*** Three Stars
Aureole

Address: 135 West 42nd St., btwn. 6th & 7th Aves.
Phone: (212)319-1160
Cuisine: American
Vibe: Sleek, haute midtown
Occasion: Business lunch; Group dinner; oeniphile destination
Hours: Dinner; Sun-Wed, 5:30p.m..-12a.m., Thu-Sat, 5:30p.m.-1a.m.
Don't Miss Dish: Pastrami pork belly sliders; Steamed branzini in lemongrass-coconut broth;Sweet corn souffle.
Average Price: Appetizers, $15, Entrees, $30, Dessert, $10.
Reservations:  Reservations recommended.

Capsule: Aureole does upscale Vegas by way of Times Square.

Aureole used to be a sure thing.  When everyone else was doing haute French, Charlie Palmer trailblazed haute American cuisine in the 90's.  Aureole became synonymous with fine dining, impeccable food, and a wonderful wine list.  Eating in the restaurant -- an elegant, Upper East Side townhouse -- felt like you were a dinner guest at Charlie Palmer's house.  But over the years, Aureole lost its luster.  Even with Adam Tihany’s redesign, the food no longer dazzled and the audience seemed to tire of the formal way we used to eat fancy food. 

So Charlie Palmer picked up and relocated to 135 East 42nd Street, right between Bryant Park and the heart of Times Square. Bold move.  The new Aureole looks nothing like the old one.   Aureole 2.0 has a sleek, glass façade that looks out onto traffic, a broadway billboard, and the furious bustle of midtown.  Inside, Adam Tihany has outfitted the space with a zinc bar, marble floors, and high gloss wood tables.  The centerpiece is a magnificent, second-story wine cellar, built entirely out of glass, that floats over the barroom.  The restaurant looks a lot like the Aureole in Las Vegas, which makes sense.  After all, Times Square -- with its neon lights and oversized eateries -- is a lot like the Vegas of New York.  The crowd's a little Vegas too -- an odd assortment of tourists in ripped jeans, a business lunch crowd, Graydon Carter, and a guy in a cowboy hat and boots.

Palmer put Chef Christopher Lee from Gilt in charge of his new kitchen.  There's  an upfront bar room with an a la carte or bar snack menu and a main dining room with a prix fixe menu.  The main dining room, tucked away in the back, has low ceilings, carpeting, and a slightly, stuffy atmosphere.  I prefer the bar room.  You can order quite a few of the dishes on the prix fixe menu in the bar room without the three-course commitment and the $84 price tag.  Nowadays, a burger, sliders, and roast chicken are fixtures on almost every American menu.

The sliders at Aureole are phenomenal -- pastrami pork belly imaginatively layered with raclette cheese, cole slaw, and russian dressing.  The burger's much more substantial than your typical fancy food burger.  It's a thick, juicy burger topped with a slab of bacon, cheddar, and a terrific ramp aioli.  But twice, I had the roast chicken and twice the meat was lackluster, the skin crisp-less.  Both the calamari a la plancha and the striped bass were average, but when I dine at Aureole I expect better than average.  I want something memorable, like Palmer's seared sea scallops sweetened with raw rhubarb and mellowed by mushrooms, served during lunch.  I loved the steamed branzini in a fragrant, lemongrass coconut broth and the heirloom tomato gazpacho with diced lobster, avocado, and baby basil. 

The wine list is better than ever, especially the selections by the glass. For dessert, there's a wonderful corn souffle with blueberry chutney and frozen yogurt and a great selection of homemade ice creams and sorbets.  But is it really necessary to deconstruct, never mind pan-fry carrot cake?  As good as Aureole is, 42nd Street feels like the wrong location for Aureole.  It's on a block where nobody stops and diners feel like they're sitting in a display case in a store window.  The only other place to eat on the block is the Conde Nast Cafeteria.

Photo Credit: Pete Thompson 

Seafood shrine is a great catch.

• Cuisine: Coastal Italian
• Vibe: Breezy fine dining
• Occasion: Business or bargain lunch, romantic date, dinner for an occasion
• Don't Miss: Lobster with burrata, brodetto di pesce, garganelli with sausage ragu, zucchini torte with frozen yogurt
• Price: Appetizers, $11; entrees, $18; dessert, $9
• Reservations: Recommended
• Phone: (212) 582-5100
• Location: 240 Central Park South, between Broadway & Seventh Ave.

Chef Michael White is either really confident or completely out of his mind. These days everyone is scaling back and lowering prices. Everyone, that is, except for White and partner Chris Cannon, who just opened Marea, a haute seafood restaurant on Central Park South.

The main dining room is furnished with high-gloss rosewood, chocolate leather banquettes, silver-coated seashells and roaming silver trolleys lined with liqueurs. And what's most compelling about Marea's dining room isn't the decor, it's that the seats are always filled with guests.

White and Cannon established themselves as serious restaurateurs at Alto and Convivio, prominent Italian restaurants in Manhattan. And instead of ­downsizing during the slump, they've expanded their empire with a new 150-seat restaurant.

White's always been known for ­rustic, hearty cooking and his way with pasta and meat. At Marea, he's venturing into seafood and delicate crudos with an extensive seafood menu that rivals the selection at Milos and Le Bernardin.

So do the prices. When you're serving seafood, you really can't afford to cut quality. Marea's menu is filled with astoundingly fresh fish — lobster and zucchini-filled squid with roasted tomato, sea scallops with orange and arugula, and rigatoni with shrimp ragu and seppia. The menu is divided into crudi (teeny bites) antipasti (small bites), pastas, fish and meat entrees, and whole fish sold by the pound.

I think every table should start with the lardo crostini smeared with sea urchin, an unexpected and clever combination of flavors. There's a lot of originality here, especially in the pairing of fish and cheese, like a phenomenal antipasti of burrata and lobster with eggplant funghi and a basil-seed vinaigrette. My favorite pasta dish is the house-made spaghetti tossed with garlic, crab, sea urchin and oven-dried tomatoes...

If you're looking for a sign of the times, Convivio is it.

45 Tudor City Place, at 42nd St. (212) 599-5045
Sun.-Thur., 5:30 p.m.-10:30 p.m; Fri.-Sat., 5:30 p.m.-11:30 p.m.
Cuisine Southern Italian.
Vibe Warm Tudor City haunt.
Occasion Business lunch; group dinner.
Don't Miss Dish Four-course prix fixe or the sweetbreads piccata, tuna & caper ravioli, roasted squab.
Average Price Appetizers, $13; entrees, $25; dessert, $11.
Reservations Recommended.

Sometimes, a restaurant doesn't really need a makeover. All it needs is a make-under.

Convivio is a perfect example. Just six weeks ago, L'Impero shut its doors on a quiet block in Tudor City. Two weeks later, it reopened as Convivio. A quick wardrobe change, a few tweaks to the menu and voila, a new restaurant. Sort of. It's the same chef, Michael White, same owners, and yet everything feels different.

The banquettes are brighter, burnt orange, instead of somber blue. The service is still efficient, but somehow friendlier. The room is warmer, the atmosphere more relaxed. Now it's less a jacket-and-tie kind of place, more jacket-and-loosened tie. If you're looking for a sign of the times, Convivio is it. Even the dishes carried over from L'Impero, including the prix fixe, have gone down in price. Not a lot, but enough to seem empathetic. After all, the easy times may be over - for now anyway.

But the drop in price at Convivio doesn't mean a sacrifice in quality. If you have any doubts, order the sweetbreads.  Sometimes, sweetbreads can look, and even taste, a little too anatomical. But Michael White's sweetbreads look and taste almost ethereal. They're glossed in a chive-speckled piccata sauce that cuts right through the unctuousness of the sweetbreads. This is my favorite dish on the menu.

I apparently like my quail skewered, too. Who knew? But when it's on a kebab with chunks of pancetta and shiitake mushrooms, and drizzled in a vin cotto, the logic of skewering quail seems perfectly clear. In a way, these two dishes are emblematic of what Michael White does best. He works well with bold flavors and resilient textures. Clearly, what appeals to him is the rusticity of southern Italian cooking.

It's almost as simple as meat versus fish. The pastas with meat sauces always trump the pastas with seafood, except for a wonderful ravioli of braised tuna and capers, which has all the sweetness (and some of the salt) of the sea itself. Sometimes, the delicacy of the fish on the menu is overwhelmed, and sometimes it's underwhelmed. A heavy, mint-laced yogurt kept arguing with a very creative swordfish involtino. The crab gnocchetti was served in an innocuous sea urchin sub-bisque.

And the shrimp in the calamari-tossed spaghetti were too few and too tiny. Eating them was like playing a game of connect-the-shrimp.

Somehow, you can always tell when a chef likes to eat. What tells you that Michael White is a good eater is the pasta at Convivio - any pasta with meat sauce. Take your pick - ricotta cavatelli baked with goat ragu in a buffalo mozzarella and pecorino "hoodie." Or perhaps, a fusilli with chunks of pork shoulder topped with a fonduta, or orecchiette with sausage, tripe and wild fennel. These are superb dishes to settle down to on a chilly night in late November or even late August.

You may want to spend some of the money you save on the wines. This is one unusual, impressive selection of wines by the glass. The Carjanti Gulfi 2005, a Sicilian white, is amazingly adaptable. And where else can you find a Mariposa Panevino 2006 by the glass? It's a deftly balanced, irresistibly aromatic Sardinian wine. For dessert, don't miss the beignet, the Tudor City equivalent of funnel cake.

The not-so-fine art of fine French dining.
60 W. 55th St., between Fifth & Sixth Aves., (646) 943-7373.
Seven days a week. Breakfast, Mon.-Fri., 7:30 a.m.-10 p.m.; lunch, Mon.-Sat., 11:45 a.m.-2:30 p.m.; dinner, Mon.-Sun., 5:30-11 p.m.
CUISINE French bistro.
VIBE Elegant midtown bistro.
OCCASION Group dining, business lunch.
DON'T-MISS DISH Cassoulet, onion soup gratinee, escargots.
PRICE Appetizers, $9-$19; entrees, $19-$48; dessert, $7-18.
RESERVATIONS Recommended.

No one expects humble from Alain Ducasse. But that's what you get at Benoit. There's even a dollar menu. It has one dish: Egg Mayo, a terrific deviled egg with a fluffy, sweet filling. It makes for a glorious, four-bite lunch.

Ducasse now runs three Benoits - the original Paris bistro (which opened in 1912), another in Tokyo and the newest, at 60 W. 55th St., the address of the old Le Cote Basque.

A lot of menus honor the lineage of their ingredients - they tell you you're eating Berkshire pork or Satur Farms lettuce. Or they tell you what the ingredients ate for dinner - milk-fed poularde or grass-fed beef. But at Benoit, the menu honors the tradition of bistro cooking.

So what does tradition taste like? Sometimes it tastes like an iconic French onion soup - a thick, Gruyere cheese-berg collapsing into a complex, oxtail-beef broth. Sometimes it tastes like savory escargots, topped with croutons, in a parsley-flecked garlic butter that's well worth sopping up. And sometimes it tastes like a decadent tarte tatin with dewy chunks of apples.

Perhaps the most traditional dish on the menu is the cassoulet, borrowed from a J.J. Rachou recipe. There's a kind of restorative modesty about this dish - white beans disintegrating over subtly sweet sausage, pork loin and a hulking duck leg.

Sadly, at Benoit tradition also tastes like cold, lifeless French fries or poached asparagus in a vapid vinaigrette. Two servers carry a roasted chicken intact to the table. They whisk it back to the kitchen to be carved. Out it comes again, disassembled and flaccid.

The banquettes are bright red, the mirrors are arched, the ceiling is a trompe l'oeil sky, and the room is lit with sconces from the old Le Cote Basque. The menu is poster-sized - a poster with an amusing picture of a rotund French chef plucking a rooster - and the room is decorated with whimsical oval caricatures.

But when it comes to Alain Ducasse, you have to take his intentions seriously. At Benoit, his intent is to preserve, perhaps curate, authentic bistro food. And the menu is full of bistro classics, such as duck a l'orange, quenelles de brochet and a charcuterie selection that could feed a family of five.

This isn't food that's meant to spotlight the chef. This is food that ought to transcend a chef's ego, something Ducasse acknowledges by giving credit to J.J. Rachou's brasserie and the famous Parisian bistro L'ami Louis. The trouble is that the food itself simply isn't transcendent. You can find excellent bistro food all over New York in a less formal atmosphere.

When I think of Ducasse doing bistro, I imagine vivid flavors, complexity, history. But at Benoit I also found myself imagining something less exalted. I imagined fries that were hot and crispy when they came to the table. I imagined steak tartare that was something more than damp. I imagined I wasn't eating the world's most boring salad - the Parisian version of a chef's salad.

Here's my advice: Stick with humble. Have a glass of red wine and the dollar Egg Mayo at the black-and-white bar.

We have some reservations.
ADDRESS:154 Central Park South
PHONE: (212) 484-5120
DINNER: Sun.-Thur., 5.30 p.m.-10 p.m.; Fri.-Sat., 5:30 p.m.-10:30 p.m.
CUISINE  Seasonal American.
VIBE Sleek hotel eatery.
OCCASION  Hotel dining; dessert destination.
DON'T-MISS DISH  Buttercup flan; flash-seared calamari.
PRICE Appetizers, $10-$21; entrees, $24-$39; desserts, $9-$12.
RESERVATIONS  Recommended.

How fitting that South Gate premiered just on the heels of the highly anticipated unveiling of Alain Ducasse's Adour. After all, South Gate, and its chef, Kerry Heffernan, were installed to fill the void left when Ducasse vacated the Essex House.

While Alain Ducasse's former restaurant was buried in the rear of the building, South Gate has its own street entrance on Central Park South. With its glitzy glass façade overlooking the park, it's a radically hip departure from Ducasse's classically French production. Designed by Tony Chi, the sleek space is embellished with a long marble bar, modern gas fireplace and fractured mirror panels along the ceiling and walls of the front bar and 90-seat dining room.

In keeping with the culinary fashion of the moment, South Gate embraces a seasonal American menu, aggressively positioning itself as a trendy dining destination. This is Heffernan's official reentry into the Manhattan dining scene after serving as the executive chef at Eleven Madison Park for seven years.

He returns with the same wild mushroom martini he conceived at Eleven Madison Park. It's still a thick, woodsy mushroom puree punctuated by wilted spinach, a poached egg, and a crispy shard of pancetta. There, he also demonstrated a keen finesse for molding vegetables into relentlessly silky textures. At South Gate, he turns out a similar, standout buttercup squash flan that yields tremendous richness with every melting spoonful. It's plated with pan-roasted brussels sprouts, black trumpet mushrooms and crusty drifts of breadcrumbs, all of which complement the flan centerpiece. Both appetizers are finely distinguished by the familiarity and purity of their ingredients.

I would order the flash-seared calamari for its earthy cauliflower custard alone. But the tender ringlets of calamari that accompany it get an equally charmed gloss of lobster coriander sauce.

Beyond familiar holdovers from Eleven Madison Park, Heffernan fails to deliver new thrills. Employing a vast hodgepodge of ingredients, his dishes tend to emerge in a blizzard of flavors with little rhyme or reason to their union. The butter-roasted lobster was caught in a hostile tug of war between overbearing seasonings of marjoram, red pepper and tart kimchi in a clam broth beneath the innocent crustacean. A hot-smoked char wholly surrendered to bitter shocks of grapefruit, nicoise olives and a mustard-streaked vinaigrette.

The meat entrees were an altogether grim roster of consistently fatty cuts, stripped of critical succulence. The glazed pork belly came cloaked in a gluey layer of fat, which had to be peeled off to get to any traceable meat. So did an excessively chewy roasted rib of beef, flanked by an allspice-muffled short rib. Not to mention a smoky grilled shoulder of lamb that tasted more like charcoal than lamb.

Rewarding dishes are scarce among the savory selection, but the kitchen has a much better handle on desserts, all of which were exceptionally executed. Warm slivers of cider-roasted apples are paved with a dense bacon streusel and paired with a phenomenal maple pecan ice cream. But the most imaginative composition was a frozen blood orange parfait, stocked with mascarpone sorbet and crunchy explosions of meringue and butter cookie.

While South Gate can be assured of a built-in audience of hotel guests and business types, the hip trappings and weaknesses in the menu aren't going to compel discerning diners here.

 

Address: 21 W. 52nd St., near Fifth Ave.
Phone: (212) 582-7200
Dinner: Mon.-Thur., 5:30 p.m.-10 p.m.; Fri.-Sat., 5:30 p.m.-11:30  p.m; lunch, Mon.-Fri., 12 p.m.- 2:30 p.m. Closed Sundays.
Cuisine: American
Vibe: Midtown country club
Occassion: Power-lunch spot; time-warp dinner
Don't Miss Dish: Mixed grill of game, pommes souffles, apple crisp.
Drink Specialty:Exemplary global wine selection.
Price: Appetizers, $12-23; entrees, $30-45; desserts, $10.50. $35 prix fixe lunch menu; $40 dinner prix fixe menu.
Reservations: Recommended; dress code strictly enforced.

A changing of the guard in the kitchen demands a revisit to this NYC classic.

There is nothing subtle about the dress code inspection at the '21' Club. It is an unapologetic once-over by hosts, who vigilantly deny entrance to guests in jeans or sneakers.

Though this midtown institution may have surrendered ties at lunch, it strictly enforces an old-school jacket policy.

It's ironic that a former speakeasy with bar shelves that once emptied into the sewers, and a stealthy wine cellar, would cling to such traditions. Yet after 85 years, co-founders Jack Kriendler and Charlie Berns' club still manages to lure celebrities and the social elite.

While an Old World order still guards the four-story townhouse's entrance, a new regime of chefs presides over the kitchen. After 12 years at the '21' Club, chef John Greeley earned the "chef" title just last year and thus permission to exact change in the kitchen. Regulars who get their "usual" are missing out on splendidly tweaked classics as well as distinctly haute additions.

The '21' Club could easily rest on the laurels of its classics, many of which have been served since the 1930s. Where some classics are concerned, the kitchen coasts on autopilot - as was the case with a tired '21' Caesar salad with stale croutons and a shallow wash of dressing. The signature $30 burger proved average, and a breadcrumb-dense crab cake certainly didn't merit its $24 price tag.

But what you're paying for is also the privilege of dining in a New York City landmark steeped in history. Nowhere else can you feast on a sirloin as you sit beneath Willie Mays' baseball bat dangling from the Bar Room's ceiling or dine on a Dover sole as you gaze above at an Air Force One model donated by President Bill Clinton.

Many menu warhorses have withstood the test of time. Excellent pommes souffles resemble swollen French fries with unrivaled crunch. A thick sirloin is juicy and charred. Of all the tableside theatrics in the city, none compares to the charms of a tuxedo-clad server preparing steak tartare in a room decked with toys and checkered tablecloths.

Though it's hard to compete with the power-lunch scene, Greeley's cooking demands attention. Forgo the crab cakes for jumbo lump crabmeat, glossed with olive oil, avocado and lime juice. It's sided by an avocado puree with a kick of jalapeño. An Arctic char - served with farro, bacon and hedgehog mushrooms - could give many of the newly installed, market-driven dishes a run for their money.

Greeley's finest performance is the mixed grill of game, $44 and worth every penny. While I envisioned a barbaric stockpile of meat, it turns up as a sophisticated plating of expertly cooked cuts: The best of the lot is a tender elk chop and a robustly flavored chocolate and chile-rubbed venison loin.

Pastry chef Kimberly Bugler (formerly of Dennis Foy) thrills with a decadent fig and cherry pudding with homemade toffee ice cream, and a rustic apple pie. Its walnut streusel topping gives way to a warm, chewy mix of dried and fresh apples.

If the cost of admission seems steep, the $40 dinner prix fixe menu is a deal. With a changing of the guard in the kitchen, the '21' Club demands a revisit.

1430 Sixth Ave., at Central Park South; (212) 521-6125
Lunch, 11:45 a.m.-2 p.m., Mon.-Fri.; brunch, 11:45 a.m.-2:30 p.m., Sat.-Sun.; dinner, Mon.-Sun., 5:30-10 p.m.
CUISINE Seasonal New American
VIBE Farmhouse chic
OCCASION Family dinner, pampered affair
DON'T MISS DISH Veal-and-pork ricotta meatballs, American kobe skirt steak.
PRICE Appetizers, $12-$21; entrees, $26-$38; desserts, $9-$11.
RESERVATIONS Recommended.

When the chef launched BLT Steak, he lured with freshly baked popovers just as suavely as he persuaded with a succulent porterhouse. Now Laurent Tourondel runs a booming corporation: BLT Fish, BLT Prime and BLT Burger are all notches on his rapidly expanding belt.

At BLT Market, he bows to both seasonal and artisanal themes. It's impossible to miss the signs. Just check in at the hostess stand; whitewashed shelves are stacked with artisanal goods: domestic olive oils, as well as vinegars and syrups from across the country.

It's a charmed space - with vibrant vegetable paintings, antique gardening tools and oak-plank floors - that eclipses its posh Ritz-Carlton address. Rustic wood tables are set with rosemary plants, and paper placemats wear seasonal catch phrases.

Tourondel playfully welcomes with gussied-up pigs in a blanket: a Schaller and Weber beef-and-pork hot dog, wrapped up in a homemade Gruyère-flecked pastry and topped with sauerkraut and mustard. It's a homespun amuse-bouche that makes a gratifying argument for the trickle-up dining effect. At lunchtime, you'll find a mix of power-lunch brokers, jet-setters and BLT admirers soaking up the sunlight as they partake in decorated sandwiches and Black Angus burgers.

Lunch may be your best bet: Only then can you reap the benefits of the excellent roasted leg of lamb panini, doused with fontina and caramelized onions. Or a very fine blue-cheese-capped burger. Even the seven-pepper-crusted skirt steak - a buttery, rich slab - is only available before dusk. The dinnertime seven-pepper-crusted rendition, a New York strip, wasn't nearly as satisfying a cut of meat.

Of course, many engaging dishes appear on both the lunch and dinner menus. Fluffy veal-and-pork meatballs are a must. Unusually light, these robust meatballs are lavished with dollops of ricotta, a garlicky tomato sauce and pea shoots. The semi-smoked wild salmon arrives tied up with bacon - like a thick filet, and nearly as luscious as one, though the floppy bacon failed to deliver a properly crisp casing.

On my fourth visit, I was relieved to find that an overdressed watermelon-and-tomato salad retired with summer. But the stuffed chicken did not: Rubbery skin clings to flavorless meat, and a side of mushy tomatoes only added insult to an injured bird. What struck me most about many dishes was that none of the ingredients revealed themselves as singularly superior. Such was the case with a raw tuna in an assemblage of tuna confit, avocado and hearts of palm. On its own, the tuna sashimi wasn't nearly distinguished enough to merit market-fresh billing. This was also true of a Jasper Hill Bartlett blue cheese - not remarkably sharp - with leeks, candied walnuts and prosciutto.

However, a sumptuous pear tarte tatin shines, folded with an exquisite almond frangipane and skirted by port sauce.

Though BLT Market doesn't critically raise the bar for the market-driven restaurant, Tourondel once again proves himself an able chef, a gracious host and a versatile entrepreneur.

Address: 472 9th Ave., at 36th Street
Phone: 212-695-9920
Cuisine: Modern Thai
Vibe: Buddhist-Zen
Hours: Sun-Thu: 11:30am-11pm, Fri-Sat: 11:30am-12am
First Bite Impressions: Unexpected delight
Note to Self: Order the mojito
Don't Miss Dish: Tamarind Duck- Crispy duck served with smoked tamarind soy sauce over a bed of baby bok choy
Price: Appetizers, $5-10; Entrees, $9-18.
Reservations: Reservations recommended.

A diamond in the rough you might say, at 36th Street & 9th Avenue there lives a quaint and nondescript new Thai restaurant that is anything but mundane.  Woks abound with jumbo shrimp - plump & delicious - glass noodle pad thai's and the duck I dare contend is as crispy on the outside & juicy on the inside as any you'll find in Chinatown. Pad Thai spring rolls are double-rolled for an extra crunchy effect and even gimmicky pork poppers with were well-matched to a homemade fire sauce.  Just when we thought this little Thai delight was simply too good to be true, a mound of fried ice cream came to the table.  Healthy?  Ha.  Creative?  Not really.  Coldstone Creamery would've hit the spot, but I had to finish what I'd started.  Sure, it's be a schlep to the rather unscenic 9th Avenue hood, but the Thai at this newbie might just be worth the trek.

 

Address: 226 W. 50th St., btwn. Broadway & 8th Aves.
Phone: 212.258.2988
Cuisine: Japanese-Italian fusion
Vibe: Typical modern Asian
Scene: Times Square escapees
Hours: Sun - Mon, 11:30am - 11pm, Tue - Fri, 11:30am-11:30pm. Sat, 12pm-12am.
Scoop: Separate bar & lounge with sushi-slanted lounge menu.
Price: Appetizers, $2.50-$15.  Entrees, $16-38.
Reservations: Reservations accepted.
www.natsuminyc.com

Times Square's a tricky stretch to open an ambitious restaurant.  The late 7Square, a modern chophouse with Lespinasse-trained chef Shane McBride, quickly comes to mind.  With Ruby Foo's, Carmine's & the relentless bowl of pasta at the Olive Garden, tourists & theater-goers are pretty much covered.  But with numerous successes under their belt, restaurateurs Barbara Matsumura & Haru Konagaya seem to know how to please the public at large.  Inspired by a recent trip to Italy, their newest gig is a bold move: a Japanese-Italian fusion restaurant in the Theater District. 

Separated by the lobby of Amsterdam Court Hotel, Natsumi doubles as a lounge & restaurant, both modernly furbished with the usual Asian accoutrements: natural woods, creamy leather chairs and rice paper light fixtures.  While it looks like your run of the mill sushi haunt with your typical sushi offerings, it isn't.   Instead of the token cheap glass of nondescript Chardonnay or Merlot (don't ask, don't tell), Natsumi actually has a decent wine list and homemade infused sakes to boot.  Even more interesting, Natsumi will soon be serving their own brand of red & white wines as well as well balsamic vinegar and olive oil.  (The plot thickens.) 

And then there's the menu, mostly traditional Japanese fusion - tempura, sushi rolls, seafood toban yaki & miso black cod - with a sparse, but curiously notable sprinkling of Italian ingredients and flavors.  For example, you'll be scrolling down the list of appetizers and stumble on a random chicken salad with balsamic vinaigrette, tuna tartar martini with basil pesto or beef asparagus maki with mozzarella cheese.  Even more unexpected is the pizza nuova, a selection that includes tuna with spicy mayo atop baked thin-crust bread or seared salmon with cream cheese.

Seeing as I adore good Japanese and Italian food, I was more than game.  Why wouldn't this marriage work?  Afterall, Japanese & French techniques seem to blend wonderfully, especially in the hands of talented chefs like Bouley and Josh DeChellis.  Like chocolate & peanut butter.  But while eggplant & mozzarella tastes delicious, as does eggplant & miso sauce, eggplant with miso & mozzarella doesn't: they cancel each other out and you end up with muddled flavors and a mushy texture.  Neither does pesto in the doppio toro roll (salmon, yellowtail, avocado, asparagus & pesto).  As I bit into the puffed-up fusion roll, I was suddenly experiencing an unpleasant deja vu: Standing in my kitchen, I'd sprinkled what I thought was cinammon on an apple, realizing only post-swallow it was paprika.   Not a good combination to say the least.

The traditional Japanese offerings are a better bet.  They're also beautifully presented as evident in a salmon tartar: two stacked layers of varying tartar - the first a chopped shiso & salmon atop salmon & crunchy tobiko - separated by slices of creamy avocado and delightfully punched up by a zippy wasabi tobiko dressing.  I'd also invest in a meaty miso black cod perched on nicely charred asparagus and sauced with a thick sake miso.  It's not Nobu, but then again it is Times Square, and a lounge that serves decent sushi post-theater, isn't easy to come by in these parts.  I would've finished with dessert, but they were out of the first three offerings as well as both tartufos.

I haven't given up on the potential for successful Italian-Japanese fusion.  Rumor has it (by way of Food Talk's Mike Colameco) that Basta Pasta's mastered this union.  I'm off to tempt spaghetti with flying fish roe and shiso...

Until we eat again,
Restaurant Girl
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204 West 55th St., btwn. 7th & Broadway Aves.
212-245-1234

TYPE: Mediterranean-American
VIBE: Whimsical opulence
OCCASION: Chichi date or group gathering
DON'T MISS DISH: Roasted sea bass with rock shrimp
DON'T BOTHER DISH: Stuffed ribeye steak
DRINK SPECIALTY: Aperitifs & global wine list
PRICE: $55 & up
HOURS: Dinner, Sun - Mon, 5 PM-10 PM; Tue – Thu, 5PM-11PM, Fri & Sat, 5 PM – 12 AM.  Lunch daily, 11 AM - 3 PM (Start date TBD).
INSIDE SCOOP: Lounge open with a separate 55th St. entrance, Sun - Wed, 5PM - 2AM, Thu-Sat, 5PM- 4AM (Start date TBD).
RESERVATIONS: Reservations accepted.
RESTAURANT GIRL RATES: 5.5 on food, 8 on atmosphere
FINAL WORD: While undeniably posh, this well-heeled newcomer leans on style over substance: the cuisine slightly falters.  When in midtown, drop into Amalia for exotic desserts & handcrafted aperitifs. 

Does restaurateur Greg Brier know something we don’t: Is midtown west set to become the Meatpacking District for 2007?  Highly unlikely.  But with 7000 square feet and 88 seats to fill, someone’s banking on trendy traffic in these parts. 

DECOR
Amalia is undeniably ambitious: black Murano chandeliers dangle elegantly above an ornate mosaic-tiled staircase as candlelight dances off brick walls and a gold leaf bar.  And that’s just the entrance.  Named after Sigmund Freud’s mother, the restaurant takes a thematic cue from the adjacent Dream Hotel.  It’s simultaneously childlike and sophisticated; sultry and playful; an Alice in Wonderland meets Versailles.  I traveled through a series of wood-paneled enclaves with Baroque-inspired accents to my table, set dramatically below a painting-clad ceiling.  The work of SL design (Marquee & Aspen), nothing about this space is subtle, and yet still manages to elude feeling contrived.

MENU
Though chef Ivy Stark most recently occupied two Mexican kitchens (Dos Caminos & Rosa Mexicano), at Amalia she focuses her efforts on Mediterranean-American preparations with liberal applications of Tunisian & Moroccan seasonings:  charmoula crusted salmon, foie gras with ras el hanout, and lamb osso bucco paired with harissa.  The menu’s also studded with fashionable ingredients: vanilla, meyer lemon, lavender and blood oranges.  Freud may have been preoccupied with his mother, Amalia, Ivy Stark seems particularly fixated on pomegranates: pomegranate vinaigrette, sorbet, aperitif, cocktails and even pomegranate walnut butter.

WINE & COCKTAILS:
The wine list runs the global gamut: Italy, France, Morocco, Turkey, and even Lebanon.  There’s a noteworthy selection of seasonally altered classic cocktails and house-aged eau de vie (aperitifs).  After failed attempts to order both the dried apricot and the pear-cardamom (both out of stock), I sampled a gentle, but sweet pomegranate, better suited for post-dinner endeavors.  My companion wisely opted for a vibrant rosemary-lemon elixir with earthy currents of thyme.  I highly recommend it.   

FOOD:
Upon surveying nearby tables, it seemed par for the course to invest in the trio of spreads served with warm herbed pita, my favorite being a creamy whip of avocado hummus.  While the bitterness of vanilla-pickled red onions proved too overpowering for a mild hamachi crudo, a tender eggplant & goat cheese “lasagnette”, sauced with roasted tomatoes & basil, was a flavorful venture. 

As far as entrees go, my advice is to stick with seafood.  I stumbled on a roasted sea bass gem.  Light & firm, the crispy-skinned sea bass was generously crowned with a wonderfully tangy picholine olive salsa verde and well-browned potatoes.  In stark contrast to the fish, the meatier offerings suffered.  A double-cut roasted pork chop, perilously undercooked, warranted an immediate return to the kitchen.  Upon second delivery, it arrived tough and dry, though I did enjoy the side of roasted fuji apples.  Ditto on an uninspired ribeye, an indistinct chewy cut, oddly stuffed with wild mushrooms.  While the menu theoretically conveys creative combinations of seasonings and ingredients, most of the flavors don't make it to the plate.  Just as the sea bass held great promise, Amalia's menu will hopefully prove to be a work in progress. 

DESSERT
The savory paled in comparison to a spirited and exotic dessert menu, created by John Miele, the former pastry chef at Aureole.  Miele crafts exotic spins on familiar desserts: apple & pecan crisp served with a heated urfa chile ice cream, and a crème brulee trio with rosemary and Tahitian vanilla twists.  My favorite offering was fortuitously added to the menu only that morning: crunchy polenta streusel topping was the perfect foil for this moist cake adrift in a dark pool of chocolate, and accompanied by a fluffy ricotta gelato.  While only an accessory to warm bananas & katafi (reminiscent of shredded wheat), the frozen lemon yogurt struck a perfectly tart and luscious balance, demanding my undivided attention.

Until we eat again,
Restaurant Girl
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