Michelin New York 2011 Ratings

The Michelin New York 2011 ratings were announced today. Our full recap of the stars from 2006 to the present is given in the table below (previously: 2009, 2010). Here’s a summary of this year’s changes:

Three-Star Restaurants: The list remains the same as a year ago: Daniel, Jean Georges, Le Bernardin, Masa, Per Se.

Two-Star Restaurants: All of the previous entrants kept their stars. Kajitsu, Marea, and Soto were promoted from one star to two. Brookyn Fare won two in its first year of eligibility(*). There are now 10 two-star restaurants, up from six a year ago.

One-Star Restaurants:

• Recognized after being previously unstarred: Aldea, Danny Brown, Dovetail
• Starred in their first year of eligibility(*): A Voce Columbus, The Breslin, Laut

Demoted Restaurants: Insieme and Perry St. were demoted from one star to none. Insieme lost its chef, so this was not a surprise. At Perry St., Jean-Georges installed his son Cedric as chef, and it seems the Guide is not impressed.

Closed Restaurants: Anthos and Veritas retained their stars, because they closed too late for the guide to be revised. Anthos is closed for good. Veritas is apparently re-opening with a much more casual menu that will probably not be starred.

Restaurant	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011
Adour				**	*	*
Alain Ducasse	***
Aldea						*
Allen & Delancey				*
Alto				*	**	**
Annisa	*	*	*	*	*	*
Anthos			*	*	*	*
Aureole	*	*	*	*	*	*
A Voce Columbus						*
A Voce Madison		*	*		*	*
Babbo	*	*	*
BLT Fish	*
Blue Hill			*	*	*	*
Bouley	**	**	**		*	*
Breslin, The						*
Brooklyn Fare						**
Café Boulud	*	*	*	*	*	*
Café Gray	*	*	*
Casa Mono					*	*
Convivio					*	*
Corton					**	**
Country		*	*
Craft	*	*
Cru	*	*	*	*
Daniel	**	**	**	**	***	***
Danny Brown						*
Danube	**	*	*
Del Posto		**	**	**	*	*
Dévi		*	*
Dovetail						*
Dressler			*	*	*	*
Eighty One				*	*
Eleven Madison Park					*	*
Etats-Unis	*	*	*	*	*
Fiamma (Osteria)	*	*		*
Fleur de Sel	*	*	*	*
Gilt			*	**	**	**
Gotham Bar & Grill	*	*	*	*	*	*
Gordon Ramsay			**	**	**	**
Gramercy Tavern	*	*	*	*	*	*
Insieme				*	*
Jean Georges	***	***	***	***	***	***
Jewel Bako	*	*	*	*	*	*
JoJo	*		*	*
Kajitsu					*	**
Kyo Ya				*	*	*
Kurumazushi		*	*
L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon			*	*	*	*
La Goulue	*	*
Le Bernardin	***	***	***	***	***	***
Laut						*
Lever House	*	*
Lo Scalco	*
Marc Forgione					*	*
March	*
Marea					*	**
Masa	**	**	**	***	***	***
Minetta Tavern					*	*
Modern, The	*	*	*	*	*	*
Momofuku Ko				**	**	**
Nobu	*
Oceana	*	*	*	*	*	*
Perry St.		*	*	*	*
Per Se	***	***	***	***	***	***
Peter Luger	*	*	*	*	*	*
Picholine	*	*	**	**	**	**
Public				*	*	*
Rhong-Tiam					*
River Café					*	*
Rouge Tomate					*	*
Saul	*	*	*	*	*	*
Scalini Fedeli	*
Seäsonal					*	*
Shalezeh					*	*
SHO Shaun Hergatt					*	*
Soto					*	**
Spotted Pig	*	*	*	*	*	*
Sushi Azabu					*	*
Sushi of Gari		*	*	*	*	*
Veritas	*	*	*	*	*	*
Vong	*	*	*
Wallsé	*	*	*	*	*	*
WD~50	*	*	*	*	*	*

Color Key:

Green: Restaurant promoted, or starred in first year of eligibility(*)
Yellow: Restaurant demoted, but still has at least one star
Red: Restaurant demoted, and now unstarred
Gray: Restaurant closed, moved, or opened too late in year to be rated

(*) Note: The “first year of eligibility” is a judgment call, since Michelin does not say how late in the year a restaurant could open, and still be considered for a star. If a restaurant opened after May 1, I assume it was too late to be starred for the following year’s guide.

The Lambs Club

Why do theater district restaurants have to be snoozers? Sure, a lot of the area’s eating places are just conveyer belts with seating, designed to produce factory-made food at exorbitant prices. But there are some theater-goers with more sophisticated tastes. Why shouldn’t there be a restaurant for them?

I thought the Lambs Club just might be that restaurant. Located in a landmarked boutique hotel (The Chatwal), with a multi-starred chef on board as consultant (Geoffrey Zakarian), a former Alain Ducasse chef in the kitchen (Joel Dennis), and a luxe space that took three years to build, why wouldn’t this be the place?

On the other hand, Zakarian is the guy who fiddled while his two previous restaurants, Town and Country, imploded. And Joel Dennis is the guy who got bounced from Adour after it lost a Michelin star.

Unfortunately, the Lambs Club reminds me of Town and Country in their sad last days, as well as of our meal at Adour, which I described at the time, as “downright soporific: one yawn after another. There’s no excitement on the plate at all.”

Although the food is dullsville, you’ll eat in a bright, attractive, and comfortable room, and you’ll experience something close to three-star service. Bring grandma here for her 80th birthday. She’ll be well treated, and there’s plenty on the menu she can eat.

For a restaurant this nice, the prices aren’t bad, with most of the appetizers in the high teens, and most of the entrées in the high twenties. But you’re paying for ambiance, as the food is nothing special. Bread service, at least, is better than average, with doughy parker-house rolls, baguettes, and crudités to start (above left).

 

Heritage Pork Ravioli ($15; above left) with broccoli rabe was practically devoid of flavor. Couldn’t they at least have added some butter? A foie gras terrine ($26; above right) with black mission figs and grilled country bread was luxurious by default, but Salon Millesime served us a nicer one last week for $10 less.

 

There was nothing impressive about Roasted Lamb Saddle (above left), and there didn’t seem to be much on the plate for $35. A prime Delmonico steak (above right), served off the bone, wasn’t bad at all, but at $46 there are better options in town. A side dish of fingerling potatoes ($8) was predictably dull.

You probably won’t be surprised when I say the wine list skews expensive. A 2006 Tard-Laur St. Joseph was $75, and there wasn’t much of interest below that price. It was, at the very least, an enjoyable wine, and we were well tended by the sommelier. I am always worried when the bottle doesn’t remain on the table, but he kept our glasses replenished. The glassware here, by the way, is some of the most elegant I have seen. Too bad you can’t eat it.

Service overall was perfectly attentive, and aside from the lack of bread knives I cannot find fault with it. The only thing lacking is food that lives up to the setting.

The Lambs Club (130 W. 44th St. between 6th & 7th Avenues, West Midtown)i

Food: ★
Service: ★★½
Ambiance: ★★½
Overall: ★½

Riverpark

The unwritten rules that divide success from failure in the restaurant world are counter-intuitive. When Tom Colicchio’s new Riverpark opened in late September, Eater.com noted that it “provides a much needed dining option to the vast number of hospital workers in the wasteland that is the upper 20s around 1st Avenue.”

You’d think that a fine-dining restaurant by one of America’s best-known celebrity chefs, in a neighborhood where it’ll have the market to itself, would be a sure thing. Oddly enough, it usually doesn’t work that way. There’s a reason why nobody else has put a destination restaurant along hospital row. A health care worker in scrubs, after a long shift, isn’t looking for a $14 burger or $55 chicken for two.

Colicchio has doubled down on this location, which also has an outpost of his ’wichcraft sandwich chain, in a gorgeous all-glass building (see photo, right). I suspect it will do quite well; the restaurant is an entirely different matter.

Riverpark is in the brand new Alexandria Center, a biotech tower on East 29th Street past First Avenue, more than half-a-mile from the nearest subway station. To reach the restaurant, you walk past an unmarked gate at 29th & First, up a long unmarked driveway, and finally get to the dining room at the back of a sterile-looking lobby that smells like car dealership. It will get zero walk-in business, because you don’t even know it’s there. Drug reps will need to buy a lot of expense-account meals to fill this place.

It’s not all bad news for Riverpark. At this early date, the food is pretty good. That’s a contrast to Colicchio & Sons across town, where our early meal was a disaster—and many critics (though not the Times) had a similar experience.

The décor is right out of the Craft–Craftsteak handbook, with the addition of unobstructed East River views. It’s a pity that the floor-to-ceiling windows don’t open (as far as we could tell). The terrace just might be the city’s best outdoor dining destination, but first, Riverpark will have to tough out a long winter. Opening now, just as the weather is turning, was clearly not the best timing—even if a construction schedule beyond the restaurant’s control was the reason for it.

Though Riverpark is billed as “A Tom Colicchio Restaurant,” it doesn’t charge Tom Colicchio prices. Except for a few entrées “for two,” all of the mains are $28 or less. There’s also a separate bar menu, with entrées all under $20. That $55 chicken is an anomaly; everything else is quite reasonable, especially given the tariff at Colicchio’s other places.

The staff somewhat arbitrarily calls half the room “the pub,” but there is no noticeable difference between the two spaces, and either menu is served at any table. I think the so-called pub tables, situated closer to the water, are actually more desirable. In an odd design choice, the bar occupies the middle of the room, blocking the view for many of the so-called “dining room” tables, and leaving many of the bar patrons facing the wrong way.

Colicchio has handed over the cooking duties to his deputy, Sisha Ortuzar, who was the corporate chef of ’wichcraft for the last seven years. I wondered how well a sandwich guy would transition to fine dining. Quite well, it turns out.

Squab Mole ($15; above left) doesn’t look that great in the photo, but it’s a very good dish. So is Glazed Pork Belly ($9; above right) with pickled vegetables and jalapeño. The former comes from the dinner menu, the latter from the pub menu, but you would never guess that.

Sea Bass ($25; above left) was nicely done, in a rich seafood sauce, though I could have done without the crostini (shown at the top of the plate), which got a bit soggy. Spaghetti ($24 as an entrée; above right), clearly house-made, was just fine, with calamari, lobster, cockles, tomato, black olives, lemon, and basil.

We weren’t quite ready for dinner to end, so we ordered a Fruit Crisp ($10; right) to share, which was as good as it ought to be.

The restaurant is offering a 20 percent discount for the first two weeks. Even without that, the meal would have been $150 including cocktails and a bottle of wine, which is more than fair for food of this quality. You’d pay at least $50 more at Colicchio & Sons or Craft, with no assurance you’d enjoy it any better.

Our server was attentive, if slightly over-stretched, and there were some inexplicably long gaps between courses. However, that is one of the reasons why opening discounts are offered. I do not hold it against them.

The dining room was fairly empty at 6:30 p.m., but by the time we left, around 8:30, it was around 90 percent full. Keeping it full will be a challenge, as there is no history of fine dining in this neighborhood, and as a destination Riverpark is a very long hike from just about anywhere. On a value basis, this is probably the best of Colicchio’s New York restaurants, but I don’t know how often he’ll lure diners this far east.

Riverpark (450 E. 29th Street, east of First Avenue, Kips Bay)

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