Review Previews: DBGB, Marea, Eleven Madison Park

Record to date: 8–3

We’ll be away for the next two weeks, and most likely will not be able to post our Review Previews in real time, so we’re posting them now.

Bruni has three reviews remaining. What will they be?

1. Marea is a definite: there’s no way Bruni would pass up an upscale Italian place that opened on his watch.
2. Eater.com reported that Bruni has been spoted three times recently at Eleven Madison Park. He wouldn’t be there so often in the twilight of his tenure unless he’s working up a re-review.
3. The last one’s something of a wild card, but among places that must be reviewed (and a Boulud restaurant clearly fits this description), we are fairly certain that DBGB is the oldest outstanding.

Bruni has already reviewed Eleven Madison Park twice (two stars; 2/23/2005 and three stars; 1/10/2007). A promotion to four is the only conceivable reason to review it again. He has not named a new four-star restaurant since Masa in December 2004. The 4½-year gap is the longest in Times history, a record he set in the middle of last year. We and others believe that he’s itching to crown one more.

Unfortunately, that will leave poor Marea with three stars, as Bruni isn’t going to canonize two restaurants in under a month, when in almost five years he found none at all. We don’t think Marea is a four-star restaurant in any event, but given Bruni’s love-affair with Italian cuisine we thought he just might pull the trigger until we heard he was taking another hard look at Eleven Madison. (If the 11MP review doesn’t come through, then Mike White and Chris Cannon could still have a chance.)

Finally, DBGB: Most reviews we’ve seen (including our own) have been slightly less enthusiastic about this place than Bar Boulud at Lincoln Center, where Bruni awarded two stars. We therefore believe that DBGB will be rated a notch lower, at one star.

In summary, our predictions are: one star for DBGB, three stars for Marea, and four stars for Eleven Madison Park. Obviously, it’s possible that Bruni’s final reviews will include one or two other places, but we’re positive that Marea will be among the three.

Marea

Chris Cannon and Micheal White, owner & chef respectively of the new restaurant Marea, are too smart to actually announce that they are gunning for four stars. That hasn’t stopped others (Ben Leventhal, Mister Cutlets) from making ambitious predictions on their behalf, but Messrs. Cannon and White have been wisely silent.

You just know it’s true, though. White has earned three NYT stars on a trio of occasions—at Fiamma Osteria, where he no longer works, and at Alto & Convivio, where he still does. You just know he wouldn’t have signed up for $700,000 in annual rent and a luxurious make-over of the old San Domenico space, if all he wanted was another three-star restaurant.

When I saw the opening menu, my heart sank: it featured over 85 items in almost a dozen categories. No three- or four-star restaurant tries to serve so many things, especially in the early days. It is often a recipe for disaster; it is seldom a prescription for excellence.

When we visited on Saturday evening, we found a menu slightly simplified, but it still offered over 70 items, or about double what it should, even allowing that some of them are crudi or raw bar selections that require minimal preparation. The unfortunate result was predictable: rubbery squid; cold pasta; over-cooked sturgeon.

The restaurant also has the same problem that plagued San Domenico: it is a large space, and it is difficult for a kitchen to keep up, especially when so many of the dishes are as overwrought as they are here. We know that Michael White can cook, but predictions that he would get four stars out of the gate seem to us premature—that is, assuming Frank Bruni doesn’t have a lobotomy between now and August.

Marea means tide in Italian, and the cuisine is all seafood, aside from a couple of bail-out dishes for landlubbers. The menu is hedged for the economy, as it naturally would be. It suggests, in small print, the four-course prix fixe at $89. You can still order à la carte and get out for less money, although by no means cheaply.

Just to list all of the menu categories is exhausting: snacks to share ($9–14); crudi ($11–17, or $23 for three); six kinds of oysters ($3.50 ea.; $35 per dozen); caviar; antipasti ($17–24); primi and risotti ($24–36), secondi ($35–47), whole fish & shellfish ($39–49 per pound). The whole fish offer a choice from among four sauces and six sides; there seems to be no way to order the sides separately.

It took us quite a while to absorb all of this. The $89 prix fixe precludes the whole fish; you can choose one antipasto or crudo, one pasta or risotto, and one secondo, though a number of them carry supplements. We finally decoded the whole menu and were ready to order.

Polipo, or grilled octopus (above left) was a rubbery disaster, rendering irrelevant the bed of rice, fava beans, and yellow tomatoes on which it lay.

Tartare of Hawaiian blue prawns, chanterelles, and almonds (above right) was fine, but a bit flat. The almonds were draped casually over the top of the tartare, but not really integrated in the dish. We had similar misgivings about most of the things we tried.

Gramigna (above left) caught my eye because it wedded smoked cod and speck, along with leeks and gremolata. It was the more successful of our two pastas, but for the life of us we couldn’t detect any smoked cod. “I wonder if they forgot it,” my girlfriend remarked.

Ferratini (above right) arrived not warm enough, and it also suffered from poorly calibrated ingredients. It allegedly contained manila clams, calamari, and hot chilies, but the latter ingredient was singular. We counted just one chili, and it contributed nothing to the flavor of the dish.

A long wait ensued for the secondi. We were in no hurry, but the delay foretold another culinary misfire. Storione, or Columbia river sturgeon (above left) arrived tasting like dry sponge, along with another miscellaneous mixture of ingredients—chanterelles, spring garlic, and citrus.

Seppia, or grilled Mediterranean cuttlefish (above right) seemed to have been correctly prepared, and it was somewhat more intriguing, as one is seldom served the whole animal. But again, it had little to do with its dance partners: braised escarole, livornese sauce, and wild oregano.

Dessert was the only fully successful course: a pineapple cheesecake with coconut sorbet (above left); a panna cotta with blueberries (above right). [This is the only course for which I do not have a printed menu, so these descriptions might not be quite right.]

There were no amuse courses, as one normally expects at a restaurant serving an $89 prix fixe. The breads were excellent, especially a focaccia; at the end, a meager quartet of chocolate petits-fours was yet another reminder of the amenities Marea still lacks, in light of its price range.

When the kitchen is under control, Marea will be a lovely place to dine. The multi-million dollar rehab of the dowdy old San Domenico space is stunning, without being ostentatious. You can’t avoid noticing how lovely it is, but it doesn’t get in your way. The serving pieces are lovely too, including a gorgeous charger plate I’d love to take home.

The staff render polished service. The lengthy wine list has plenty for the $50-and-under crowd (like us). A sommelier visited our table unbidden and immediately directed us to a happy choice in our price range. When we got home, I realized I hadn’t taken a copy of the menu and would have no hope of remembering all of the Italian names and ingredients. I called the restaurant back, and they emailed it to me that same evening. At 12:15 a.m.

We do not doubt that Marea is capable of turning out multi-star food. On some days, and for some guests, it may be doing so now. But nothing we tried, even had it been executed properly, approached the potential of the city’s gold standard for seafood, Le Bernardin. Perhaps it is a disservice to Michael White that anyone suggested Marea was in the same league.

Sadly, Chef White now cannot take the one obvious step that would improve Marea tremendously, which is to cut the menu in half. That would smell of desperation—admitting defeat just as the critics are starting to take their measure of the place. So he will continue to tinker around the edges and hope that he can send out winners when he has to.

Marea (240 Central Park West between Seventh Avenue & Broadway, West Midtown)

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

Exit L'Impero, Enter Convivio

Today, Grub Street reports that L’Impero, the Tudor City Italian mainstay, will close on June 29, re-opening in mid-July as Convivio.

The “lugubrious” interior, which Frank Bruni likened to the inside of a coffin, will get a long-overdue makeover. The menu will offer a $59 four-course prix fixe — that’s $5 less than when we visited last year — with “small plates” served à la carte.

We’ve often noted that small-plate menus are seldom any cheaper, once you order enough food for a full meal. And because they are more confusing, such menus are prone to upselling and over-ordering. It will be interesting to see if L’Impero, er, Convivo, can avoid falling into that trap.

We agree with Cutlets that the makover offers a clean break from the Scott Conant era (he’s now at Scarpetta), and it will likely lure Frank Bruni for a re-review. Those are compelling reasons in themselves.

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

The Payoff: Alto and L'Impero

Today, as expected, Frank Bruni does the do-se-do with Alto and L’Impero, taking a star from the latter and giving it to the former:

L’Impero and Alto remain vital restaurants, worthy of the attention of anyone who cares about serious Italian cooking. Alto, in fact, is better than ever…

L’Impero is now the restaurant with the more lugubrious air, all of that pleated drapery along the walls evoking the upholstered interior of a very large coffin.

I can neither agree nor disagree with Bruni here, as my visit to Alto dates from the Conant era, and I have never yet visited L’Impero. These are Italian restaurants, and from Bruni one naturally expected the stars to be twinkling this week. Coincidentally, I made reservations at L’Impero for a week from Friday—before knowing that Bruni would be reviewing it. Could there be a paranormal psychic channel between us? The mind shudders.

On our hypothetical $1 bets, Eater and I win $2 at L’Impero and $3 at Alto, for a whopping $5 payoff this week.

	Eater		NYJ
Bankroll	$55.50		$58.67
Gain/Loss	+5.00		+5.00
Total	$60.50		$63.67
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Won–Lost	24–6		23–7

Rolling the Dice: L'Impero and Alto

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 gives us an haute Italian two-fer: L’Impero and Alto. The Eater oddsmakers have set the action as follows (√√ denotes the Eater bet):

     L’Impero
Zero Stars: 8-1
One Star: 5-1
Two Stars: 2-1 √√
Three Stars: 4-1
Four Stars: 10,000-1

     Alto
Zero Stars: 9-1
One Star: 5-1
Two Stars: 4-1
Three Stars: 3-1 √√
Four Stars: 8,000-1

The Skinny: L’Impero was the restaurant that put Scott Conant on the map when Eric Asimov awarded three stars in December 2002—a rare accomplishment for a non-Italian chef, to say the least. In 2005, Conant opened Alto, this time focusing on northern Italian cuisine. Frank Bruni gave it a brutal two-star review. It was a devastating takedown for a restaurant that was supposed to be more upscale than L’Impero. Not long thereafter, Eater put Alto deathwatch, but defying the odds, it has remained open—thriving, even. Earlier this year, Conant left both restaurants, with Michael White, formerly of the three-star Fiamma, replacing him.

This week’s duo is tough to assess, but I am leaning towards the same conclusions as Eater. L’Impero flies well below the radar these days, which suggests it is no longer among this town’s elite. Bruni loves Italian, but he has given three stars to a lot of places. At some point, he’s got to make distinctions, and L’Impero may be the one that doesn’t make the cut.

Normally, a re-review brings a change of rating. It’s hard to imagine him liking Alto any less than last time, which suggests it has nowhere to go but up. Of course, White’s arrival may be reason enough for the re-review, with or without a change of rating. But I thought that Bruni woefully mis-rated Alto last time, so this gives him the chance to right a wrong.

The Bet: We agree with Eater that Frank Bruni will award two stars to L’Impero and three stars to Alto.