NYC's Top Ten New Restaurants of 2010

’Tis the season when food writers sum up a year’s worth of dining, so here are my top ten new restaurants of 2010.

It was not a great year. No new restaurant earned three or four stars on our rating scale, although two came close: Millesime and Tamarind Tribeca. Sam Sifton of the Times awarded three stars to just one new place, Colicchio & Sons, but most critics (including me) found it disappointing. There is no “almost” in Timesspeak, but it did not appear that Sifton came even close to awarding three stars to any other new restaurant.

This does not mean that we ate badly, only that our best meals in new restaurants were at the lower end of the dining spectrum. This isn’t really surprising. Restaurants generally have six to eighteen-month planning cycles. If you’d been planning a new place in 2008 or 2009, how ambitious would you have been?

I’ve ordered the restaurants based on my dining experiences, which in most cases was one visit. Unlike the pro critics, I’m spending my own money. If I am disappointed, I’m not going to go back a second or third time, just to see if it was a fluke. Even when I like a place, I often don’t have the time or money to go back right away.

Some of the restaurants listed below actually opened in late 2009. I’ve included them if my first (or only) visit was in calendar year 2010.

1. Millesime. Chef Laurent Manrique returns to NYC (he was here in the ’90s), having won two Michelin stars in San Francisco. This classic French seafood brasserie doesn’t soar quite as high as that, but it was the best meal we had this year in a new restaurant. In our book, the food was three stars, though the service had some catching up to do. P.S. The downstairs “salon” is pretty good, too.

2. The Breslin. We adore the Breslin. Chef April Bloomfield’s fat-forward menu won’t be to all tastes, and it could be downright artery-clogging if we ate like this every day, but the chef doesn’t pander, and everything she does is impeccably prepared. They have a great lamb burger, and it’s great for breakfast too.

3. Tamarind Tribeca. This big-box Indian restaurant was the sleeper hit of 2010. We never imagined it would be this good. I gave it 2½ stars, but looking back, I am not sure why it didn’t get three. Of course, we sampled only a sliver of the menu, but what we had was flawless.

4. ABC Kitchen. Jean-Georges Vongerichten entered the farm-to-table game with a splash. Who’d have expected a restaurant in a home furnishings store to be this successful? JGV’s restaurants are notorious for quickly turning mediocre, after the attention-deficit chef wanders off to his next project. But if Chef Dan Kluger sticks around, ABC Kitchen could stay relevant for a long time. But good luck getting a last-minute reservation: the place is perpetually packed.

5. Ciano. Chef Shea Gallante (ex-Cru) returns to New York with a wonderful (if expensive) Italian restaurant, with a terrific wine list that allows most bottles to be ordered by the half. We would have rated this one higher, but one of our entrées was a dud (over-priced, under-cooked lamb chops).

6. Kin Shop. The year’s best Thai restaurant comes from an American, Top Chef alumnus Harold Dieterle. Not quite authentic, but clearly inspired by Thailand, the menu has both hits and misses, but the former are very good indeed.

7. Osteria Morini. Chef Michael White’s first casual Italian restaurant is dedicated to the hearty cuisine of Emilia-Romagna. Some of the dishes may seem over-bearing and unsubtle, but we liked just about everything we tried, even if the soundtrack is too loud and the paper napkins too cheap for the prices White is charging.

8. Manzo. If we were judging the food alone, we’d rate Mario Batali’s temple of Italian beef higher, but it’s smack dab in the middle of the city’s most crowded supermarket, Eataly. It is awfully expensive, for a space that is so unpleasant.

9. Riverpark. This is a “Tom Colicchio restaurant” that doesn’t charge Tom Colicchio prices. His former sandwich guy, Sisha Ortuzar, turns out to be a fine chef. But how many people will become regulars at a place that’s half-a-mile from the nearest subway station? We sure won’t.

10. Taureau. Chef Didier Pawlicki (of La Sirène) opened this all-fondue joint to very little critical notice. We loved our meal, but we’re not going to return regularly for such a limited menu. Still, we think it’s a great date place. There’s nothing like cooking raw meat in a shared pot of boiling oil to bring people closer.

*

Honorable Mentions: There are a few notable places that didn’t make our list, that nevertheless deserve a word or two.

1. Anfora. This quickly became my go-to wine bar after it opened in May. I probably visited fifteen or twenty times. But unlike some wine bars, the food menu here is too limited to qualify Anfora as a real restaurant. That’s why it didn’t make my top ten.

2. Maialino. Danny Meyer’s Roman Trattoria actually opened in late 2009, and we reviewed it in December, but most of the pro critics reviewed it this year, so you’ll probably see it on a lot of Top Ten lists. Our own meal there was slightly disappointing, but it was probably atypical, as Meyer’s restaurants tend to get better over time.

3. Má Pêche. You’ll definitely see David Chang’s first midtown restaurant on most critics’ top-ten lists, despite the fact that hardly anyone thought he had improved upon, or even equaled, what he’d achieved in the East Village. But in a bad year, Chang’s seconds are still pretty good. I dined here three times, and will again, but the review meal was not that great, although I hear the menu has changed a lot since then.

4. Recette. Jesse Schenker’s small-plates restaurant will also be on a lot of top-ten lists. I liked everything I tried; by the same token, I can’t actually remember any of it without re-reading my own review. It lacked (for me) any of the more memorable dishes from our top-ten list.

5. Terroir Tribeca. This was my other go-to wine bar, and unlike Anfora, it does have enough of a menu to qualify as a real restaurant. It doesn’t make the top ten because it’s practically the same as Terroir in the East Village, which opened in 2008. (Tamarind Tribeca, which does make our top ten, is quite a bit different from the original Tamarind in the Flatiron District.)

Review Recap: Tamarind Tribeca

Today, Sam Sifton gives a much deserved two-star review to Tamarind Tribeca, and you get the sense they were whiskers away from three:

So, have a drink and consider some curry-laced crab cakes and crisp pomegranate samosas, and the promise beyond them of a menu that can take diners across India in the name of flavor, and represent that nation’s varied cuisine with pride and great skill. . . . it is shaping up to be the best thing to happen to Indian food since Hemant Mathur and Suvir Saran opened Devi in 2004.

Unfortunately, this review marked the return of Sam the Incoherent, blessedly absent the last two weeks:

Here, too, is Gary Walia, the restaurant’s manager (nephew to Avtar Walia, the owner), directing his well-trained and helpful staff as if he were conducting an orchestra, greeting guests in the manner of a subcontinental Julian Niccolini, of the Four Seasons restaurant in Midtown.

Huh?

The bar serves an excellent gin and tonic, cold and tall.

Wow! What an accomplishment that is!

In London, where marvelous Indian food is as much a part of the culinary landscape as French restaurants or steakhouses are here, Tamarind Tribeca might rate a pleasant shrug.

Huh?

Families are scarce in the dining room — dates, friendships, too. Pressed shirts abound, and wide English ties. Suit jackets are thrown over the backs of chairs and bar stools.

So glad you told us that. You never see suit jackets thrown over the backs of chairs anywhere else. That’s so unusual. Just like those cold gin and tonics you’ve been drinking.

Tamarind Tribeca

The best place to put a restaurant is where there are already successful restaurants. So when Avatar Walia, owner of the Flatiron Indian restaurant Tamarind, wanted to go way upscale, it’s no surprise he chose Tribeca.

Still, there’s a huge risk here. Tamarind Tribeca is a big-box 11,000-foot bi-level space. Take one look at the build-out (Eater.com has photos), and it’s immediately obvious it wasn’t done on the cheap. With fresh orchids on every table and a service brigade worthy of a three-star restaurant, the operating costs must be substantial.

There’s no reason why such a restaurant cannot work, but I do not recall a successful precedent for Indian food.

I can report, at least, that the food is wonderful, and it is not expensive, in light of the surroundings. Dinner for two was $135 before tip, including two appetizers, two entrées, sides of rice and naan, and a bottle of wine ($45). That’s more than you’d pay at the neighborhood tandoori mill, but Tamarind is much better than that.

I cannot compare this outpost to the Flatiron branch, but the server said the menu here is broader and more ambitious. The Village Voice, in a rave review, reported that the owner “does not employ one executive chef, instead using a team of chefs from various parts of India.”

The Voice thought that “the unusual strategy seems to be working,” and so do we.

Murg Malova ($10; above left). Hunks of chicken packing plenty of heat are seasoned with yogurt, coriander, cream cheese, and caraway seeds, then finished in the tandoor.

Bataki Kosha ($10.50; above right). Duck with mustard, onion, garlic, ginger, and garamasala is wrapped in a rice crepe with black salt and tangerine chutney, and deep fried. I’ve never had an Indian dish like this.

Both of these were large enough to be entrées—especially the duck.

Punjabi Mutton ($23; above left). Goat meat was served with whole spices, tomatoes, onions, ginger, and garlic. Aside from the use of goat—as opposed to the more common chicken or lamb—this dish resembled what you’d get in just about any Indian restaurant in the city. For all that, it was just right. The goat was served on the bone, but separated without difficulty.

Sufiani Machli ($26; above right). We were dumbfounded at the silky tenderness of sea bass, which had somehow survived roasting in the tandoor., then garnished with an intoxicating elixir of hung yogurt, dill, lime zest, and mixed peppercorns.

The server conceded that nobody in India is serving Tandoori Sea Bass. Still, this was the best fish entrée I’ve had all year—the kind of dish you can’t wait to have again.

The wine list is much longer and ambitious than it needs to be. This just might be the only Indian restaurant in town with wines that reach four figures, but there is plenty for those who want to stay under $50, as we did. The service was very close to flawless.

The space looked to be about half full by the time we left, at around 7:30 p.m. on a Friday evening, but Tribeca is a late-arriving crowd. Still, there are a lot of seats here, and they’ll need a lot of repeat business to keep them full.

If every meal at Tamarind Tribeca is as good as ours was, that won’t be a problem.

Tamarind Tribeca (99 Hudson Street at Franklin Street, TriBeCa)

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