Kingside
Sunday, November 17, 2013 at 05:47PM 
It’s almost forgotten now, but in 2004 Landmarc was happening. Eater and Grub Street didn’t exist then, but if they had, Landmarc would have soared right to the top of the “Where To Eat Now” lists.
Diners endured hour-long waits for cuisine that wasn’t especially inventive or clever, just comfort-food classics really well made in a casual room. Nowadays, another place like that opens every week. In 2004, it wasn’t a cliché, yet.
The French-trained chef, Marc Murphy, parlayed the success to a second Landmarc in the Time-Warner Center, in the space Charlie Trotter was once supposed to occupy.
The crowds at the original Tribeca Landmarc subsided, as they always do at hot restaurants. A few years later, both Landmarcs were just serving gussied-up shopping mall food, with shopping mall service to match.
Despite training in “some of the most highly esteemed kitchens in the world from Paris to Monte Carlo” (so says the website), Murphy’s ambitions remained decidedly low-brow. His next project, a two-restaurant chain called Ditch Plains, did for the seafood shack what Landmarc had done for American comfort food. We liked Ditch plains, but there’s no mistaking what it is.
If you replicate Landmarc’s cuisine, dial up the volume, and do it well, what do you get? Welcome to Kingside, Murphy’s latest production, a big, bold brasserie in the Viceroy Hotel, a few doors down from Carnegie Hall.
No one will confuse Kingside for the bargain Landmarc used to be. Cocktails are $16, and most of the entrées—sorry, “large plates”—are over $30. These prices aren’t out of line for the location, but even after eating and drinking without excess, you’ll still be well over $200 a couple, for food that’s well made but not very memorable.
