The Payoff: Harry Cipriani

Harry Cipriani sucks. Who knew? Today, Frank Bruni uncorks just the second POOR rating of his tenure:¹

Over the years the Cipriani restaurant family and its employees have faced charges of sexual harassment, insurance fraud and tax evasion, the last leading to guilty pleas by two family members in July.

But the crime that comes to mind first when I think of the Ciprianis is highway robbery…

and:

But what I remember most vividly about that particular night is the potatoes. And I hasten to add that I’m taking it on faith that they were potatoes.

That’s what they visually suggested, those desiccated yellow-beige coins that had somehow acquired the texture of Brillo and could almost have been used to scrub whatever pan they had emerged from.

We might well have expected this takedown, if only an online price list had been available. $66.95 for sirloin? $36.95 for lasagna? And what’s with those prices that end in “.95” when dinner costs as much as a car payment? The word that comes to mind is tacky.

Eater and NYJ both thought that Frank Bruni would award one star, and we both lose a dollar.

	Eater		NYJ
Bankroll	$59.50		$68.67
Gain/Loss	–1.00		–1.00
Total	$58.50		$67.67
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Won–Lost	24–8		24–8

¹ In the New York Times system, there are three ratings below one star: Satisfactory, Fair, and Poor. Bruni’s other Poor was Ninja, and he has never issued a “Fair” rating. He gives out around a half-dozen satisfactories per year.

Rolling the Dice: Harry Cipriani

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 Harry Cipriani, the home of Italian cuisine for Upper East Side lovelies with trust funds, and also home to the worst restaurant website in the Western World. The Eater oddsmakers have set the action as follows (√√ denotes the Eater bet):

Zero Stars: 4-1
One Star: 2-1 √√
Two Stars: 4-1
Three Stars: 50-1
Four Stars: 25,000-1

The Skinny: It seems the Bruni is running out of new restaurants to look at, as this is his second re-review in three weeks. He thought to himself, “What do my readers want? [Pause for reflection.] Aha! I have it! An Italian restaurant.” So for what feels like the 40th time this year, Bruni is reviewing his favorite cuisine.

The Times last reviewed Harry Cipriani in May 1991, when Bryan Miller awarded two stars. When Bruni re-reviews, there’s usually a rating change. No one has suggested that Harry Cipriani has gotten better in the last sixteen years, and lately its owners have been more worried about a conviction for tax evasion than with running a restaurant.

I can’t find an online menu, but even in 1991 most entrées were priced above $30. At those prices, Bruni demands excellence, and he probably won’t find it here. I agree with Eater that the Four Seasons, which Bruni demoted to two stars, and which is the better restaurant, sets the ceiling that Harry Cipriani cannot pierce. On top of that, Bruni has awarded two stars recently to L’Impero and Insieme, and he won’t rate Harry Cipriani equal to those standouts.

Will it fall all the way to zero? It would be a very real possibility, but for one thing: it’s Italian food, which means Bruni surely will find something to love.

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

L'Impero

 

Note: L’Impero closed on June 29, 2008, re-opening in mid-July as Convivio.

L’Impero is the Italian restaurant that put chef Scott Conant on the map, when in 2002 Eric Asimov awarded three stars—a remarkable accomplishment for a non-Italian chef. Three years later, Conant and his partners created Alto, which was supposed to be the next step up. Asimov liked it, but Frank Bruni, the man in charge of the stars these days, did not. He gave Alto a disappointing two stars in 2005, finding it “haute and bothered.”

Conant and the two restaurants parted company in 2007, with Michael White (formerly of Fiamma) taking over. This gave Bruni the chance to correct his mistake, and Alto was finally given the three stars it deserved in the first place. But the laws of Newtonian Mechanics as applied to restaurants dictate that every star given must be taken away, so L’Impero was simultaneously demoted to two stars.

To be sure, L’Impero needs to work harder for our affections. It’s located in a small elevated enclave called Tudor City on the far east side, a block west of the United Nations. It’s not convenient to mass transit, and if you’re walking (as I was) you could very well miss it. When Tudor City was built in the 1920s, there were slaughterhouses on the land the U.N. now occupies, which is why the three-square-block area is so isolated. Today, it seems like a city within a city.

The décor gives the impression that it’s about twenty years too old. Bruni found it “lugubrious,” while my sense was that I’d missed a party that was hip and cool a long, long time ago. The pleated curtains along the wall could use a spring cleaning; the light blue chairs are comfortable, but decidedly un-stylish.

The staff at L’Impero provide generally fine service, but they could use some polish. When a runner dropped off the amuse-bouche, his description was almost incomprehensible (except that it was a sweetbread something-or-other). We were twice asked for our wine order, even though we didn’t yet have menus in our hands, and didn’t know what we’d be eating. After I chose a wine, the server instantly replied, “Oh, we’re out of that.” However, the wine steward suggested a substitute at around the same price, and then decanted it.

The dinner menu is available à la carte, or $64 for four courses. Judging by the portion sizes we saw, you’d better have a big appetite if you order the prix fixe.  If ordered separately, all menu categories are quite reasonable for the quality and quantity given: antipasti are $14–17, pastas $23–27, entrées $29-42 (most in the low $30s). In contrast, the four-course prix fixe at Alto is $79, and the top prices there are all proportionately higher.

 
Amuse-bouche (left); Polenta with house-made pork sausage (right)

We started with a grilled sweatbread, which was more substantial than one normally gets in an amuse-bouche. Creamy soft polenta ($15) topped with a house-made pork sausage ragu and pecorino cheese was rather unmemorable. But substitute orecchiette for polenta, and you’ve got the pasta dish my girlfriend ordered ($24), which was the hit of the evening.

Loin and sausage of lamb (left); Dry aged beef (right)

Both of the entrées we chose were unadventurous, but impeccably prepared. I had the loin and sausage of lamb ($34). My girlfriend had the dry-aged beef ($42), which was that rare example of beef outside a steakhouse that is actually worth ordering.

Despite the slightly inconvenient location, L’Impero appeared to be doing well. The restaurant was full on a Friday night, with a good mix of young people and Upper East Side elders. Just about everything we had was prepared to a high level, but the pasta stole the show.

L’Impero (45 Tudor City Place at 42nd Street, Tudor City)

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

Soto

Kalina via Eater

I’m late to the party with a review of Soto, the new Sushi temple in Greenwich Village. Nearly all of the critics in town have already weighed in with the most enthusiastic reviews of the season so far. Ed Levine found it possibly “the best Japanese restaurant in New York” (though he admitted he’s not tried several of the major candidates), and Frank Bruni awarded a fairly enthusiastic two stars. Adam Platt was the only mildly dissenting voice, finding it “good but not fabulous.”

Soto’s menu of composed sushi plates (top) and cooked items (bottom)Sotohiro Kosugi served his inventive omakase for eleven years in an Atlanta strip mall, drawing a nationwide reputation before deciding to try his hand on New York’s grander stage. He engaged Hiromi Tsuruta (Momofuku, Jewel Bako) to design the space in a Sixth Avenue storefront so unassuming that you could quite easily walk right by without realizing it is a restaurant.

The menu, reprinted daily, has two pages of composed dishes, half of them from the sushi bar, the other half from the kitchen. They’re anywhere from $10–28, with most around $18–20. You won’t get out of Soto cheaply, as it takes at least four or five of these to make up a full meal.

The composed items vary quite a bit in size, and we were somewhat on our own to figure out how much to order. The back page of the menu has standard sushi pieces and rolls at standard prices, and I agree with Frank Bruni that these are competent, but unremarkable.

Levine reported an omakase, which ran $300 for two (tax and tip included), but when I visited last week, the menu stated that the restaurant “will be serving our Tasting course and Pre fixe [sic] menu in the future.” So we ordered à la carte, a mixture of the composed plates and standard sushi items.

Top marks go to uni ika sugomori zukuri, a sea urchin wrapped in thinly sliced squid and shiso, served with a quail egg and soy reduction. My colleagues and I agreed this was the dish of the evening, if not the dish of the century, though it is $24 and was gone after a few bites. We also loved salmon citrus, which offered cured fresh Scottish salmon on a scallion pancake in citrus sauce, but again, it was $18 for only a few bites. Among the hot dishes, tempura ($18) was light and delicate, and with six pieces one of the better values on the menu.

The standard sushi items were, as I have mentioned, unmemorable. However, the back page did offer a terrific Tuna Tartare roll ($16), made with asian pear, cucumber, avocado, sesame, and pine nuts, with a visually striking wrap of white kep.

Service was first-rate, with fresh plates delivered with every course, and all of the composed dishes were presented beautifully. However, those dishes are labor-intensive, and there were often long pauses between courses. The wine list, as you’d expect, has an ample selection of sakes, but oddly enough, just as many Western wines. We selected a sake, of course, and the server ensured our glasses stayed full—which served our purpose, as well as hers.

I found the space somewhat sterile, but it certainly didn’t matter once the food started grabbing our attention. I’d love to come back and explore more of the menu, but I must say that at these prices it will have to wait until I am in the mood to splurge.

Soto (357 Sixth Avenue between Washington Place and W. 4th Street, Greenwich Village)

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

The Payoff: Pamplona

Today, Frank Bruni awards two stars to Pamplona:

The publicity pitch and chatter that attended the transformation of the not-so-old restaurant Ureña into the not-exactly-new restaurant Pamplona boiled down to something like this: the chef Alex Ureña gets real…

Pamplona is Ureña with an attitude adjustment, and I emphasize the word adjustment. Mr. Ureña hasn’t wholly reinvented the restaurant or himself. He’s still interpreting Spanish cuisine, and — lucky for us — still indulging his fanciful impulses.

Bruni has never been a fan of fine dining, so I’m not surprised that chef Alex Ureña managed to hold onto two stars, despite dialing down the ambitions of the restaurant. Bruni’s two stars are consistent with my own impression, when I visited a couple of weeks ago.

The Eater oddsmakers are seldom off by much, but today’s review was an exception, with Eater actually offering better odds on zero stars than two. On our hypothetical $1 bets, New York Journal wins $5 at 5–1 odds, while Eater loses a dollar. And for the first time in quite a while, NYJ’s won–lost record has caught up with Eater’s.

	Eater		NYJ
Bankroll	$60.50		$63.67
Gain/Loss	–1.00		+5.00
Total	$59.50		$68.67
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Won–Lost	24–7		24–7

Rolling the Dice: Pamplona

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 Pamplona, the downmarket follow-up to the wonderful, but alas unsuccessful, Ureña. The Eater oddsmakers have set the action as follows (√√ denotes the Eater bet):

Zero Stars: 4-1
One Star: 2-1 √√
Two Stars: 5-1
Three Stars: 50-1
Four Stars: 25,000-1

The Skinny: Bruni loved the food at Pamplona’s predecessor, Ureña, awarding two stars. Like almost everyone else, he hated the ambiance. I don’t have a photographic memory for décor, but when I visited it certainly seemed like the space had been spruced up a bit. Against that, the food is no longer as ambitious as it was, though it is still a cut above your run-of-the-mill tapas bar.

This situation will leave Señor Bruni in a quandary. If he awards two stars again, it implies that the dumbing down of the food doesn’t matter. But if he awards one star, he condemns Pamplona to the ratings never-never-land, for despite the nominal definition, one star never truly means good. This is one of those days when Bruni probably wishes he could award half-stars.

The Eater oddsmakers have concluded that a review at the low end of one star is a virtual certainty, offering just 2–1 odds on that outcome, and rating the chance of zero stars higher than two. I think Bruni will be truly torn between one and two stars here. He adored Ureña’s cooking the last time, and he is always rooting for earnest family-owned restaurants to succeed.

The Bet: We’re on the fence here, and wouldn’t mind if we were pulled away from blogging by an emergency phone call, which would spare us from having to place a bet. But place one we will, on two stars.

Toloache

[Kalina via Eater]

Note: Click here for a review of Toloache on the Upper East Side.

*

The so-called Mexican food we eat in America is nothing like the real McCoy: that much I learned on a business trip to Mexico City a few years ago. Bulls’ testicles, corn fungus, and fried worms were among the items on order. (I tried the first two, but gave the third a pass.)

At the new midtown restaurant Toloache (pronounced to-lo-AH-chay), you can order Tacos Chapulines, which feature sun-dried grasshoppers. Reviewers Paul Adams and Andrea Strong tried them, and you’ll find a photo here. My girlfriend and I weren’t about to touch them with a ten-foot pole, but ironically, it was this menu item—along with the foie gras tacos, which I did have—that made me think that Toloache was worth a visit.

It’s a striking space on two levels, in a neighborhood that’s normally dead to fine dining. The restaurant has white tablecloths and cloth napkins, but a theater district vibe and hustling waiters who call you a caballero. We arrived without a reservation at around 6:30 on a Friday evening and managed to secure one of the few tables not spoken for. I started with a drink advertised as a pumpkin margarita, but my girlfriend and I agreed there was no perceptible taste of pumpkin.

The menu is in multiple sections: guacamoles ($11), ceviches ($10–17), appetizers from the brick oven ($8–13), tacos ($8–14), small plates ($8–10), entrées ($18–26), and side dishes ($3–7). We weren’t that hungry, and settled on a ceviche and a taco order apiece, with a side of rice & beans. Our server insisted that wasn’t enough, and talked us into ordering a mid-course, which was more than we needed, although his suggestion was the best item we had.

 
Ceviche Atun (left); Mini pumpkin with crabmeat (right)

Chef Julian Medina throws a lot of ingredients together; it doesn’t always work. Ceviche Atun had spicy yellowfin tuna, key lime, vidalia onion, radish, and watermelon. I like spicy food, but the tuna was overwhelmed. In my girlfriend’s shrimp ceviche, the flavor balance worked better.

The next dish was the item our server “upsold” us. Lump crabmeat and pumpkin came served inside a hot miniature pumpkin, with tortilla chips on the side. This inspiration looked like orange guacamole. There were some cool spots inside, suggestive of uneven heating, but it was still the best thing we had at Toloache.

 
Foie Gras tacos (left); Rice & beans (right)

Foie gras tacos seemed, too, to suffer from too many ingredients: foie gras, refried beans, mango, red onion, and chipotle salsa. There was nothing wrong with the dish—how far wrong can you go with foie gras?—but it felt like a gimmick. Our side of rice & beans was fairly standard, and we didn’t finish it.

The restaurant is geared up to serve lots of people in a hurry. We noted tables turning fairly rapidly. There are probably some quality issues in the kitchen: in addition to our crabmeat salad not quite fully heated, we noted that a dish was sent back at the table next to us. There are a lot of clever ideas at Toloache, but you might need a bit of luck to put together a fully satisfying meal.

Toloache (251 W. 50th St. between Eighth Avenue & Broadway, Theater District)

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

26 Seats

There’s no mystery behind the name 26 Seats: it’s the capacity of a sweet little East Village restaurant. It’s the kind of quiet French bistro that we like to think the Parisians have on every street. New York ought to have more like it. In the Times, Eric Asimov liked it too, when he reviewed it for $25 and Under in April 2001.

A friend and I had a leisurely dinner there last week. The menu had few surprises, but it’s nice (for a change) to walk into a place where you’re not greeted by a hostess at a computer terminal, where the person seating you remembers your reservation without having to look it up in a book, and where an 8:00 table is yours for the evening.

It’s friendly on the pocketbook too, with appetizers $6–8, entrées $11–16.50,  and desserts $6.50. Wines, I believe, were around $7 a glass for a generous pour, and the server happily accommodated us when, near the end of the evening, we asked to split a glass.

I ordered a duck confit (around $14), which was nothing special, but at that price one can hardly complain. Service was professional and friendly. The space is cozy, but perhaps that is part of the charm.

26 Seats (168 Avenue B between 10th & 11th Streets, East Village)

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

F.illi Ponte

This week, I dined at F.illi Ponte for the first time in over three years. It was a business dinner, and I wasn’t focused on reviewing, but I felt it would be worth recording my impression.

A bit of history is in order. In 1967, Ponte’s steakhouse opened in what was then a remote corner of TriBeCa. The restaurant needed signs visible from the West Side Highway to lure diners, who must have felt a bit brave about even venturing into the neighborhood. A colleague mentioned the other night that, twenty years ago, he could have had a condo in the area for $90,000. Today, it would cost millions.

In the mid-1990s, the grandson of the original owner remodeled the space, stripping down the walls to reveal the original brick, and installing broad picture windows facing the Hudson. Rechristened F.illi Ponte (meaning “Ponte Brothers”), in 1995, it won an enthusiastic two stars from Ruth Reichl in the Times. But by 2002, Eric Asimov served up a double-demotion to “Satisfactory,” noting that the restaurant was “coasting.” I rated it at 1½ stars on my last visit.

The last time I came this way, most of the old warehouses nearby were in the process of being converted to condos. Most of those conversions are now completed. Though the surrounding streets still don’t get much foot traffic, F.illi Ponte no longer feels like it’s in no-man’s land. The neighborhood has caught up to the restaurant.

The space is on two levels, but a bar on the ground floor seems to be unused, except for special events. I noted a large display of pumpkins, then went upstairs to the main bar area, which is large and comfortable, with plush sofas that could be a friend’s living room.

After drinks, our party of eight moved to the dining room, which is beautifully appointed, with spectacular Hudson River views at night. The staff suggested a selection of appetizers and pastas served family-style. Their choices were mostly old-school, but updated for the season. A pumpkin ravioli was the highlight, but old standards like a plump searee scallop, or tomato salad with mozzarella, were executed perfectly.

A salmon entrée came with a crunchy herb crust, but the sauce pooled on the side wasn’t quite enough to compensate for a fish that was slightly dry. That error may have been an anomaly, though, as I heard no other complaints at the table.

With all entrées at $30 and up, pastas at $25 and up, the cost of dinner at F.illi Ponte can mount rapidly. There are some bargains on the wine list, though—at least in relative terms. I found a great 2001 Barolo at $100 a bottle. In many Italian restaurants, you can’t touch the Barolos for less than $150.

Service was excellent, but with the dining room well under half full on a Tuesday evening, the staff were able to give us their full attention. There were none of the service glitches that I noted on my earlier visit, or that Asimov noted in his 2002 re-review.

F.illi Ponte isn’t one of the city’s pathbreaking Italian restaurants, but it won’t disappoint you either, and it offers one of the best views in the city.

F.illi Ponte (39 Debrosses Street at West Street, TriBeCa)

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