Results tagged “perse”

This week the Times's outgoing dining critic Frank Bruni files on Bar Artisanal, the Tribeca restaurant that opened in February as Trigo, then closed three months later and reopened under new ownership with a different menu. Quoth the Bruni: "Cheese animates and dominates Bar Artisanal — and helps give it what modest appeal it has. Take away the cheese and what’s left is a calculating, somewhat cynical operation, connected to the Hilton Garden Inn... Bar Artisanal pillages and repackages current trends with astonishing thoroughness, commanding attention for that alone. If restaurants could be preserved in amber and tucked away for future students of gustatory anthropology, this might be the one to save and label, 'New York City, circa 2010.'"

The Times visited Jonathan Benno, the outgoing chef of the four-star restaurant Per Se, and also managed to get a behind the scenes peek at the multimillion dollar kitchen, described in part as "an inhumanly immaculate expanse of burner rings and countertops." But that's not all: there's also a video screen with a real-time uplink to Per Se’s sister restaurant, the French Laundry, all the way on the West Coast! "When it comes to fine dining in New York, the fiscal situation is often irrelevant," writes Alan Feuer. "Elites will always and forever be elites." Of course this is true, but Feuer calling a restaurant kitchen "something akin to a gold vault or the Queen of England’s bedroom" takes things a little too far. Dude, it's a kitchen. Filled with really expensive equipment. It probably smells a little bit better in there than a royal bedroom, too. And for certain, Per Se costs a lot of money—the last (and only) time Gothamist visited the place, the post-dinner report was followed by a Piranha-style frenzy of comments that somehow even managed to namecheck the economist Thorstein Bunde Veblen.

This week Frank Bruni at the Times keeps his stars to himself and goes trendspotting, opining on four haute restaurants doing alternative, recession-minded menus. He raves about a couple dishes at Anthos Upstairs, located in "the second-floor room previously dedicated to large private parties — you know, those suddenly anachronistic events at which corporate generals larded their bonus-primed lieutenants," but has "better luck and a better time" at DFF, the re-appropriation of the private-party room adjacent to Craft, in the Flatiron district. "Semantically cuter but otherwise less appealing than DFF" is Halfsteak, where Bruni "got half service." And the à la carte Per Se lounge is "superb — and yet utterly ridiculous." GQ's Alan Richman also visits Per Se lounge twice, spending $454 on dinner for two, and is "unimpressed."

Peter Evans, an Australian chef with four restaurants and two books to his name, not to mention the daily television cooking show he hosts back home, is looking at restaurant spaces in the city. “We have friends over here with restaurants,” he told us yesterday, “so we’re going to speak with them about the economy and get their thoughts. It all depends on timing, but we’re here to have a proper look.”

      

Last night at the somewhat not completed luxury condo project 15 Union Square West (guests rode a construction elevator up to the entrance), chefs Daniel Boulud and Marco Moreira hosted a book party for Dining in New York City, a new, compact hardcover guide to the city’s restaurants by Dutch photographer Jan Bartelsman. Proceeds from the evening benefitted Citymeals-on-Wheels. Fifteen local restaurants—plus the 3 Michelin starred De Librije (Netherlands)—were on hand, offering small plate cityscapes of their best dishes. As the night progressed, chef Daniel Boulud appeared smiling, apparently happy with the four star re-review of Daniel published yesterday in the Times. Elsewhere, food writer Josh Ozersky—who announced to the world yesterday he has gout—showed up wearing a foot brace, albeit triumphantly.

The fleet of undercover, handlebar mustache-twirling French restaurant “inspectors” have made their rounds through New York’s dining scene, and the results are in. Only four restaurants have been deemed worthy of the Michelin Guide’s top rating (3 stars) this year: Jean Georges, Le Bernadin, Masa, and Per Se.

Today the Times’s Frank Bruni marvels at Manhattan’s new wave of high tone restaurant openings during a recession, and pins the trend not on entrepreneurial bravado but on the fact that it takes years to get a fancy eatery open, and most of these new places were envisioned in flusher economic times. It is true that in 2005, the top fifth of earners in Manhattan made 52 times what the lowest fifth make – $365,826 compared with $7,047 – comparable to the income disparity in Namibia. Yet thanks to tax cuts and stagflation, the income gap has only widened in the past three years. Dinner at Per Se is as unattainable as ever for New York’s lower orders, but even with Wall Street turbulence it’s unlikely the ranks of the well-heeled will thin to the point where a fashionable restaurant can’t manage. Of course, chefs like Ken Friedman (The Spotted Pig) are artists and don’t chain their muse to the vagaries of the economy: “I’m certainly not the kind who would look at the Dow. Does a writer write or not write a book based on the economic climate? Does a songwriter write songs that way?”

This week in the Times, Bruni three-stars Le Cirque, bumping the restaurant's rating up from the two stars he awarded it in 2006. Executive chef Christophe Bellanca’s menu “nimbly straddles the line between predictable decadence… and creative flair,” he says. He also says that you’ll pay—a lot—for what you get, and that Le Cirque isn’t quite as reliable as other three star restaurants.

The 21 Club opened on New Year’s Eve 1930 at 21 West 52nd Street as a speakeasy and restaurant. Legend has it that when powerful gossip columnist Walter Winchell was banned from the club, he ran an item wondering why the 21 Club had not yet been raided by Prohibition agents. (Winchell, of course, was the inspiration for the character of J.J. Hunsecker in The Sweet Smell of Success, which features several scenes at 21.) The next day 21 was raided and, soon after, the owners installed a secret wine cellar located behind a camouflaged door opening into the neighboring building, 19 West 52nd. The cellar remains behind that 2 ½ ton door to this day, where tasting menus are offered near the booth supposedly favored by Mayor Jimmy Walker.

October 11: Restaurant Reviewing in New York City

The Michelin Guide announced selections today for its third New York Edition, which officially goes on sale Wednesday.

In case you missed it yesterday, the Times Dining section contained an article detailing stories of the various drunken and debaucherous diners who have tied on a few too many at the city's high-end restaurants. That's right -- people don't just pass out and make an ass of themselves at Tortilla Flats these days, but they do so at the likes of Daniel, Bouley, Cru and even per se. The Times quotes Phoebe Damrosch, author of “Service Included: Four-Star Secrets of an Eavesdropping Waiter,” as saying that “more people throw up in the dining room of Per Se than your average college bar.” Classy.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a man was killed by a 6 Train at Manhattan's Bleecker St. station, a serious multi-vehicle accident on Grand Concourse and East 168th St. in the Bronx, and an evidence search followed a shooting on Beach Channel Dr. in Queens.
• The $250 nine course tasting menu at Per Se is the caloric equivalent of 4 and a half Big Macs, although we imagine infinitely more delicious. A prost-prandial stroll would have to be 31 miles long to walk it all off.
• Curbed reports that the former Jehovah's Witness Building in Brooklyn Bridge Park is getting the borough's first Trader Joe's.
• Brooklyn blogger and bicyclst eefers relates that she was nearly run down by a red light-running police car. When she physically indicated her displeasure at nearly being another bicyclist casualty of New York's traffic, one of the officers hurled her paper cup at her before the partners sped off. Rude certainly, but we imagine some citizens have endured worse.
• Appreciators can now purchase prints of artist Noah Kalina's "everyday" project, which are digital self-portraits taken every day for six years.
• It may do a body good, but milk will also slim your wallet. The price of a gallon of milk is rising to $3.54––up $.60 over the price a year ago.
• It's estimated that subway riders save roughly $1 billion annually using unlimited monthly and weekly metrocards. Only 12% of riders pay the full $2 a trip.
• The driver of the black SUV that struck and killed a Brooklyn boy last night and then sped off was arrested. He faces multiple criminal charges, including manslaughter.

This week, Bruni visits Rosanjin in Tribeca for kaseiki, finds it "strange and sometimes wonderful" and awards the restaurant two stars. The meal of many small courses is supposed to provide spiritual uplift in its ceremony. For Bruni, "the glory is in the details," like the uni wrapped in a shiso leaf, then battered and fried. The later courses were letdowns, however, and sometimes the small courses left him hungry two hours later.

- People think they are getting something amazing when they pay as muchOne diner whose own entree price limit is "between $50 and $60" tells the Times' Jodi Kantor, “I blame Tom Colicchio for this." Yes, Colicchio, before he ever Top Chef'd, made everything a la carte, from the meat to the sides, at craft. Hilariously, Colicchio is upset that Laurent Tourondel's ripped off that concept; Tourondel snips that steakhouses did this in the old days. Please, both of you can be to blame!

New Yorkers may think we're the best in the world generally, but as far as restaurants of the world are concerned, we only made it to number eight. Thomas Keller's Per Se was the only New York restaurant to make the top ten of the world's 50 best restaurants, as named by Restaurant magazine, although his West Coast restaurant, French Laundry, came in at number four. Other New York eateries on the list include Jean Georges, Daniel, Le Bernardin, and Gramercy Tavern. As the New York Post notes, you're going to have spend a decent chunk of change to sample the world's best -- approximately $95 and Jean Georges, $100 at Daniel, and $210 at Per Se (prices have gone up since our visit). Not that reservations will be any easier to come by, thanks to the honor.

Do you like kudoz? Well today is your lucky day. We've got not one, but two sets of awards for the price of one. First, Food & Wine Magazine announced their 2006 Best New Chefs at an event last night, and the list featured two New Yorkers: Jonathan Benno of Per Se and David Chang, from Momofuku, who seems to be the underdog darling of the national food scene these days (and after eating his noodles, we're not really all that surprised, frankly). Benno and Chang, along with their fellow winners from across the country, will be featured in Food & Wine's chef issue which will hit the stands on June 15th.

AOL has released their Cityguide for New York with a list of "The 2006 City's Best," some of which are a surprise and others which were not so surprising. Stone Park Cafe in Park Slope took Cityguide's top restaurant honor, beating out big names like Daniel, Le Bernardin, Per Se, and Masa. The Chef and co-owner of Stone Park told the Daily News, "We're very thrilled - winning these types of contests really attests to the loyal support of our customers."

What is it about stars that gets people so worked up? New Yorkers went ballistic over the stars doled out by the Michelin Guide (the Spotted Pig?!?), and the addition of one extra star from the New York Times can make all the difference when you're trying to get a reservation. And now, New York Mag has jumped on the star bandwagon, with Adam Platt dishing out stars to his 101 favorite restaurants in the city. He describes the new rating system in detail:

Five stars is an ethereal, rarely used designation, the equivalent of foodie heaven. Four stars means that we consider the restaurant and its chef to be among the city’s very best. Three stars means the restaurant is excellent, though not elite. A two-star rating is very good—though not necessarily so good for the many establishments in town that aspire to be a foodie heaven. Classically, one-star restaurants tend to be simple, more neighborly, and often more satisfying than their multi-star brethren, and that will often be the case here, although one star for a restaurant with elite aspirations is really not much better than no star at all. No stars on a review doesn’t necessarily mean a restaurant is bad; it means our critics don’t recommend you go out of your way to eat there.

Ah, the end of the year. A time to look back and reflect on the things that have happend. Also, a time to get wasted. But that's neither here nor there (ok, it's a bit here, but it's ok to start drinking past noon, right?). We've already looked back at the year as we wrote it, but what about the year as you commented on it? Seems a reasonable enough request. So without further ado, we bring you, the Top 10 Commented Gothamist Posts of 2005:

New York Metro rounds up some restaurants where you can warm up in front of the fire when it gets cold and snowy outside, including Per Se (if you can snag a reservation), and Savoy (the cheeseburgers there are divine, by the way). We'd like to add a few to the mix, including the delightful and cozy Applewood in Park Slope (get the butter-poached lobster), the back room in the Art Bar (for drinks), and the quaint Jack's Luxury Oyster Bar (although we haven't been there since Maxime Bilet took over the helm from Allison Vines-Rushing). Other fireplace suggestions?

Gothamist knows that the best restaurants in the city use the best ingredients they can find. But there are many chefs that go to extremes to find the best of the best. Chefs like Thomas Keller of Per Se fame develop relationships with local farmers, fisherman and wild mushroom cultivators in the maticulous pursuit of the best ingredients. Unfortuntely, most of these ingredients are not always available to the passionate home cook.

Charlie Suisman over at Manhattan User's Guide broke the French omerta on the New York City restaurants Michelin guide and listed the restaurants receiving 1, 2 or 3 stars. Only thirty-nine restaurants were reviewed. Here's a quick analysis:

Per Se's Creamy Tapioca Pearls

People are all in a fuss about the foie gras. Sure, some people love it, even celebrate it, but others aren't so enamoured of this gourmet delicacy. In fact, there is legislation in the works at the state Assembly which would ban foie gras production. New York Metro recently focused on the fight between duck-loving activists and duck liver lovers.

Bouchon by Thomas Keller (Artisan, 2004)

- Waterford Wedgwood Outstanding Restauranteur Award: Danny Meyer, Union Square Hospitality Group

The other night, Gothamist had the most decadent dream: in one night, we ate at Hearth, WD-50, Asiate, Public, Cru, Sumile and Per Se. We sipped wines from all over the world, and nibbled on delectable desserts from Spice Market. When we woke up the next morning, we realized that it wasn't a dream after all -- it was the StarChefs.com annual Rising Stars Revue, and Gothamist was there.

April 23rd: Taste of Chinatown