Benoit

Alain Ducasse never gets an opening right in New York. His troubles at the Essex House and at Mix are well enough known that I needn’t repeat them. (Let google be your friend, if they’re unfamiliar to you.) Anyhow, those restaurants are long gone.

Adour at the St. Regis and Benoit are both on their third executive chefs in roughly four years. I hear great things about chef Didier Elena’s tenure at Adour, but haven’t been back yet. The other night was my first visit to Benoit since Philippe Bertineau took over last year.

When Ducasse opened Benoit, he told The Times that he had a list of 100 recipes he’d like “to put on the menu sooner or later.” I can believe that, as the menu looks new almost every time I go. I won’t miss the fries “Louis l’Ami style,” stacked in an impressive-looking tower but cold and greasy on the inside, nor a bizarre pork shank I had in 2009.

Other items, like the egg mayo, escargots, onion soup, quenelles, roast chicken for two, and steak aux poivres, have been more or less constant since the place opened. Cassoulet is offered in season, as in right now. It’s all classic French bistro food, made well.

Prices have edged upward, as they have almost everywhere. In 2008, there were no items above $29; now, half the entrées exceed that price, with the high end at $39. Onion soup that was $9 in 2008 is $12 now. Cassoulet that was $26 in 2009 is $29 now.

You can also dine more economically. At each place setting is a printed card with a pencil, where you can check off three appetizers for $12 or five for $16. If you’re there before 6:30 p.m., as I was the other night, the pre-theatre prix fixe is $29 for two courses or $39 for three. (There is also a less expensive bar menu.)

The carb spread (above left) is pretty good, with four light gougères and sliced French bread in a cloth basket.

The $29 prix fixe offered three choices apiece for the appetizer and entrée. The twice-baked Comté cheese soufflé (above left) was rich and luscious, with a creamy sauce poured tableside. My apologies for the poor photo.

Skate Wing Grenobloise (above right) was the best fish entrée I’ve had in a few months, with crisp crust, tangy on the inside. (The term “Grenobloise” refers to a sauce with browned butter, capers, parsley, and lemon.) Skate isn’t a luxury fish, but the kitchen couldn’t have made it shine any more brightly.

The ambiance straddles the divide between fancy and casual. Once upon a time, there was a four-star restaurant here. The iconic room (formerly La Côte Basque) could stand to be a bit brighter. There are crisp white tablecloths, sauces and flambées at tableside, French-speaking waiters, and a deep wine list where many bottles reach three figures. But roasted peanuts (above right) replace the usual petits fours, the menu is presented in a plastic sleeve, and the wine glasses are “one size fits all.” There’s a good list of classic cocktails, like the French 75 ($15), but the list of wines by the glass is over-priced and underwhelming.

On some prior visits (this was my fourth or fifth), I’ve noted scatter-brained service as the restaurant fills up. I couldn’t test if that problem has been fixed, as it was only about one-quarter full at 6:15 p.m., and still under half full when I left for Carnegie Hall at 7:15. The server was attentive, and the food came out fairly quickly.

Ducasse keeps fiddling with the place, but despite occasional flubs on past visits, Benoit still feels like a two-star restaurant to me, and a vital one at that.

Benoit (60 W. 55th Street between Fifth & Sixth Avenues, West Midtown)

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

The Burger at Saxon + Parole

Earlier this year, AvroKO Hospitality Group and chef Brad Farmerie decided to close their three-year-old Asian-themed restaurant, Double Crown. Farmerie told The Times, “I want to take a fresh approach, innovate on familiar dishes with touches of North Africa and the Mediterranean.”

If there is anything fresh or innovative about its replacement, Saxon + Parole, it is lost on me. The menu offers the likes of seafood towers, a beet and feta cheese salad, a foie gras terrine, steaks, chops, lobster, chicken, a whole branzino, and so forth. It’s a generic upscale suburban restaurant, transplanted to the Bowery, with the kind of easily replicated fare that can be churned out on auto-pilot while Farmerie tends to his Michelin-starred flagship, Public.

The design department at AvroKO, which was once hailed for innovative designs at Public and Park Avenue, has fallen pray to repetition. This exact idea (named for two nineteenth-century race horses) hasn’t been used before, but there is nothing clever in its realization. The firm has become a world-class accumulator of tchotchkes.

In a one-star review earlier this week, Eric Asimov of The Times praised the burger ($17), so I ordered that. It gets a wonderful kick from a gooey fried egg, Havarti cheese, and maple bacon. The beef has a strong fatty flavor, but probably wouldn’t hold up on its own without all of the extra toppings. The fries ($6 if ordered separately) come with two dipping sauces, chili ketchup and blue cheese mayo. To my taste they were too greasy, but perhaps some people like them that way.

I dined at the bar, where getting a server’s attention was a chore. Whatever you may want—to get a menu, to order, to get a check—you’ll be waving your arms wildly before you’re noticed.

They do a brisk bar business here. I had two tequila-based drinks, the Bowery Fx and the Beetnik (both $14). The tables appeared to be about half full at 7:00 p.m., but that’s early by East Village standards. With tables spaced fairly close together and plenty of hard, exposed surfaces, it’ll get loud later on. I didn’t stick around to find out.

In a neighborhood chock full of restaurants with personality, I’m hard press to see the point of Saxon + Parole, which seems to revel in its very ordinariness. I suppose another AvroKO creation will replace it in a few years.

Saxon + Parole (316 Bowery at Bleecker Street, East Village)

Coppelia

Coppelia, as critic Robert Sietsema observed in the Village Voice, is what the average New York City diner might have been, if the tradition had been founded by Latinos instead of Greeks. Or the Walt Disney version, at any rate. It could transfer to the Cuban pavilian at Epcot (if there was one), and chef Julian Medina wouldn’t need to change a thing.

Medina is in his moment now, with three outposts of his Mexican place Toloache, two of his pan-Latin restaurant Yerba Buena, and now Coppelia, which is billed as Cuban, but isn’t really anchored to any national cuisine.

Coppelia is the least ambitious of the three, but as diners go, you’ll be happy it exists. Located strategically at the midpoint between Chelsea’s clubland and the Meatpacking District, it’s open 24/7, serving the perfect food for soaking up alcohol after night on the town. At 8:00 p.m. on a rainy Saturday evening, it was nearly deserted. My son wondered how it could stay in business. “The crowds come later,” I explained.

If you come in sober, what you’ll find is decent, inexpensive (for Chelsea), pan-Latin cuisine. Entrées are $13.95–17.95; burgers and sandwiches $6.95–7.95; starters and salads $2.95–10.95; breakfast dishes, served all day, $4.95–9.95. The food is slightly better than you are entitled to expect at those prices.

Fish tacos ($9.95; above left) offered crispy flounder and guacamole, topped with a rich chipotle cole slaw. Arroz con pollo ($15.95; above right) could feed a family. The chicken was tender, the rice sweet and sticky, and there was an abundance of peas, peppers, and scrambled egg.

But Ropa Vieja ($15.95; above left) was dull. The shredded beef both looked and tasted like traditional diner food, and a side of beans (above right) was too watery.

There is no liquor license yet (the staff says it’s a week away). A lime soda imported from Mexico wasn’t bad at all, though at $4.50 is a bit expensive in relation to the menu. Service was attentive, as it ought to be when the ratio of staff to customers is nearly one to one. I’ve no doubt they get a lot busier later on.

I wouldn’t want to over-hype Coppelia, but it’s the kind of restaurant you’re glad to have around.

Coppelia (206 W. 14th St., west of Seventh Avenue, Chelsea)

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

Lincoln Ristorante

I’ve dined at Lincoln Ristorante several times since it opened a year ago. It is not my favorite Lincoln Center restaurant, but it is certainly the most convenient, and it is very good.

I just wish I liked it better. I want to like it better. People I respect like it better. But it usually leaves me wanting more.

Lincoln opened with the proverbial thud, getting lukewarm reviews from most of the city’s critics. I had a long list of complaints in my original review, and I stand by most of them. Lincoln is too corporate: it screams of design by committee. The room and the building are unattractive. These things are unfixable.

What Chef Jonathan Benno and Restaurant Director Paolo Novello have done, is to fix what they can. Lincoln is not bargain dining, but prices now are a shade lower. An expensive tasting menu and an absurd $130 ribeye are no longer offered. Portion sizes, which for some dishes were insultingly small, have been increased.

Benno has found his inside voice. Though I am not fond of the open kitchen, at least you no longer hear a drill sergeant commanding the Normandy invasion. We sat right next to the glass partition at dinner a couple of weeks ago, and I don’t think we heard him once. What a relief!

Service, which was already excellent, has continued to improve. The staff know they need to get you to your show on time—all of my visits have been pre-concert or pre-opera—and they do it well, without ever seeming to be in a rush. Ask about any item, and a clear, patient, encyclopedic explanation will follow.

On the current menu, antipasti are $17–25, pastas $20–28, entrées $30–45, side dishes $10–15, and desserts $10–12. A traditional four-course Italian meal will thus set you back around $90 to $100 a head before wine, but I seldom eat that much before a show, and I am probably not alone. Indeed, the staff actively suggest that pasta dishes be ordered as mains or in half-portions.

We shared the Reginette Verdi al Ragú Bolognese ($24; above left), which the kitchen divided and served in separate bowls. This was one of the more enjoyable pastas I’ve had in quite a while. The reginette is a fascinating noodle, shaped like a long, thin, green zipper. The ragú was a rich mix of veal, pork, and beef, topped with just the right kick from parmigiano-reggiano.

But Halibut ($36; above right) was on the dry side. It was served over excessively salty lentils baked in chicken stock and pig trotters, but I couldn’t taste those ingredients. This seems to be my fate at Lincoln, where the wonderful dishes are offset by the less successful ones.

With the petits fours (right) there’s no argument. They may not be the fanciest, but they are more than sufficient.

So that’s the status of Lincoln circa late 2011. The professional reviews have started to improve. Esquire’s John Marianai called it one of the best new restaurants of the year. Gael Greene in Crain’s recently gave it “three hats” out of four, noting, “It is thrilling to watch a shy, insecure adolescent grow into a magnetic, irresistible beauty.”

But even allowing a year for Lincoln to improve, the Post’s Steve Cuozzo could only give it two stars recently, just slightly better than his 1½ stars a year ago.

I’m with Cuozzo. I very much want to like it better, but still cannot.

Lincoln (142 West 65th Street at Lincoln Center)

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