-braised banana is the flavor of mustard, and not even honey mustard at that.

But his infatuation with his own imagination doesn’t leave room enough for a self-appraisal of the results, for dissent from collaborators who might flag the foolhardy creations among the clever. Tailor winds up with an intermittently exhilarating but ultimately frustrating mishmash of the two.

Bruni’s review came late enough to take notice of recent menu changes at Tailor, but those changes are too new to evaluate. Ultimately, Tailor could turn out to be a much better restaurant, but for now it is saddled with a bunch of reviews that are largely mixed to negative.

Eater and NYJ both win $3 on our hypothetical one-dollar bets.

	Eater		NYJ
Bankroll	$58.50		$67.67
Gain/Loss	+3.00		+3.00
Total	$61.50		$70.67
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Won–Lost	25–8		25–8

Rolling the Dice: Tailor

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 Tailor, the first solo venture of the offbeat former WD–50 pastry chef, Sam Mason. The Eater oddsmakers have set the action as follows (√√ denotes the Eater bet):

Zero Stars: 6-1
One Star: 3-1 √√
Two Stars: 4-1
Three Stars: 750-1
Four Stars: 25,000-1

The Skinny: It has been a rough ride for Tailor. Mason’s first mistake was chronicling his project in a Grub Street featurette called The Launch, thereby guaranteeing that the inevitable delays would make him look foolish, and ensuring the the restaurant would be so over-hyped that it could never live up to expectations.

Then the reviews started coming in, and frankly, no critic yet has been wowed. Indeed, the two stars I gave it might even have been too generous. The problem was a menu limited to about half-a-dozen smallish savory courses and an equal number of desserts. When you give the customer so few options, practically all of them need to be knockouts. And that’s a tough mark to hit when you’re playing with flavors in funky ways that people aren’t used to.

According to Tailor’s eGullet supporters, the menu has grown, which may be too little, too late. Bruni’s impressions will likely have been based on the original menu, which in the view of most critics, didn’t offer enough for a serious restaurant. The best items on Tailor’s menu are surely worth two stars (if not more), but too many of Mason’s best ideas are still in his head.

Eater is taking the one-star odds today, which seems smart. Bruni seldom rates a place higher than the rest of his colleagues, and he has been no great fan of avant-garde cuisine.

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