Deathwatch Deconstructed: Shang

Note: It took two years longer than anyone expected, but Shang finally bit the dust in October 2011.

*

This week, our friends at Eater.com put Shang on Deathwatch. It was the first Deathwatch announcement in many moons, as Eater had suspended the feature during the recession. No one is sure if the recession is still going, but Deathwatch is back in business.

I thought that the suspension was a mistake. Deathwatch does not celebrate failure; when correctly done, it merely proclaims the inevitable. There have been a few notable mistakes, most notably when the team DW’d Degustation, Jack’s Luxury Oyster Bar, and Jewel Bako on the same day, two years go. All three are still open.

But generally, Deathwatch has been an accurate harbinger of impending restaurant death.

From now on, with due apologies to Eater, we’ll diagnose each patient that checks into the hospice. First, Why Are They Here? Then, How Did It Happen? Lastly, Can It Be Saved? Our first case: Shang.

Why Are They Here?

Shang is a ghost town. Any night of the week, almost any time you want, there are reservations on OpenTable. On most nights, even a prime time table carries a 1,000-point bonus. That basically means they are paying you to eat there.

The restaurant is adding a sushi and dim sum menu. This is capitulation. Sushi has nothing to do with Susur Lee’s cuisine. It is just a gambit to put more bums in his restaurant’s empty seats.

How Did It Happen?

Susur Lee is Toronto’s most celebrated chef. But Shang was a dumbed-down à la carte version of Susur, his accaimed prix fixe restaurant that featured a reverse tasting menu. It was a major mistake to open in New York with anything less than his best.

The PR plan was flawed, as nobody was sure until the last minute whether Shang was supposed to be a transfer of Susur, or a brand new idea. The reverse tasting menu had made him an international star. When it finally became clear that it wouldn’t be offered in New York, Shang’s balloon lost its air quickly.

Success elsewhere is a notoriously poor predictor of success in New York. With the exception of Thomas Keller at Per Se, the chefs who’ve done it are those who move here for good. Lee was splitting his time between Toronto (where he still has a restaurant) and New York. If you want to make it here, you have to jump in with both feet.

We liked the cuisine at Shang, but it was nothing we would rush back for. Most of the big-name critics found it passé—a brand of Asian fusion that is no longer popular. One wag pointed out that when your best known dish is a salad (the “Singapore Slaw”), you’re probably in trouble.

It also didn’t help that Shang was in a hotel, and was therefore buffeted by all of the problems that often beset hotel restaurants (a circuitous entrance, poorly located restrooms, a bar under someone else’s control). The ill-judged décor was aimed more at hipsters with poor attention spans than serious diners.

We are always unsure whether reviews actually influence people, or if they just memorialize what the public had already decided for itself. But a paltry, unenthusiastic one-star review from Frank Bruni cannot have helped.

Can It Be Saved?

Probably not. The hipsters have long sinced moved on, and serious diners are still wondering why they weren’t offered the reverse tasting menu. We are not privy to any inside information, but we suspect that Lee is already back in Toronto, leaving the restaurant to run on auto-pilot and sell mediocre sushi.

Review Recap: Saul

Record to date: 12–5

Yesterday, Pete Wells concluded his short tenure as interim critic with a two-star review of Saul. It was much overdue, as Saul was much changed since Eric Asimov’s $25 & Under review a decade ago:

Ten years is a respectable run for a New York restaurant. Most don’t make it that long, and many of those that do are slowly taking on water. A few may change course by bringing a new chef on board or, more and more frequently these days, trimming their sails and tacking toward cheaper, more casual shores.

Saul is a heartening exception. One of the first restaurants to bring a contemporary sensibility to Brooklyn when it appeared on Smith Street in 1999, it has neither faded, nor stood still, nor sought a personality transplant. Instead Saul Bolton, the chef and the owner with his wife, Lisa, has upgraded just about everything in their modest storefront. Saul is the same restaurant, but better.

Wells seems to approve of the restaurant’s Michelin star, an honor pooh-poohed on some food baords:

Like couples in a starter apartment, they dressed the place up as the money came in. The food is now served on white Bernardaud china and the wine is poured into Ravenscroft glasses. Such refinements gave Saul the feel of a destination. The first New York Michelin guide ratified this view when it gave Saul a star, a rating that was reaffirmed with the publication of the 2010 edition this week.

Mr. Bolton said in a telephone interview that the Michelin star lured visitors from around the country and beyond. But Saul is probably best understood as a neighborhood restaurant, although a very nice one.

Next week brings the first review from the new permanent critic, Sam Sifton. Unfinished business from the Bruni era, particularly Marea, will likely be high on his list, but a little bird told me that it won’t be his first review. Sifton was spotted at Daniel this week, but that was surely just expense-account padding, as the Times would not re-review it so soon after Frank Bruni re-affirmed its four-star status earlier this year.

Oceana

The latest trend among upscale restaurants is the relocation. Bouley moved to a custom built chateau half-a-block away from the old Tribeca spot. Aureole moved from an old world townhouse to the bustle of the theater district. Dowdy San Domenico abandoned Central Park for Madison Park.

And Oceana has moved from an east-side townhouse to the MacGraw-Hill building, convenient to Rockefeller Center and the Sixth Avenue office district, as well as the pre-theater crowd.

All four of these restaurants were expensive before and are expensive still, but only Bouley went upscale. The other three are more casual than they were before, less taxing on the wallet, and have informal front rooms for bar dining that they previously lacked. This is not to say that they were renovated on the cheap—indeed, major coin was dropped on all three. But these restaurants, in different ways, are trying to win a new fine-dining audience that their old places, for varying reasons, could no longer attract.

The food at Oceana has always been acclaimed. Under chefs Rick Moonen, Cornelius Gallagher, and now Ben Pollinger, the restaurant has always had three New York Times stars, most recently from Frank Bruni in an ill-timed mid-2008 review, published just after the move to Sixth Avenue was announced. The space, which resembled the interior of an ocean liner, seemed passé and a bit cramped. Our only meal at the old Oceana was on Valentine’s Day three years ago. It was, as special-occasion meals often are, a mixed bag.

The new Oceana is spacious, bright, and modern. There’s a big fish tank in front of a partly-open kitchen. The walls are decorated with unobtrusive nautical artwork. This is what the John Dory would have looked like, if Ken Friedman had taste. About half the tables have white tablecloths, and half don’t. I don’t recall seeing that design choice at any other restaurant, but it seemed to work here—perhaps because we were seated at one of the former.

There are changes, too, behind the scenes. The chef told us that he has six times the amount of kitchen space for double the number of dining-room seats. He gave us a tour of the facilities afterwards. We haven’t seen a kitchen this spacious since Per Se.

In the dining room, the prix fixe (formerly $78) has been jettisoned in favor of a carte. The menu sprawls a bit more than I would like, though not as badly as Marea. On average, you’ll spend less than the original prix fixe, though of course it is possible to spend a lot more. There’s the obligatory raw bar ($3–8 per piece, plateaux at $44 or $120); soups, salads and appetizers in two categories ($12–19), main courses in four categories ($28–48; plus fish by the pound that can go higher), and sides ($7–10).

The entrées are a choice of composed main courses, whole fish, “simply prepared” fish, or meats; and there’s a separate list of optional sauces. It is a bit daunting, and I always wonder if the kitchen can actually keep up the quality when trying to paint over such a large canvass. In any event, everything we had was excellent.

The amuse-bouche (above left) was a lobster bisque. The bread (above right) was apparently baked in house, though I found it a bit too tough.

Seafood Sausage Stuffed Calamari ($17; above left) was one of the best appetizers we’ve had all year, with calamari serving as the “casing” for a rich, hearty sausage. We wondered whether Garganelli ($18; above right) was just a token pasta dish (the only one listed), but the combination of smoked shrimp, cranberry beans, and pancetta was wonderful.

Curried Red Snapper ($72; for two people) was deep-fried, but not the least bit greasy—as good a fish as we’ve had in a long time. A server filleted it expertly tableside (he told us he used to do 200 fish per day at Esca).

A side dish of Black Sticky Rice ($7; no photo) was too clumpy. It was the evening’s only misfire.

We usually skip dessert, but had to try a Sweet Potato–Almond Soufflé, which was excellent. The petits-fours were a bit underwhelming, but by then it hardly mattered. Throughout the evening, service was practically perfect, as a restaurant this expensive should be.

The wine list is heavily French, with good selections at all price ranges. Eric Asimov’s wine column last week was about the Jura, a region seldom featured on New York wine lists. Sure enough, Oceana had one, at $57, the Jacques Puffeney “Cuvée Sacha, 2001. The sommelier accurately described its nutty flavor, so we ordered it and were not disappointed.

We are not quite sure why, but the wine and two cocktails were comped. We never introduce ourselves as food bloggers, and though the staff surely noticed our camera, lots of people take photos without posting a review—not that this blog is that influential anyway. Anyhow, it was rather dull-witted of us not to notice this until the next morning, as we would have left a much larger tip.

We point this out in the interest of full disclosure, but we are quite sure that our conclusion would have been the same. We were sold on Oceana.

Oceana (1221 Sixth Avenue at 49th Street, McGraw-Hill Building, West Midtown)

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

Review Preview: Saul

Record to date: 11–5

Tomorrow, Pete Wells of the Times closes out his short career as restaurant critic with a trip out to Brooklyn to review Boerum Hill’s Michelin-starred darling, Saul.

Saul received a Michelin star in the inaugural 2006 New York City red guide, and it has one still. This frustrates foodies who suspect the tire man uses a gentler grading curve on the other side of the East River. We dined at Saul about four years ago and liked it better than we expected to, awarding 2½ stars out of four.

Saul has never had a full review in the New York Times. In 1999, Eric Asimov gave it a favorable write-up in $25 & Under. The restaurant has dialed up its prices since then, with entrées now $28–30, which would be the rough equivalent of $35 and up in Manhattan.

Wells has been stingy with the stars, giving out two goose-eggs and a singleton in three weeks. We think this review will be positive, in the first place because Wells is overdue to actually like something; and in the second place, because outer-borough restaurants seldom get bad reviews in the Times. The trifecta would surprise us, because it would open Wells to the same accusation leveled at Michelin—grading Brooklyn on a different curve. But we think Saul is easily good enough for the deuce.

We predict that Pete Wells will award two stars to Saul.

Yerba Buena Perry

Yerba Buena, the well regarded Latino restaurant in the East Village, has a new baby brother across town. I assume it is just a coincidence that its predecessor in this space, Matador Bistro Latino, was a very similar restaurant.

The nominal chef at Yerba Buena Perry, Julian Medina, now has three restaurants (counting Toloache in West Midtown), and one worries whether they all have his full attention. We enjoyed our meal here, but there were some missteps.

The price range of Medina’s restaurants may soon reach nosebleed levels. In the East Village, the entrées max out at $27. At Perry Street, four dishes top this amount (several of them steaks, including the obligatory ribeye). Appetizers, however, are about the same at either place ($9–14). Once the average main course is above $25, you’re not talking about cheap eats.

A Tuna Ceviche ($13; above left) with sweet onion and pickled watermelon was too tart. Arepas ($13; above right) were like Latin American sliders, stuffed here with coffee glazed pork belly and cabbage slaw. The coffee taste didn’t come through for me, but they were none the worse for it.

Lechon ($24; above left), or roast suckling pig, packed a strong comfort-food punch. Ropa Vieja de Pato ($26; above right), or duck leg and confit, was nicely done, but the duck egg on top was overdone. We assume the idea was to puncture the yoke and let it run through the shredded duck confit, but the poor yolk had been cooked through.

The carefully prepared cocktails deserve all of the acclaim they’ve received. I especially liked the Turnpike (rye, applejack, and lemon). Another was served with a single large block of ice nearly the size of a Rubik’s cube.

Although the restaurant was mostly empty when we arrived, the hostess seated us at practically the worst table, right next to a serving station. A manager noticed the error, and moved us to a banquette. After that, the service was just fine. The room has been spiffed up a bit, but the atmosphere is decidedly casual.

I wouldn’t send you out of your way to visit Yerba Buena Perry, but if you’re in the area it has terrific cocktails and mostly enjoyable nueva Latina cuisine.

Yerba Buena Perry (1 Perry Street at Greenwich Avenue, West Village)

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

Michelin New York 2010 Ratings

The 2010 Michelin restaurant ratings for New York City were announced today. These were the significant shifts:

Promotions: These restaurants had their ratings increased: Daniel (***), Alto (**)

New Restaurants Honored: Corton received two stars. These restaurants received one star: Convivio, Kajitsu, Marc Forgione, Marea, Minetta Tavern, Rhong-Tiam, Rouge Tomate, Seäsonal, Shalizar, SHO Shaun Hergatt, Sushi Azabu.

The tire men were much more prompt about recognizing new restaurants this year. Marea and SHO Shaun Hergatt did not open until the summer of 2009, and managed to get stars. In the past, April was about the latest date a restaurant could open, and be starred the same year.

Stars Regained: A Voce (had one under Carmellini; lost it when he left; got it back)

Overdue Recognition: These restaurants finally earned a star: Casa Mono, Eleven Madison Park, River Café.

Demotions: Adour and Del Posto were knocked down from two to one. Bouley shows up as a new star, but it had two before it moved. Allen & Delancey and Cru lost their chefs, and therefore their stars. JoJo was also demoted to zero, the second time this has happened to them.

Here is the full five-year list. The color codes are explained at the bottom of the page.

Restaurant	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010
Adour				**	*
Alain Ducasse	***
Allen & Delancey				*
Alto				*	**
Annisa	*	*	*	*	*
Anthos			*	*	*
Aureole	*	*	*	*	*
A Voce		*	*		*
Babbo	*	*	*
BLT Fish	*
Blue Hill			*	*	*
Bouley	**	**	**		*
Café Boulud	*	*	*	*	*
Café Gray	*	*	*
Casa Mono					*
Convivio					*
Corton					**
Country		*	*
Craft	*	*
Cru	*	*	*	*
Daniel	**	**	**	**	***
Danube	**	*	*
Del Posto		**	**	**	*
Dévi		*	*
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	***	***	***	***	***
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					*
Shalizar					*
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 eligible year
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

White boxes indicate no change of status from the prior year.

Fabio Trabocchi Taking Over at The Four Season

Florence Fabricant has the news that Fabio Trabocchi will be the next executive chef at The Four Seasons, replacing Christian Albin, who died suddenly in June of this year.

Frank Bruni awarded three stars to Trabocchi at Fiamma, which restauranteur Stephen Hanson promptly closed at the first whiff of a recession. Trabocchi was bound to land on his feet, and you can’t do any better than this. The Four Seasons is the ultimate recession-proof restaurant.

Frank Bruni demoted the fifty-year-old restaurant to two stars in 2007, finding the service and the cuisine no longer living up to the gorgeous decor and stratospheric prices. In choosing Trabocchi, the owners are clearly hoping to get the third star back—if not more.

The track record of these experiments isn’t good, whether it’s Gary Robins at the Russian Tea Room, Joël Antunès at the Oak Room, or Craig Hopson at One if By Land, Two if By Sea. Great chefs seem routinely to fail in iconic spaces. Or at least, critics say they failed, and they move on to the next gig.

The Four Seasons is a bigger job than Trabocchi has had before, and for the restaurant to be relevant again, the service needs to improve. He has no control over that. It would be nice food at the Four Seasons that would live up to the space, but Trabocchi has his work cut out for him.

Review Recap: The Standard Grill

Record to date: 11–5

Pete “the Hammer” Wells takes it easy on the Standard Grill, awarding one star:

At dinner, as the main courses are being set down, he sends out a cast-iron platter of fried potatoes dressed with pimentón mayonnaise, his spin on patatas bravas, the tapas bar classic. Crisp, smoky, spicy and very hard to resist, this little something rounds out the meal rather than slowing it down.

Small grace notes like this have helped the Standard Grill play to robust crowds since it opened three months ago.

It is not the place I would send friends who want to study the latest contortions of the yoga masters of haute cuisine. But it is exactly where I would direct anybody who needs to recharge by plugging straight into the abundant, renewable energy source that is downtown Manhattan.

I like the fact that Wells makes his one-star review positive (as one-star reviews should be), while finding enough faults to explain why the restaurant doesn’t get two:

The tiled, barrel-vaulted ceiling makes for treacherous acoustics. At times conversations across the room are beamed directly to your table. Sitting by the open kitchen one night, we heard an expediter shouting out orders as if he were communicating with cooks in Jersey City. . . .

What is billed as “million dollar” roasted chicken for two cost $32 and occasioned a service failure you wouldn’t expect if you were paying 99 cents. The chicken was set down before me in a cast-iron skillet. I did not get a plate, nor did the friend who was sharing it with me until he spoke up, and then he was given one scaled for an appetizer.

We didn’t blame the overwhelmed waiter, but we did want to wrap him in a warm blanket and pack him into a cab with the names of a few restaurants that give the staff more than 30 seconds of training before sending them into battle.

The place is full of small oddities: the restrooms that look unisex, but aren’t; the disc jockey in a glass booth whose tunes don’t play in the dining room; the very good chocolate mousse that you are meant to eat with a big rubber spatula. Does any of this make sense? No.

Does it, against the odds, add up to a worthwhile restaurant? Absolutely.

Wells’s off-key takedown of SHO Shaun Hergatt in a Dining Brief five weeks ago makes us wonder if he has the right temperament to review upscale restaurants, as well as downscale ones. We probably aren’t going to find out, as the Times is clearly saving the more important opening for Frank Bruni’s replacement, Sam Sifton, who starts in October.

Employees Only

We visited Employees Only last week as a backup, after our original choice cancelled service due to a busted water pipe. I’d never been, but it had always struck me as a dependable fallback when one has no other plans.

It strikes me that way still.

The name strikes an aura of faux exclusivity: you don’t need to be any kind of employee to get in, though you may find chefs and waiters there late, as the kitchen stays open until 3:30 a.m.

At the more civilized hour that we visited (7:00 p.m. on Friday evening), the bar was full, but the tables, of which there are fewer than a dozen, were empty. Bartenders, or perhaps I should say bar chefs, wore crisp white toques.

Employees Only was a speakeasy before everyone started doing it. You’d better memorize the address, because the name isn’t posted outside. There’s a tiny E.O. logo, which you could easily miss. A seemingly bored doorman stands guard, but he ignores you. A lady dressed as a psychic sits at a table just beyond the door. Once you’re fully inside, the the schtick is over, and the place functions as a normal restaurant.

The menu offers straightforward renditions of continental comfort food classics, all solidly done, if not especially imaginative. Salads are $7–12, appetizers $11–23, entrées $19–27, side dishes $7. Cocktails are on the expensive side, mostly $14–15, though you ought to try one.

The Serbian Charcuterie Plate ($21; above) was ample for two to share. It eludes me how Serbian charcuterie is distinguished from other kinds, but it was a fine selection.

I had to try the Elk Loin ($32; above right), if only because there’s nowhere else to get it. Elk is lean and not gamey, which means it doesn’t have a ton of flavor on its own. It was fun to have once, but I wouldn’t order it again. Orecchiette ($19; above left) was a competent preparation, with house-made Italian sausage, arugula, and parmesan.

Service was friendly and attentive.

Employees Only isn’t quite convenient enough for me to drop in regularly, nor important enough to be a destination, but if you’re hungry and don’t have other plans, it’s nice to know it’s there.

Employees Only (510 Hudson Street between Christopher & W. 10th St., West Village)

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

Review Preview: The Standard Grill

Record to date: 10–5

This week, The Standard Grill is the target of substitute critic Pete Wells’s poisoned pen. At least, we assume it’s poisoned. The last two weeks, Wells has brutalized Gus & Gabriel Gastropub and Hotel Griffou with zero-star reviews.

By the way, we’re not insinuating that those reviews were unfair. We haven’t been to either restaurant, and are in no position to disagree. It’s just unusual to see consecutive zeroes at the Times, and it underscores the uncertainty of this critic interregnum: Wells marches to his own beat.

We’ll assume, as we did last week, that Wells is going to give out at least one star. Would he give two? That’s what Adam Platt did, though the food accounted for only one of those stars—the scene, the other. Is Wells a sceney guy? Heaven knows.

We haven’t been to the Standard Grill, but nothing we’ve read suggests it’s destination cuisine, our standard for two stars. We’ll therefore hold our breath and bet on one star for the Standard Grill.