Dining Out

On my way into Allegretti the other night, I passed a young woman who was shouting into her cell phone. “Everyone I know in New York is, like, on suicide watch!” But the financial meltdown hadn’t made much of a dent in the number of customers dining at the new French restaurant, just west of the Flatiron district. Many of them looked as though they had come here for the occasion (I counted six men in striped shirts), and appeared undeterred by the prices ($38 for halibut, $36 for veal steak). They seemed right at home.

And why not? The small dining room, with its teak blue bar, navy banquettes, low ceiling and white-paneled walls, feels like the inside of a yacht.  read more »

It was bad news for Silvano Marchetto when Graydon Carter decided to go into the restaurant business. For over 30 years, Da Silvano was something of a downtown Elaine’s, with celebrities, artists, writers, and gallery owners packing its noisy rooms for lunch and dinner. But when the Waverly Inn opened, Mr. Marchetto lost not only his best customer, but many of his boldface names as well.

Still, the restaurant is hardly empty, even at the end of summer. On a warm evening, the east side of Sixth Avenue between Bleecker and Houston feels like an Italian piazza. Da Silvano’s linen-topped tables and chrome chairs spread out over the wide sidewalk; further up are the tables of its neighbor, Bar Pitti.  read more »

“Where’s the noodle man?”

When my son was a boy, he loved to watch the noodle man at Honmura An, the only authentic soba restaurant in the city. The noodle man worked in a glass booth in the dining room, where he’d pummel the dough, toss it in the air and roll it out, never once making a hole. Then, using an enormous carving knife, he’d slice the dough into perfect, foot-long strands that he hung up to dry.

Honmura An closed last year, leaving its fans bereft. But now soba cuisine has returned with Matsugen, Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s new Japanese restaurant in Tribeca.  read more »

When the owners of the restaurant Provence, which had been a Soho fixture for over 20 years, changed its name to Hundred Acres, I wondered if they were being sardonic. A century ago this area was known as Hell’s Hundred Acres because the wooden floors of its factories and warehouses kept catching fire. Today, many longtime residents feel that Soho is worthy of the name once again, but for a different reason: crowds.

When the tourists and suburban shoppers aren’t in Prada or Louis Vuitton, they’re on the street buying T-shirts, jewelry, film scripts, designer handbag knockoffs and, since they’re in Soho, “art.  read more »

Ten years ago an Englishman, Keith McNally, opened a fake French bistro in Soho. Every detail had been carefully researched, from the red leather for the banquettes to the Gauloise-smoke patina on the ceilings and the shellfish display, where names of the oysters du jour were scrawled in soap on distressed mirrors. From opening day, the place looked as though it had been around for a hundred years. When you walked into Balthazar, you entered another world.

So there was much anticipation when Alain Ducasse announced he was going to open a New York branch of Benoit, one of the last authentic bistros in Paris, dating from 1912, and which he took over two years ago.  read more »

After a mediocre dinner at Bobo last fall, I decided not to go back. Let them sink without my help, I thought.

I was sorry because the restaurant, which is on two floors of a Village brownstone, has a quirky charm. I liked the cozy subterranean bar, with its low beamed ceiling and bare brick walls, and the candle-lit dining room upstairs, hung with crystal chandeliers and filled with knickknacks, books and old family photographs. I felt as though I were eating in a private house.

So when I learned recently that Bobo had replaced its chef, I returned for another look.  read more »

Here’s a novelty item to toss on the grill this summer: tuna ribs. At Bar Q, they’re coated with a paste of yuzu and green chili before they’re grilled.

“Don’t worry, dear,” said our waiter, sounding like a hospital orderly as he set a plateful down in front of me. “The cucumber salad will cool them off nicely.”

I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d given me a pat on the back.

The restaurant—not a bar—is owned by Anita Lo, co-proprietor of Annisa on Barrow Street, where she has acquired not only a dedicated following for her modern Asian- and Mediterranean-inspired cuisine, but a Michelin star to boot. I don’t know who started the fashion for calling restaurants bars when they’re not (Bar Martignetti, Bar Boulud, Bar Blanc, Bar Milano), but Ms. Lo has climbed aboard that train with Bar Q—a feeble pun (it serves Asian barbecue). It also has a seafood-and-sashimi bar and, of course, the more traditional kind.

But what about those tuna ribs? They may sound like a gimmick, but they were inspired. Long, skinny bones about half an inch wide, covered with subtly spiced, lemony, charred gray meat.

The ribs are just one of several successes. Garlic-fried milk, garnishing a grilled loin of lamb, is like an Asian version of fried brie, cut in triangles that are soft and custardy in the center. Slices of juicy spit-roasted pork belly, rimmed with crackling skin, are served with kimchee and glossy Chinese steamed buns, to be eaten like sandwiches.

Bar Q’s cocktails are also terrific. They include the Japanese Pickletini—a glass of Hendrick’s gin in which floats a green lump of cucumber ice, like a dyed fortune cookie; nicely tart yuzu cosmos; and juleps made with shiso leaves instead of mint. The 80-bottle wine list has many interesting choices, with nearly a quarter under $50.

BAR Q CONSISTS of two storefronts knocked together on Bleecker Street, a few paces from some of the most expensive boutiques in the city. The first time I came here, I was shown into a small anteroom by the seafood bar, where Kumamoto oysters the size of a thumbnail and tiny clams were piled on ice. A cluster of people were drinking cocktails around the bar at the entrance. From our table, I could see through a doorway that led into a larger dining room. Behind a picture window at the back of the restaurant is a steel-framed outdoor greenhouse and a paved garden, apparently still under construction. After my companion and I had been sitting at our table for a while, we noticed that the room had become incredibly loud. “There are only 10 people in here,” he said. “But they sound like 30.”

The next time I was offered a table in this room, I refused. Unfortunately, the dining room proper is also noisy, and the tables here are jammed together. Designed by Hiromi Tsuruta (Jewel Bako and Soto), it’s elegant, minimalist and white—in other words, cool, but not exactly comfortable. It has white marble countertops, white leather banquettes and white round booths. The blond wood tables and bare white walls are lit softly by large round circles recessed in the white ceilings.

The staff, dressed in black with long white bistro aprons, are affable, but there are inexplicably long waits between courses. Once in a while, Ms. Lo herself appears, a kerchief on her head. Yes, folks, the chef is in the kitchen!

And what a blessing when she is. One of Ms. Lo’s favorite cooking techniques is tea-smoking, and she does it brilliantly, the food remaining moist but with the smoky aroma of tea leaves. Tea-smoked salmon, with the texture of sashimi, comes with a smear of scallion and tofu sauce, a tea-marbled quail egg and, oddly, a shooter of vichyssoise. Tea-smoked duck breast, medium rare under a crispy skin, is spiced with chili and lemon.

GIVEN ALL THESE triumphs, it comes as a surprise that the barbecued dishes are hit and miss. Baby back ribs weren’t long enough cooked. The stuffed sparerib is a better choice, but incredibly rich. A boneless wedge is filled with a spring-roll-like mixture of ground pork, carrots and glass noodles, cooked in a Vietnamese barbecue sauce. Braised pork “wings” (actually cut from the shank) are glazed with a Korean-style barbecue sauce made with gochu jang (Korean fermented chili and soybean paste). They are deliciously fatty, but the sauce tasted mainly of ketchup. “Nice to go with your $150 bottle of wine,” commented my companion.

There were other stumbles: bland fritters made with unagi (barbecued Japanese eel), thin avocado soup dolloped with three spoonfuls of fish tartare that failed to bring it to life.

Desserts need work, too. Warm walnut soup (in spring?) was like eating sludge, but it came with a wonderful malted crumbled halvah-like cookie topped with wild rice krispie. I couldn’t see the point of the deep-fried sesame rice balls (like the ones you find at dim sum places in Chinatown). They were doughy and tasteless. You get six, but I could barely finish half of one, despite the pleasant caramel dipping sauce. The best dessert (especially for summer) is the refreshing chilled coconut soup with fruit and mint.

I am sure that dining here is much more pleasant in the garden. I also imagine that given Ms. Lo’s significant talents, the kinks in the kitchen will be worked out.

As far as the tuna ribs are concerned, I can’t wait to see the fishmonger’s face when I ask for some at the store.

mhodgson@observer.com

The waiter set a martini glass on the table. Instead of gin, it contained a thick mushroom soup. Two slices of pancetta had been inserted on top, like slices of lemon for a cocktail. When I dug in my spoon, a poached egg melted into the soup and onto a bed of spinach underneath. A rustic, down-home soup in a martini glass: a fitting dish for a restaurant that describes itself as an “urban tavern.”

South Gate, in Jumeirah Essex House on Central Park South, has replaced Ducasse as the hotel’s signature restaurant. The Dubai-based owners have just completed a $90 million refurbishment of the hotel, and they have installed another star chef in the kitchen, Kerry Heffernan, from Eleven Madison Park. (Ducasse, meanwhile, has opened Adour in the St. Regis.) Mr. Heffernan’s cooking is not haute French, but modern American—and emphatically seasonal. These days, expect to find sweet English peas served in a simple flan with morels; or pencil-thin asparagus garnished with sieved eggs; or salmon with red and golden beets and ramps, the prized wild leeks of spring.

The restaurant has its own entrance in the form of a glassed-in cube leading in from the street, but I arrived instead via the hotel’s Art Deco lobby, where a giant model of the Essex House sat on one of the lounge tables. When I looked at it closely, I saw that it was made out of Lego bricks. I walked through the glass doors that led to an immense red marble bar and lounge area crammed with tourists and office workers having cocktails and snacks.

SOUTH GATE SETS out to be jazzy and accessible; the place literally glitters and gleams. The restaurant’s dining room, designed by Tony Chi, is bright and airy, with picture windows overlooking the park. The walls and ceiling are made of square panels of tilted, undulating mirrored glass reminiscent of a cubist painting. The floors are made of red travertine rock and white oak.

Down one side of the room is a display behind glass of more than 2,000 wine bottles, few of which I could afford. Widely spaced leather-topped tables are set with rather uncomfortable swivel leather chairs. The room has a buzz, but it’s not noisy, and a brigade of eager, attentive waiters and busboys serve a busy turnover of Japanese visitors, foreign businessmen and New Yorkers.

Mr. Heffernan’s food is straightforward and focused, but some of the portions, unlike the prices, are small. Fill up on those tasty cheese gougères that are brought to the table when you sit down, along with a sip of cauliflower soup or a quarter-size piece of salmon rillette served as amuse-bouches. The hamachi I ordered one evening—three tiny pieces with eucalyptus oil and lemon peel—was very good, but not much bigger than an amuse-bouche, nor was a special of white asparagus. The asparagus were huge, the waiter said, and I imagined something on the order of sugar cane. The four little slivers that reached our table were not much more than a tantalizing taste.

Still, the menu is full of nice touches that add interest to the plate. Rings of seared calamari come with a subtle cauliflower custard and pea shoots ($48 a pound, folks, at last weekend’s Greenmarket!), enlivened with a coriander-flavored lobster sauce. Juicy Mayan shrimp and young leeks are dressed with a subtle, light vinaigrette seasoned with cardamom. The red snapper gets a foam of green celery fondue and white anchovy.

When I asked the waiter about the Giannone chicken, which comes from Canada, he gave me rather more detail than I wanted to know: after being defeathered, the bird is air-dried instead of washed—apparently this retains its flavor. The chicken was indeed exceptional, moist and tender enough to eat with a spoon. I also liked the speck-laced potato tart that accompanied it, along with a rich porcini mushroom jus.

Two disappointments were the cod, in an insipid broth with linguica sausage and manilla clams, and the smoked duck breast. The latter, which comes with yellow carrot coulis, radishes and fresh laurel, sounded interesting, but was dull and served in thin listless slices: hotel food.

THE WINE LIST, compiled by the ebullient sommelier Troy Weissmann, is first-rate but high-priced. A Riax Baixas Turonia Albariño, one of the cheapest ($46), he accurately described as “racy.” One night he recommended an Olga Raffault Chinon from 1995. Despite the decanting (during which the waiter stood over it on his tiptoes as he poured), the swirling and the holding up to the light, I found it tannic. But it was cheerfully replaced.

Desserts end the meal on a high note. They included a blood-orange parfait laced with meringue and shortbread, and an apple crumble with bacon streusel and maple pecan ice cream. The chocolate mille-feuille with roasted bananas, peanut butter powder and banana chip ice cream—flecked with gold leaf because, hey, why not?—was terrific.

South Gate is comfortable, not noisy, and fun for people-watching. It’s a good place to go before City Center or Carnegie Hall, or even Lincoln Center, preferably when someone else is paying.

If this restaurant were in France, you would be driving across the country to find it, your dog-eared Guide Michelin on the dashboard. The journey I made from downtown to Eighty One was also long, but rather different. I took the subway, where I sat opposite some French tourists who were reading the Guide Michelin to New York. But at 81st Street, they headed for the Hayden Planetarium, and I strolled on past the gardens of the Museum of Natural History to the Excelsior Hotel, where Eighty One opened in February.

It’s an odd space. A long, wide bar at the entrance leads into a vast dining room punctuated by immense square pillars. The predominant color is red. Padded red velvet banquettes extend all the way to the ceiling, where wrought iron chandeliers are decked with balls of bevelled glass. Heavy red velvet curtains hang at the center of the room, which is bifurcated by a cluster of high, round banquettes and a giant display of orchids. When you sit down, you can’t see across the room.

Le Cirque 2000 had to cut down the backs of its chairs when customers complained that they couldn’t “see and be seen.” But at Eighty One, no one is complaining: It’s the Upper West Side, after all—home not to Botoxed faces and blonded hair, but to professorial beards and open-neck shirts. These diners are here for the food.

And, apparently, for the waitstaff.

Just after I’d sat down to dinner one night, a waiter greeted a customer at the next table and handed him a menu. The customer looked up. “What’s your name?” he asked the waiter, who looked taken aback at the question. “John? Well, Hi, John! I’m Joe”—he motioned to his companion—“and this is Julie!”

Nothing like heading them off at the pass! I wouldn’t have been surprised if Joe had asked the waiter to pull up a chair.

Eighty One is owned by a star chef, Ed Brown, who was executive chef for the past 14 years at the Sea Grill in Rockefeller Center. Juan José Cuevas, his chef de cuisine, most recently ran the kitchen at Blue Hill and has also worked in top Michelin-starred restaurants in Spain. So it’s hardly surprising that the cooking at Eighty One is on such a high level.

But don’t expect anything radical. This isn’t Dovetail (the Upper West Side’s other recent addition to its burgeoning list of good restaurants). The food is simple, straightforward, designed to show off the very best ingredients Brown can buy. Even the peppercorns are hand-picked; the beans, of course, are heirloom. This comes at a price—main courses start at $29. But there is also a “tasting collection” of small plates from $15 to $19 (apart from the smoked salmon, topped with the restaurant’s private label Osetra, which will set you back $39).

If you’re in the mood for soft-shell crabs, be prepared to shell out $34. But they’ll probably be among the best you’ve ever eaten: three small ones, set rakishly on their sides, are flash-fried so they’re crunchy, but the flesh inside is moist. They’re served with a shallot grapefruit marmalade, pea shoots and a spicy maftoul couscous salad.

There is much on the menu that would “vaut le voyage”—be worth the trip—as the Guide Michelin puts it. A poached egg oozes onto a bed of asparagus, morels and chervil, marvelous in its simplicity and the tastes of spring it delivers. And nothing could be more springlike than the green risotto with sweet young peas, ramps and ricotta. I liked this dish better than the pea soup, which was thin, albeit served with a nice crabmeat fritter. Earlier in the season there was a wonderful creamy smoked cod chowder laced with parsley and nuggets of Niman Ranch bacon. A plate of four of the thickest pieces of hamachi I’ve ever had the joy of eating were seasoned with nothing more than a lemony olive oil and a crunch of sel de mer. All that’s missing is the beach.

EIGHTY ONE HAS a challenging wine list. I turned the pages with a sinking feeling, not because the choices weren’t impressive, which they most certainly were, but because there were so few bottles under $60. (A $2,000 bottle of Petrus, anyone?) I scanned the pages from the right side down. The Oregon Willamette Pinot Noir Four Graces, at $58, is one of the cheapest reds, and it’s very good. A pleasant Foris Vineyard pinot gris, from Rogue Valley in Oregon, is available by the glass for $9.

Given Brown’s pedigree, you’d expect the fish here to be superior, and it is. A silken piece of cod arrived in a black bean and sake wine broth, with orange lentils and couscous, topped with crispy shallots. Wild striped bass was served with cranberry beans, clams and octopus and a rich, buttery clam reduction.

The meat was equally impressive, such as the lamb I tasted in winter, done three ways—loin, braised shoulder, and a small chop, all perfectly cooked and served with exquisite soft brown ricotta gnocchi that resembled kids’ Lincoln Logs. Now these cuts of lamb appear with all the requisite spring garnishes: fiddleheads, favas, artichokes, ramps, and a cannelloni of spring greens.

Pastry chef John Miele’s sleek, angular desserts include a desconstructed chocolate-and-hazelnut mille-feuille that looks like a Donald Judd sculpture, made with three cubes of delectable chocolate and a swath of dark chocolate sauce. Skip the dull peanut fritters and get the Greek yogurt cheesecake with muscat grape, rhubarb and Madagascar peppercorn ice cream, or the frozen lemon soufflé, which is really a mousse, cut in a wedge and served with panna cotta.

By the bar one night we caught the tail end of a comment by a woman who was leaving. “… no good restaurants on the Upper West Side …”

Enough! Whatever the rest of her sentence was, we don’t want to hear it anymore. Eighty One has laid that claim to rest once and for all.

Back in the ’60s, when it was the 8th Wonder club, Jimi Hendrix played here. Now, there’s an open kitchen where the stage used to be, all bright lights, green tile and polished chrome, manned by cooks in white jackets and black baseball caps.

At the white bar in front, which has a picture window giving onto the corner of Macdougal Street, a glamorous young crowd knocks back cocktails named in honor of the rock star who died long before they were born. Electric Ladyland is a heady mix of pisco, rose jam and Champagne; 8th Wonder blends bourbon with sweet vermouth and cardamom chai. Hendrix, who was prone to wrecking his hotel rooms after a hard night out, would probably have gone for the Zombie Punch: three rums, with a jolt of absinthe to steady your hand.

In addition to the mixed drinks, Elettaria has an interesting and unusual wine list, which was created by co-owner Noel Cruz. Many bottles are under or around $40, and they’re not the predictable ones that appear on so many lists. A fine bottle of Potel Aviron julienas costs $43, and a Mezzolombardo turoldo, a light red from northern Italy, is $36. The wines by the glass are reasonably priced, too, such as a Jean Rosen pinot blanc at $7, and Marc Aurel, a saint laurent from Austria, for $10.  read more »

What would Frederic Edwin Church make of the landscapes that dominate Olana’s main dining room?

In the late 1800s, the painter built the restaurant’s namesake, a landmark mansion upstate with famously spectacular views overlooking the Hudson. Olana, the restaurant, sits on a less than spectacular stretch of lower Madison Avenue. The landscapes, on huge illuminated light boxes, are done in harsh computer-generated colors that cast a flat, eerie glow: Church on acid. But like many things in this restaurant, they have a quirky charm.  read more »

A waiter placed a shallow white bowl before me. On the bottom, making the corners of a square, lay four pastel-colored florets: yellow, ivory, pink and green. He poured in cauliflower soup and set down a bagel. “The topping on the bagel is ‘Dubarry’: chopped cauliflower and Comté cheese,” he explained. “In Escoffier, dishes made with cauliflower are called Dubarry, after Louis XV’s mistress.”

Bagel “Dubarry”? Alain Ducasse may have a sly sense of humor, but up until now New York hasn’t given him much to smile about. Mr. Ducasse has more Michelin stars than any chef in the world, but his first restaurant here, which opened eight years ago in the Essex House, was not particularly well received. The price (a $235 prix fixe) was met by outrage, as were such excesses as the selection of scary knives for carving your squab, the embroidered footstools provided for the ladies’ handbags and the choice of Mont Blanc fountain pens proffered for signing the bill. The Michelin Guide awarded Ducasse three stars, but nevertheless, it closed a year ago.  read more »

Commerce Street, a secret, twisting couple of blocks in the West Village, is so quiet you can hear your footsteps echo on the pavement. But the white building that has stood at the corner of Commerce and Barrow Streets for nearly a century has had anything but a quiet past. During Prohibition, it was a speakeasy. For 50 years it was the Blue Mill Tavern, and then for over a decade, Grange Hall, a much-beloved Village hangout serving blue-plate specials such as succotash and broiled steak. Now it is Commerce, owned by two veterans of Tribeca’s Montrachet, restaurateur Tony Zazula and chef Harold Moore.

When I arrived at the restaurant on a recent evening, I felt I’d walked into a time warp. The premises, always strong on atmosphere and patina, have been meticulously restored, with wooden booths, brown leather banquettes and the original terrazzo floors. The walls are covered with subway-style tiles and hung with antique sconces and artfully placed mirrors. Eugene O’Neill, who was reputedly a customer at the speakeasy, would fit right in at the Art Deco Brunswick bar, where cocktails named “Daisy” and “Bronx” are served.

Tonight’s literary figures are Jay McInerney and Gary Fisketjon; seated at a table, and crimson-hued above the collar, they are swirling glasses of red wine, holding them up to the light as a sommelier fusses over them and the kitchen sends out extra treats. It’s like Odeon in the early days. The room is packed with a clientele of all ages and walks of life: artists, photographers, families, neighborhood couples, businessmen with briefcases at their feet and, de rigueur in today’s trendy restaurants, posses of comely young women having a girls’ night out.

The two rooms of Commerce are laid out like a fish’s tail. The main dining area is in the back, where the speakeasy used to be, and is dominated by a mural by David Joel, reminiscent of Diego Rivera. Its title, Common Ground for the Sisters’ Story, refers to a legend that the two identical federal houses across the way, separated by a large garden, were built by a sea captain for his feuding daughters. Not true, it seems, but here they are anyway, shown holding plates of oysters and sheaves of wheat, brought together by the harvest.

The plain walnut tables, devoid of cloth or candle, are set with thick blue-and-white china reminiscent of the 40’s. Too many tables are packed into this room, which, like the bar, has abysmal acoustics. Never mind: Roll up your sleeves and shout for another round of cocktails. This is a tavern, after all, isn’t it?

But Commerce does not serve tavern food. The first hint comes when you are brought a napkin folded on a plate and discover inside a selection of small, wonderful breads baked in house: brioche, an olive roll, a ciabatta, a sesame roll and soft malt pretzels, served with sweet butter.

Most of the food is served in the sort of fancy oversize white plates and bowls you get in a restaurant such as Daniel or Jean-Georges, two chefs with whom Moore has studied. Oysters arrive poached in a creamy Champagne sauce laced with diced potatoes, leeks, and caviar. A trio of beef consists of a pristine piece of white marrow bone bleached as white as if it had washed up on a beach, and filled with unctuous marrow, along with a portion of superb braised beef and slices of rare sirloin steak, with crushed cauliflower.

THIS IS THREE-STAR American cuisine. Moore marinates fluke sashimi with chili and lime and tops it with leaves of slivered radish; he serves a lovely seviche of Maine shrimp in citrus and ginger on a pool of orange sauce. His answer to a green salad is a mound of 20 different kinds of pristinely fresh leaves and herbs tossed in a light lemon-and-olive-oil dressing, topped with slivers of sharp Manchego cheese.

His seafood dishes, in particular, are inspired. A filet of red snapper with roasted kabocha squash and charred scallions arrives in a spicy Thai herb broth. Lobster Newburg is served out of the shell in a bowl, the lobster briny and fresh, the cream and brandy sauce not too heavy, on a bed of gnocchi and winter vegetables. Cod comes on a green jus laced with pieces of sweet pea pods, speck and black truffle.

The only dish I didn’t like was the stuffed breast of veal, which was stringy and tasteless. In contrast, the pork tenderloin was excellent, cut in round, smoky slices, and served on a bed of collards with sweet potatoes.

Moore also serves dishes to share family-style, such as porterhouse, roast chicken, dorade or a beef shank. The roast chicken, our waitress cheerfully informed us, takes 45 minutes to an hour after you place your order. I’m sure it’s great, but we passed.

Pastry chef Josue Ramos’ refined desserts include a creamy chocolate mousse, a terrific lemony rice pudding flavored with thyme and topped with a mango sorbet, and a delicate cheesecake with roasted pineapple and lemon balm. A Pavlova, its meringue looking more like a deconstructed Sydney Opera House than the famous ballerina’s tutu, was made with slivers of meringue and tropical fruits on Greek yogurt, with a lychee sorbet.

One evening I arrived at Commerce for dinner after a concert. The people around us, well oiled by that hour, were shouting loud enough to fill a concert hall themselves. But soon the room cleared out, and we felt like guests at an off-season resort, looking over a sea of empty tables set up with polished glasses for the next day. No matter; the food here is so good, it deserves to be eaten in peace.

Before I sat down to dinner at the refurbished One if by Land, Two if by Sea, I had a drink by the fireplace in front of the bar. A pianist was tinkling away at Chopin, and two couples, ensconced in leather armchairs, sipped glasses of Champagne. A handsome young Japanese man, dressed in a dark suit and blue striped tie, strode through the front door and sat down on a bar stool. He declined the bartender’s offer of a drink; instead he consulted his watch and pulled out a book. Every few minutes, a blast of cold air swept open the velvet curtains at the door, heralding the arrival of another customer, and he looked up eagerly. After half an hour, his face in a ferment, he ordered himself a drink and a plate of food.

This was not a happy start to a night at what has been called New York’s most romantic restaurant. But just as I was about to go to my table, the curtains parted again. This time they revealed a beautiful Japanese woman dressed in black, carrying an armful of small, expensively sourced shopping bags. The young man embraced her with unconcealed joy and they went into the dining room.

One if by Land opened 35 years ago in an 18th-century Village carriage house where Aaron Burr once lived; replicas of the guns used in his ill-fated duel with Alexander Hamilton are on display in a glass case. The three rooms are hung with chandeliers and 18th-century paintings and decked out with candles, bowls of roses and lavish flower arrangements. Mullioned windows look out onto a courtyard decorated with pine branches and twinkling lights; the piano plays all night long. The restaurant, which is consistently voted among the city’s 50 most popular in the Zagat guide, is the setting for many a proposal, wedding and anniversary dinner. But it has never been famous for its food.

Now Craig Hopson, a former surfer from Perth, Australia, who rose to become Terrance Brennan’s chef de cuisine at Picholine, has taken over the kitchen. Hopson has also worked at Guy Savoy, Troisgros and Lucas Carton, where he was a protégé of Alain Senderens. At Picholine, Mr. Hopson helped to revitalize the food with stunning results (I will never forget the all-game fall tasting menu). Now this talented chef is introducing a range of new dishes to One if by Land, along with a bar menu offering small plates for $12 to $15 apiece.

Dinner consists of a three-course prix fixe menu for $75, or a six-course tasting menu for $95. I began with Gruyère gnocchi, lightly breaded golden-brown puffs studded with wild burgundy snails and served on a bed of pickled yellow foot mushrooms with sage snail butter. A rich crumble made of wild mushrooms and Parmesan cheese was surrounded with dots of an aged balsamic and topped with creamy quenelle of sunchoke mousse, a frond of celery leaf tempura adding a crunch.

On the lighter side there was a sashimi of john dory in a leek vinaigrette sprinkled with button mushrooms, radishes, pea shoots, daikon sprouts and black truffles. Lightly smoked quail a la plancha, with jicama and cucumber kimchi and peanut aioli, brought four different regions of the world into one marvelous tiny appetizer, a lovely balance of tastes and textures, garnished with a frilly fried quail egg.

Mr. Hopson does imaginative things with seafood, such as poaching turbot in coconut milk and serving it under froth of foam coconut broth, with strands of peekytoe crab, pickled mango, cauliflower purée and sea beans. Diver scallops, plump and juicy, came with seared foie gras and porcini in a subtle sweet-and-sour mushroom broth laced with tiny white turnips.

But while there are now adventurous new dishes on the menu, at least one old stalwart remains: beef Wellington. I told my companion that this 50’s throwback was Winston Churchill’s favorite dish. “Of course,” he replied. “It’s a platinum version of school food.”

“Beef Wellington represents an impossible pinnacle of haute cuisine,” added my companion, who’d insisted on ordering it. “An entire century of French chefs exiled in England strove to do it.”

Gordon Ramsay still uses it to test the mettle of his young chefs on Hell’s Kitchen. Unfortunately, the version served here tonight wouldn’t have made the grade: The meat was dry and overcooked, the pastry soggy. In contrast, Mr. Hopson’s roast venison was sublime, rare and tender enough to eat with a spoon, and served with a marvelous chestnut caraway cake and roasted Seckel pear. Next Page >

“Your amuse bouches,” the waiter said, setting down a plate of white plastic spoons whose filling glistened like a display of jewels. “Vodka gelée with sour cream, salmon roe, fried capers and chives.”

So much going on in one tiny mouthful! Our minds were racing. Yet each element of this fleeting palate teaser was precise and distinct.

The spoons were served along with confit shrimp pinned to the end of long wooden skewers, and a crusty, moist corn bread made with white cheddar. We hadn’t even looked at the menu yet.  read more » Next Page >

“Sheep Dip is a blend,” said the waiter at Belcourt. “Pig’s Nose is single malt.”

He was talking about the unusual whiskies on offer at this new East Village bistro. Whatever they were called, my companion badly needed a glass, and not just because of the bitter cold outside. In the middle of the night he had been made homeless without warning, along with more than 150 other Williamsburg artists, in the now notorious “shock and awe” evacuation of 475 Kent Avenue due to building violations.

Belcourt’s charm and hospitality went a long way that evening. We didn’t have to stretch our imagination to think we were sitting in a Paris bistro in the 1930’s, instead of on the noisy corner of East Fourth Street and Second Avenue. French flea markets have supplied most of the trappings: the marble-topped wooden tables set with candles, the mismatched Art Deco light fixtures, the sea-green French doors, and the round mahogany bar and vintage chrome-and-red-leather stools. Distressed mirrors reflect the colored lights of the grocery store across the street; the floor is mosaic tile, and the hat stand—made of thin iron poles topped with small filigree globes—looks like an early sculpture by Giacometti.

Belcourt’s owner, Mehenni Zebentout, has two other popular East Village restaurants, Nomad and Cucina di Pesce. After he’d transformed his Frutti di Mare into Belcourt (a “Parisian gastropub,” as the press release calls it), he hired chef Matt Hamilton.

Mr. Hamilton cooked at Zuni Cafe in San Francisco and later at Prune in the East Village. He then opened his own restaurant, Uovo, near Tompkins Square Park, but to my surprise, it closed after just two years. I had been impressed with his gutsy cooking (I still remember that wonderful Spanish-almond soup, laced with sherry vinegar, fresh grape juice and olive oil; Matt, please put this on the menu come summer). At Belcourt his food is rustic Mediterranean with influences from Provence, Tuscany and Catalonia. He uses anchovies, bitter greens and strong, fruity olive oils (he once worked on a Tuscan olive oil farm). He also searches out unusual cheeses such as amanteigado, a raw sheep’s milk from Portgual, and Mrs. Quick’s rich, smoky cheddar from England.

“Anything that can be made in-house, is,” trumpets Belcourt’s menu. That includes the duck prosciutto: thin, moist, gamey slices served with spiced persimmons, mascarpone and lamb’s lettuce. The luscious, vinegary anchovies on a salad of bitter greens are house-cured; the greens are laced with frico, a crispy cheese, and tossed in a tart lemon-anchovy dressing. The boudin “hot dog” comes on a house-made bun with thick-cut homemade sauerkraut and, as our waiter breathlessly announced, “hand-ground homemade mustard.” The sausage, made with chicken and pork, is terrific, as are the wild-pepper potato chips that garnish the dish. The bun, a Parker House-type roll, isn’t necessary; I could have done with another sausage instead.

The cooking at Belcourt is uneven, and some dishes lack the zest of the ones at Uovo, as if they’d been toned down. Maybe the chef was off on the night an order of poulet vert organic roast chicken arrived with half the pieces raw inside their crisp skin. A rabbit casserole under a layer of mashed potato had the consistency of glue.

The salads are also hit-or-miss: Escarole with frisée and olives is dull and, curiously, half the size of the spinach salad, which is also bland, despite the manouri cheese and pine nuts in a sumac dressing. (To his credit, Mr. Hamilton knows how to make a good dressing—the Moroccan salad, with slivered cardamom-pickled carrots, salsify and greens in a coriander dressing laced with olive crisps, gives a welcome shot to a bland oil-poached octopus.) But the bitter greens are far and away the best, as if that were the salad he cared most about.

Mr. Hamilton does come up with some nice touches, such as the brandade dumplings in a zarzuela, a Spanish tomato-based seafood stew with aioli; the lavender-scented spaetzle with roast pork belly; and a breakfast omelette made with lamb tongue. Instead of serving onion rings with the hangar steak, he offers scallions fried in batter.

The desserts, however, are unexciting. They include an ordinary chocolate pot de crème, a dull pear poached in red wine, and a sliver of passable Meyer lemon tart. Instead, order the cheese du jour, persille de malzieu, a spicy French blue served with toasted walnuts along with a glass of tawny port. It’s the perfect way to end a meal at Belcourt, although when I asked for bread to go with the cheese, the waiter looked as perplexed as if I’d demanded ice for my port.

After dinner, when my friend and I stepped out into the cold once more, he noted that among the many inconveniences of being without a home was the inability to get online. What timing! Belcourt may not have any spare bedrooms, but it does have free wireless, seven days a week. So, homeless Williamsburg artists, cash in the $50 dollar food voucher the Red Cross gave you and bring your laptop to Belcourt, where you can settle down to work with a glass of Pig’s Nose or Sheep Dip—served straight up, without ice, of course. Next Page >

I was barely 7 when my family moved to Beirut, but I still remember the food: the fried kibbeh (meatballs with bulghur), the kefte (meatballs again, cooked on skewers over charcoal in our kitchen) and the vine leaves that I was allowed to help stuff with rice, wrapping them into small, untidy packages.

We spent two years there, before the city was torn apart by war, back when it was known as the Paris of the Middle East and one of the loveliest cities in the world. So why, then, in New York City, where you can trip and fall into, say, a Uighur joint, are there so few full-blown Lebanese restaurants?

Al Bustan, near the United Nations, has until now been the standard-bearer of the cuisine, which is similar in many ways to the cooking of Greece, Turkey, Syria and Egypt. Ilili, which opened two months ago in a former carpet warehouse on a desolate part of lower Fifth Avenue, aims to fill the gap and largely succeeds.  read more » Next Page >

“Bring me a cup of Ovaltine,” Jackie Gleason once told a waiter. “I want to be asleep when the bill comes.”

Tell me about it. The cost of eating out rose dramatically in 2007. Food prices went up faster than at any point in the past 15 years, according to Food Arts magazine, partly due to the high demand for ethanol, which raised the price of corn used to feed livestock and poultry.

Add to this the scandalous markups on wine. Beware of those wines offered at an all-inclusive price on tasting menus, and of ordering by the glass—an equally profitable markup, especially when you are served little more than a thimbleful.

One small way to keep down the tab (and feel you are doing your bit for the environment) is, of course, to drink tap water instead of bottled. This trick is particularly effective in England: On a recent visit there I learned that Claridge’s had just launched a special water-tasting menu, offering their customers a choice of more than 30 varieties from around the world. One of them, 420 Volcanic, from underground volcanic springs in New Zealand, cost the equivalent of $45 for a 42cl bottle—less than a pint.

So I was amused to read the results last week of a blind tasting of 24 waters, held by Decanter magazine and testing some of the most experienced palates in Great Britain. London tap water came in third—higher than most of the expensive bottles. The top scorer was Waiwera, another New Zealand export, which sells for a hefty $18 a liter at Claridge’s, followed by Vittel, which retails for just under $1 a liter in a supermarket. 420 Volcanic limped in at 18th place. A California water, Bling H2O, at $80 a liter, placed 22nd out of 24. Its bottle is encrusted with Swarovski gems.

Meanwhile, the word of the year in the new Oxford English Dictionary was “locavore,” defined as “someone who only eats locally grown food.” Chefs increasingly supported farmers’ markets and foraged for local produce, and their menus went even further, providing their customers with the details of the origin of their ingredients. That’s all well and good, but do we really need to know the name of the bull who sired the beef on our plate?

ALL THIS ASIDE, some terrific new restaurants opened in New York in 2007. Here’s my list of favorites, in no particular order.

Park Avenue Summer/Autumn/Winter/Spring sounded like a gimmick, a restaurant that not only changes the menu with each of the four seasons, but its entire appearance. Yet chef Craig Koketsu’s food is inspired, especially Summer’s seafood and corn dishes.

Two new excellent sushi restaurants opened in Greenwich Village. Soto, a small, elegant outpost, on Sixth Avenue near Washington Place, serves first-class sushi (including petals of live fluke sprinkled with sea salt, lime and yuzu zest). 15 East, in the space that used to be Tocqueville, now serves superior sushi and sashimi in a comfortable, sleek dining room. (Tocqueville has moved down the block.)

The Theater District got a boost with Insieme, an Italian restaurant from the team that created Hearth. Marco Canora’s fine menu is divided into two parts, classic dishes on one side and his modern interpretation of Italian cuisine on the other. Paul Grieco’s comprehensive Italian wine list is splendid, and filled with witty descriptions (the Savagnin Arbois is to traditional Gewürztraminer “as Christina Aguilera is to Britney Spears … it is just dirty and funky and super sexy!”).

Meanwhile, some notable chefs moved around. Michael White left Fiamma and took over the kitchens at Alto and L’Impero, to great success. He is American; his food is hearty Italian. Meanwhile, Fabio Trabocchi, who is Italian, took over Fiamma, where his food hardly seems Italian at all, but is also exceptional.

Allen & Delancey on the Lower East Side is the year’s most romantic new restaurant, with its bare brick walls, cozy booths and a plethora of candles. Neil Ferguson, after being told to chef off by Gordon Ramsay at the London, has reappeared with seriously good cooking. The caramelized bone marrow is a revelation. Next Page >

“Are you still working on those?”

The waiter surveyed our table, which was littered with small dishes of Greenmarket vegetables.

Yep. Still workin’.

Down on the farm, the term “back forty” describes the small undeveloped lot on a 160-acre homestead where you go not to work but to relax after a hard day tilling the fields. It’s a concept lost on some of the servers at this convivial East Village restaurant, where over several visits, I was frequently asked whether I was still “working” on my food.

Since Back Forty doesn’t take reservations, I began one evening at the bar, working on a house cocktail: a sparkling lemon fizz made with rum, Meyer lemon and soda. It was a bracing grown-ups’ drink, not sickly sweet as so many house cocktails nowadays are, seemingly created for those below drinking age. The superlong recycled blond-wood bar was crowded, and a man next to me—at work on his dinner—moved down so a friend and I could squeeze in.

The restaurant feels like a chic, minimalist farmhouse. It has three dining rooms with wooden floors and plain wooden tables, several of them communal. Plain white walls are decorated with the requisite old farm instruments (perfect for inflicting medieval forms of torture), and the lighting is low. Behind the bar, a misty mural of wetlands is lined with translucent shelves of artfully placed glasses and bottles. You’d expect the picture window in the front room to give onto rolling farmlands; instead you get a view of Avenue B and its shuttered stores, one night under a light dusting of snow. The rear dining room has a view onto a small park.

Back Forty is the creation of Peter Hoffman, chef and owner of Savoy, the small two-story restaurant that has been serving stellar food on the corner of Prince and Crosby Streets in SoHo for 17 years. A pillar of the Greenmarket, Hoffman is the consummate locavore (the word of the year in the new Oxford English Dictionary), and only local products are used in the kitchen here, where Shanna Pacifico is chef de cuisine.

Even the house wines by the glass are local, from the North Fork of Long Island. A bit too local, alas. The short wine list (“sustainable, biodynamic or organic”) is international, with 10 each of red and white bottles, and the wine is served in tumblers. There are also 11 beers; the Reissdorf Kolsch from Germany was phenomenal.

The menu is strange. Of just six main courses, three are sandwiches. You can begin with a choice of four “snacks,” bar food such as rings of squash in tempura batter, served with a mini squeeze bottle of smoked paprika mayonnaise. The batter was light but greasy, and the squash was tasteless. I’d have preferred onion rings. Shrimp and bacon beignets with sweet chili sauce were doughy. They weren’t bad, but didn’t have enough character to inspire another round.

If you shop at the Union Square Greenmarket, you will recognize the farmstead cheese, two delicious nutty pieces served with a fruit compote and mixed nuts. A lovely, delicate chicken liver mousse, accompanied by slices of a densely seeded pumpernickel bread, would have been better without chopped scallions.

There are 10 little dishes “from the garden” on the menu, among them cauliflower with gruyère, sprouts with dried cherries, roasted oyster mushrooms and fingerlings with lardo. I could pretty much identify the Greenmarket stalls they came from, like the slivers of ruby red watermelon radish that added a jolt to the terrific inky-black beluga lentils (they do indeed look like caviar) tossed with tarragon-mustard dressing. (The radish stand is on the west side of the market, near the one selling those astronomically priced boxes of hand-crafted greens.)

Green wheat, also known as frik, was served like tabbouleh, in a lemony sauce with yogurt and mint—very healthy and wonderful. So was a salad of shaved fennel with slices of soft pumpkin, in a light dressing flavored with lemon and turmeric. And although I normally find raw radicchio too bitter, it worked very well in a salad with cranberry beans and chunks of spiced feta.

The “Grass Fed Burger” conjured up an image of little hamburgers with legs, opening their mouths and devouring clumps of grass (locavores, like carnivores, eat herbivores). The burger ($10) was rare and meaty, and came with spicy homemade ketchup, a pickle, and for another $2 each, a slice of farmhouse cheddar and heritage bacon. Toss in a side order of the scrumptious skinny french fries with rosemary sea salt and your burger can add up to $19, a hefty price on Avenue B. Next Page >

Is Irving Mill another Gramercy Tavern manqué, or is John Schaefer onto something?  read more » Next Page >

A veteran of Gordon Ramsay’s kitchen hints at the Lower East Side’s past while embracing its present—but sorry, no egg creams!  read more » Next Page >

Salty and sweet do a tango on your tongue at pastry chef Sam Mason’s new SoHo joint. That eel is swimmin’ in chocolate!  read more » Next Page >

The Umbrian Giant, fan club in tow, settles into a cozy storefront on the Upper East Side.  read more » Next Page >

Alex Ureña’s second attempt is both less expensive and more welcoming than last year’s foray into cutting-edge Spanish cuisine.  read more » Next Page >

Clang, clang, clang: An Iron Chef alum tries out ‘creative-authentic’ Italian in a loud but friendly spot on Barrow Street.  read more » Next Page >

Rayuela attracts pretty women and hungry hombres to a bleak stretch of the Lower East Side.  read more » Next Page >

Seasonal cuisine goes one step further, courtesy of the Quality Meats crew.  read more » Next Page >

A Southern sushi specialist dazzles with creative combinations—just don’t try to order a Diet Coke.  read more » Next Page >

Vongerichten’s erstwhile exec chef also does fusion food.  read more » Next Page >

Marc Murphy’s bistro is just what the Upper West Side has been waiting for.  read more » Next Page >

Classic Italian, modern interpretations and an an eccentrically annotated wine list at Paul Grieco’s restaurant.