Review Preview: The Breslin

Tomorrow, Sam Sifton takes on the latest April Bloomfield/Ken Friedman production, the insanely crowded Breslin in the Ace Hotel. The Eater oddsmakers have set the action as follows: Goose Egg: 50–1 ; One Star: 4–1; Two Stars: EVEN; Three Stars: 10–1; Four Stars: 25,000–1.

We haven’t yet been to the Breslin, and we hear it’s practically impossible to get a table at the hours most people want to eat, unless you’re prepared to wait an awfully long time. Sifton probably didn’t endure those waits, but he cannot have been insensible to the plight of those who do.

We think that Eater is grossly over-stating the certainty of a two-star review. The Times dining section is being run by adults now, and two stars is no longer the default rating for ambitious comfort food served in a zero-star environment. To the contrary, we think Sifton comes into this place planning on one star, and the food would need to be an out-of-the-park home run to overcome the restaurant’s many drawbacks.

So, while a two-star review wouldn’t surprise us, we don’t think it’s four times as likely as a one-star review, as the Eater odds imply. We hope nobody is actually betting on our advice, as our predictions since Sifton took over have not been very accurate. Nevertheless, we will buck the Eater odds today, and bet on one star for the Breslin.

La Mangeoire

Note: This is a review under chef Christian Delouvrier, who retired at the end of 2014. He spent four years at La Mangeoire, but was not able to attract the city’s main restaurant critics to review it.

*

What a strange, strange trip it’s been for Christian Delouvrier. In the 1980s and ’90s, he was arguably the city’s most successful French chef, winning three stars at Maurice (1981–89), three at Les Celebrites (1991–98), and four at Lespinasse (1998–2003), where he replaced the legendary Gray Kunz.

When Lespinasse shuttered (one of the few restaurants ever to close with four stars), Delouvrier was temporarily sidelined until he took over as executive chef for Alain Ducasse at the Essex House (which ironically occupied the old Les Celebrites space) in 2004. Ducasse canned him within days after Frank Bruni demoted the restaurant to three stars the following year.

Things haven’t quite been the same for Delouvrier since then. He cooked at La Goulue in Boca Raton and Bal Harbour from 2006–09, with a couple of consulting gigs on the side. Last year, David Bouley hired Delouvrier to rescue his failing brasserie, Secession. We found the restaurant much improved, but the disastrous pre-Delouvrier reviews were too much to overcome, and Secession promptly closed.

Bouley offered Delouvrier a job at one of his other properties, but you sensed that wasn’t going to work out. Without much fanfare, he turned up last October at La Mangeoire, a neighborhood Provençal bistro on the Upper East Side that, as far as I can tell, has never had a Times review despite decades in business. “With this job I have returned to my roots,” he told the Times in December, when the news finally leaked out.

Our immediate reaction: “This is what Secession should have been.” The restaurant’s three small rooms immediately convey the feeling of a village restaurant in Provence. There are lush flower bouquets, hanging copper pots, French artwork on the walls, starched white tablecloths, wine racks in plain view, and a friendly maitre d’ who happily seated me, even though I was 20 minutes early.

La Mangeoire is not going out of its way to publicize its new chef. His name does not appear on the website or on the printed menu. You have to figure that for a guy who once had four stars, this is a come-down, and perhaps he still has his eye on something bigger. Or perhaps Delouvrier, now in his early 60s, simply wants to relax, and to cook the food of his youth.

The menu, which does not appear to be reprinted frequently, consists entirely of French standards. The appetizers ($10.00–13.50) number about a dozen; so do the entrées, each of which is offered in portions small ($13.50–22.00) or large ($19.50–33.00). The prix fixe is $28.

There was a long list of recited specials. One of these, an appetizer of scalloped potatoes with onions and goat cheese ($12; right), sounded so good that we both ordered it, and were delighted with the choice.

I’ve never been a fan of Coq au Vin ($24.50; above left), but I thought it would be a good test of the kitchen: sure enough, this preparation felt exactly right. The chicken was as tender as it should be, the sauce tart but not overpowering. Blanquette de Veau ($28.00; above right) was another recited special. The sauce seemed exactly right, as well, the veal more tender than I recall in past versions of this dish.

The Provence-heavy wine list shows some real thought, but when you ask a server for wines by the glass, he merely says, “Merlot, Cabernet, Malbec, Pinot Noir,” as if it didn’t matter which Malbec, Cabernet, etc., you were getting. A couple of the by-the-glass selections turn out to be not even French, which undermines the whole purpose of dining at the restaurant. Once we got a look at the list, we were pleased with a 2002 Dom Bernarde from Provence, for $44.

I have no idea whether hiring a well known chef has brought in new business. The restaurant was full on a Friday evening. Some of the patrons were clearly from the neighborhood; others, we couldn’t tell. It certainly wasn’t a stereotype old-fashioned uptown crowd, but a healthy mix of old and young. The location is technically in Turtle Bay, but the feel of the restaurant is Upper East Side.

Heaven only knows whether Christian Delouvrier will stay put for a while, but we can only hope he does. For now, La Mangeoire is your go-to place for Provençal classics. [Update: Chef Delouvrier called us, and assured us that he intends to remain at La Mangeoire for many years.]

La Mangeoire (1008 Second Avenue at 53rd Street, Turtle Bay)

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

Review Recap: Casa Lever

Yesterday, Sam Sifton awarded two stars to Casa Lever, finding that, although it does nothing innovative, it does many things very well indeed:

The service is appealing, comic-opera stuff. And the food, while basic, is often quite good. The spirit of Sant Ambroeus, a restaurant born in Milan in 1936 and mother to the society rooms in the Village, on the Upper East Side and Main Street in Southampton, has never been more serene. . . .

Is an appetizer of seared scallops with white asparagus and black truffle a good use of $18? That’s a question to wrestle, and there’s no correct answer. It’s the culinary equivalent of wondering whether Ferragamo shoes are worth the scratch. If they are to you, they are. The scallops are certainly well cooked.

We have to smile at this, as Frank Bruni most certainly would have insinuated that there is something deeply wrong with restaurants that charge a lot of money to those who have it to burn.

Predicting Sifton’s ratings is turning out to be a lot tougher than we expected. We and Eater were wrong again, losing a dollar on our hypothetical bets—a depressingly common outcome in the Sifton era. We’re glad to see that the Bruni era has ended, but it has made betting hazardous.

	Eater		NYJ
Bankroll	$10.00		$9.00
Gain/Loss	–$1.00		–$1.00
Total	$9.00		$8.00
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Won–Lost	6–4 (60.0%)		5–5 (50.0%)

Life-to-date, New York Journal is 75–32 (70%).

Macbar

In New York, just about any food urge can be satiated somewhere. But it’s hard to think of a place with a more laserlike focus on one—and only one—thing than Macbar, where Macaroni & Cheese is all you can get. The theme extends even to the décor, which is decked out in macaroni yellow. Look a bit harder, and you’ll see that the room is even shaped like a piece of macaroni.

If there was great public demand for such a place, I must not have heard about it, but the tiny slip of a storefront next to Delicatessen was available, so the owners grabbed it. I can’t imagine where they got the idea, but I salute the notion of doing one thing well, which Macbar does.

You could eat here a few times and not get bored, as they offer twelve varieties of mac & cheese. Many are obvious: the classic, four cheese, primavera, carbonara. Others are mash-ups with familiar dishes: mac reuben, mac stroganoff, cesseburger mc. Then there’s mac ’shroom, mac lobsta, mac quack (duck). You get the drift.

Each of these is available in small ($5.99–8.99), medium ($7.99–12.99) or large ($12.99–17.99). My son and I both ordered mediums, a size that made for a good-sized entrée.

You can also take your M&C elsewhere and combine it with something else, which wouldn’t be a bad idea. A lot of the business here is take-out. The are only a few tables; they’re small and not especially comfortable, but they suffice for a quick meal. Naturally, they’re yellow.

We ordered the mac quack ($11.99; above left) and the mac reuben ($10.99; above right). Both were terrific, but they make for a one-note dinner. They come in cute yellow containers shaped like—well, you probably guessed by now.

I don’t know if I would have gone without a 14-year-old, but if you’re in the area and have a craving for mac & cheese, macbar is your restaurant.

Macbar (54 Prince Street, east of Lafayette Street, Soho)

Review Preview: Casa Lever

Tomorrow, Sam Sifton reviews Casa Lever, the old Lever House space that now does Italian at nosebleed prices. The Eater oddsmakers have set the action as follows: Goose Egg: 100–1; One Star: 2–1; Two Stars: 3–1; Three Stars: 50–1.

We haven’t dined at Casa Lever, and none of the reviews we’ve seen suggest that it would be worthwhile. Perhaps Sifton will surprise us, be we find it hard to believe that the guy who slammed Aureole and SD26, and gave a tough two to Oceana, will turn into a cupcake when he reviews this place.

Unlike Eater, we think the goose egg is far more likely than the deuce, but we will make the safe and seemingly obvious bet: one star.

Katz’s Delicatessen

Katz’s Delicatessen is one of the seminal NYC restaurants that everyone is supposed to try. Then again, many New Yorkers haven’t been to the Statue of Liberty either, and it has been here longer than Katz’s—just barely.

Over the Christmas holiday, we finally rectified that omission. Deciding what to order wasn’t a challenge. The menu sprawls a bit—perhaps more than it should—but the pastrami sandwich is the signature item. In a one-star review for the Times in 2007, Frank Bruni reported that the pastrami out-sells the corned beef two-to-one; they make 1,000 of them a day.

The setting is bare-bones, and the cavernous space is far from charming. As you enter, you’re handed a little blue ticket. We aren’t sure what it is for, but a sign warns that if you lose it, you’ll pay an extra $50.

You can get in line for counter service, or get table service. Fans will probably tell me that if you haven’t been to the counter, you haven’t been to Katz’s. We chose table service anyway.

Bruni warned that table service is “not that efficient,” and he was right. A waitress plopped down a plate of pickles soon after we arrived, but we sat quite a while before she took our order, and quite a while longer for our drinks to arrive. I warned my son, “Drink your root beer slowly, because we might not be able to get another one.”

When the food finally came, the staff never seemed to know who had ordered what, or even which table to serve.

That pastrami sandwich almost makes up for it. At $14.95, they’re not giving them away, but you get an ample portion of thickly cut, fatty, smoky beef. There is really nothing more to it than that. A side of fries is extra ($4.50), though they do them very well. A Reuben ($15.75) wasn’t quite as impressive: the bread needed to be toasted, or at least warmer.

Although Katz’s is a Jewish deli, we didn’t notice any employees who appeared to be Jewish. The décor consists of many photos of famous customers, and signs that have been around since before most of those employees were born. One of these (mentioning that Katz’s caters parties) still carries a telephone number that pre-dates all-digit dialing.

We were fortunate to visit when there was no line, and were seated immediately. Good thing, too. This is not the most pleasant place to consume an expensive pastrami sandwich, but at least it is a good sandwich. I will be in no rush for the next one.

Katz’s Delicatessen (205 E. Houston Street at Ludlow Street, Lower East Side)

The Final Game at Giants Stadium

Happy Holidays 2009

Review Recap: La Grenouille

If one needed confirmation that Amateur Hour has ended at the Times dining section, it has arrived. With today’s three-star review of La Grenouille, Sam Sifton showed that he understands the restaurant’s place in history, the cuisine it has mastered, and why that is important. He was not, in the least way, demeaning or condescending, as his predecessor surely would have been:

The decline of great French cooking in New York has been a subject of discussion among the food-obsessed for decades, since at least the closing of Le Pavillon in 1971. In the last decade the talk has turned funereal, with the demise of Lutèce, La Caravelle, La Côte Basque, Lespinasse.

Brasserie cooking survives in New York, even flourishes under old mirrors and subway tile. We will always have steak frites.

But the quiet opulence of the traditional haute cuisine that was first brought to New York by Henri Soulé for the World’s Fair in 1939 and which flourished at his Pavillon and other restaurants in the years that followed? The whole marvelous Tom Wolfe scene of it: blanquette de veau and Beaumes-de-Venise, and ladies in finery beside gentlemen in soft cashmere jackets and rolled silk ties? C’est fini!

A series of recent meals at La Grenouille suggests that isn’t so. Not so long as Charles Masson, who has run it since 1975, greets his customers at the door, quiet and French and welcoming. Not so long as people can take a seat on a scarlet banquette at his restaurant, sit beneath a spray of flowers and eat sumptuous food out of Escoffier.

We have no idea if La Grenouille deserves to be a three-star restaurant. What we can say is that this is how a review of such a place ought to be written.

We and Eater both win $3 on our hypothetical one dollar bets.

	Eater		NYJ
Bankroll	$7.00		$6.00
Gain/Loss	+$3.00		+$3.00
Total	$10.00		$9.00
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Won–Lost	6–3 (66.7%)		5–4 (55.6%)

Life-to-date, New York Journal is 75–31 (71%).

Review Preview: La Grenouille

Tomorrow, Sam Sifton reviews La Grenouille, the last survivor of the French grandes dames that once defined fine dining in New York City. The Eater oddsmakers have set the action as follows: One Star: 4,000–1; Sift Happens: 4–1; Three Stars: 3–1; Four Stars: 40–1.

As the website notes, La Grenouille opened on a snowy evening, December 19, 1962. That’s 47 years and 4 days ago, as of tomorrow. Sam Sifton wasn’t even born yet. I was two years old.

As you might imagine, a restaurant this old has had plenty of New York Times reviews, ranging from four stars (Mimi Sheraton) to one (Bryan Miller, but later elevated back to three). Its most recent review was from Ruth Reichl, who awarded three stars in 1997. Reichl was much looser with the stars than most recent critics have been, and even she found the place bedeviled with inconsistency:

La Grenouille is the most frustrating restaurant in New York.

This is not because the food is bad or the service unpleasant. Just the opposite, in fact: in its 35th year, the restaurant is displaying such flashes of brilliance that each failure is a deep disappointment. It could so easily be a four-star establishment.

It is inconsistent still, as we found it in 2007. We thought the food alone was worth just two stars, but awarded 2½ stars in total for the atmosphere, which remains beyond compare. For a restaurant that hasn’t changed its menu in decades, all it can offer is to prepare the classics exquisitely, which it has done on occasion, but not reliably.

Frank Bruni admitted (in his Eater “exit interview”) that he had intended re-review the place, but backed off:

I wanted to rereview La Grenouille. And I went and I had a couple of really, really good meals. I put it on the schedule. I thought I would be lovingly refreshing three stars with the explanation that these three stars have a lot to do with the joy of still encountering this idiom of dining. And then, at my last few meals, they just went off a cliff. And it was clear to me—and the reason I’m comfortable talking about this—and if you use this, please include this explanation—is I’m talking about something that happened four years ago. I’m not saying that this is what La Grenouille is like now. It could be totally different now. But my last couple of meals were so disappointing that there was no way I could put my name on anything more than two stars. And you know what? At this point in time, I don’t want to be the one who kills the last of its kind—you know? Then you ask yourself, “Am I cheating readers?” But you know what? Readers weren’t curious about La Grenouille. I can’t remember what we replaced [that review] with, but I remember thinking, “This is something I want to revisit another one or two times,” because I was so determined not to be the one who killed La Grenouille.

That Sifton is now re-reviewing a restaurant that, let’s face it, no one in the food media pays much attention to any more, suggests one of two things: 1) He doesn’t mind being “the one who killed La Grenouille”; or, 2) He loves it, and wants to give a shout-out to the last surviving full-on traditional classic French restaurant.

As we noted in our review, the demise of this kind of dining has long been forecast. Even in 1991, Bryan Miller noted that, “If you listen to some restaurant-industry pundits, La Grenouille is just the type of expensive, opulent institution that is slated for extinction as ineluctably as the dinosaurs.” When a restaurant has been around for five decades, you don’t complain that it’s too expensive for the recession, or that young people don’t dine that way any more. It has already survived multiple recessions and multiple generations of young diners who eventually grew up.

So in our mind, it simply comes down to whether La Grenouille is doing justice by the French classics that define its existence. Pace Eater.com, it has nothing to do with whether “the pricepoint just doesn’t make sense to [Sifton] in this climate.” We think—mind, we say we think—Sifton has a sense of the history he is walking into here. He has the chance to demonstrate that he is not as culinarily clueless as his predecessor was.

With all of that in mind, we acknowledge that this review sits on a knife’s edge. We think that Sifton will award three stars to La Grenouille.