Tribeca
July 7, 2009
- Cuisine: Italian
- Vibe: Buzzing trattoria
- Occasion: Group dinner, casual date, night out
- Don't Miss: Blue crab crostino; fettuccine verde with white Bolognese; almond semifreddo
- Price: Appetizers, $13; entrees, $22; desserts, $8
- Reservations: Recommended
- Phone: (212) 925-3797
- Location: 377 Greenwich St., near N. Moore St.
What a disaster Ago was. It seemed to have everything going for it - Robert De Niro, the Greenwich Hotel, a distinguished designer, and it was an Ago, an offshoot of the original Hollywood eatery famous for its celebrity clientele. The one in Tribeca was like a cafeteria that served miserable, overpriced Italian food. It opened and closed in less than six months. Ago was dreadful, but the new incarnation, an Italian trattoria called Locanda Verde, is excellent.
This was quite an exorcism. It's got two high-powered chefs, Andrew Carmellini and Karen DeMasco, a hip designer named Ken Friedman, seasoned partner Josh Pickard and a rising star sommelier named Josh Nadel.
The dining room's outfitted with terra-cotta floors, open glass doors, exposed brick walls, shelves lined with wines and books, low-slung lights and dark wood tables. There's a bustling, open kitchen toward the back, where the nightly porchetta sits on display. This is a very different kitchen for Carmellini, who earned praise for his haute cooking at Café Boulud and A Voce. You won't find that formal kind of cooking here.
Locanda Verde is the actualization of "Urban Italian," a cookbook he co-wrote with his wife. The menu is casual - crispy artichokes with yogurt and mint, a dish called "my grandmother's ravioli," an excellent, fire-roasted garlic chicken and orechiette with rabbit sausage. Casual doesn't mean simple. Fresh-from-the-garden sugar snap peas and radish are served over a tangy Sicilian pesto made from Calabrian sundried peppers, sundried tomatoes and almonds. Blue crab is unexpectedly flavored with cream, garlic and a kick of jalapeño, then spread on a traditional, tomato-rubbed crostino.
Carmellini's cooking is thoughtful and imaginative. He's got a knack for making hearty foods somehow taste light and summery. I mean, the last thing I wanted on a hot summer night was pasta in a heavy Bolognese sauce. But it was like nothing I'd ever tasted before - fettuccine verde in a rousing white Bolognese made with veal, pork, celery root, white mushrooms, onion and milk.
The rabbit terrine was another hearty-sounding dish that turned out to be light and summery - rabbit studded with sweet baby carrots and paired with a sour cherry mostarda. The maltagliati (poorly cut pasta) in a garlicky pesto was just as vibrant.
When Carmellini's good, he's fabulous, which is what makes his blunders so frustrating. I wish the "porchetta the way I like it" was the way I liked it. The pork was dry and overcooked, and so was the lamb pancetta in the spaghetti with lamb amatriciana.
My tripe alla parmigiana arrived at the table cold, not really the way you want to eat anything cooked parmigiana. And the whole roasted trout came in a musty giallo sauce made with roasted yellow peppers, onions and yellow tomatoes.
There are too many great wines by the glass at Locanda Verde to waste the evening on the same bottle. Nadel steered me to a fresh, full-bodied 2008 Terredora Falanghina and a great Italian rose, a 2008 Castello di Ama Rosato.
Karen DeMasco is easily one of the best pastry chefs in the country. She was outstanding at Craft, and she's
outstanding at Locanda Verde.
There's a wonderful, toasted almond semifreddo with macerated cherries and a pistachio raspberry cake with a supersilky pistachio gelato. As for Karen's homemade biscotti misti, it's the best cookie plate in the city.
May 26, 2009
- Cuisine: American comfort food
- Vibe: Country chic diner
- Occasion: Late night munchies; neighborhood bites; after-work hangout
- Don't Miss: Jalapeño Bloody Mary, mac and cheese, blueberry sour cream pancakes; Michigan sour cherry pie
- Price: Appetizers, $8; entrees, $16; dessert; $5.
- Reservations: Accepted
- Phone: (212) 219-0666
- Location: N Moore St & Hudson St, New York, NY 10013, USA
Ron Silver worked the breakfast shift at Florent 15 years ago. Then he became obsessed with pies. That's when he opened Bubby's, a pie shop - a pie shop that became so popular he couldn't resist turning it into a restaurant. But breakfast was still in his blood, and so was the concept of late-late-night dining, which is how the current Bubby's evolved.
I've eaten brunch at Bubby's in Tribeca tons of times. They make a spicy Bloody Mary, great house-smoked salmon Benedict and even better blueberry sour cream pancakes. But the real fun of eating at Bubby's these days is eating late at night. On a recent Wednesday night, every bar stool was taken by young, downtown types. One guy sitting at the bar - done in soda counter-style with swivel stools and a copper-surfaced top - was having a martini and a meat loaf.
The dining room was more than half full with the kind of crowd you'd see in any other restaurant. I ordered the Bubby's Manhattan, a wild coho- salmon nicoise salad, and sauteed ramps - not your average diner food. For dessert, I shared a terrifically sour slab of cherry pie and the mile-high apple pie. You have to order one of the pies - coconut custard, chocolate meringue, strawberry rhubarb, key lime and chocolate peanut butter.
Now, there's a new midnight menu, available from midnight to 6 a.m., six days a week. There are two kinds of people: morning people and night people. Me, I'm the nocturnal type. You'd be surprised by how hard it is to find good food and good atmosphere in the middle of the night.
I was disappointed when round-the-clock Florent shut its doors, as was the rest of the city. Florent's French onion soup and steak frites used to taste pretty good at 4 in the morning. So do Bubby's chocolate chip pancakes and a blood orange mimosa. And their won
derfully dense mac and cheese, seasoned with nutmeg and crusted in corn-flake crumbs.
A lot of American diners feature hash on the menu, but Bubby's hash is made with Berkshire pork belly. As for the potato chips, the kitchen slices them thick and sends them out of the kitchen doused in a homemade blue cheese sauce. Skip the overly garlicky, garlic beef burger and instead try a surprisingly good veggie burger made with brown rice,
mushrooms, corn, carrots and peas.
The bartenders make solid cocktails, which seems strange in a place with laminated map place mats, menus with a photo of Silver's bubby on the front, and a lending library in the corner. Judging from the scene last Thursday at 3 in the morning, there are a lot of hungry night owls craving roasted vegetable chili and a jalapeño Bloody Mary. They even ran out of waffle batter the other night, so they made do with pancake batter and now that's the recipe.
Why do we love eating in the middle of the night so much anyway? Why, after we down our last drink, do we suddenly crave eggs or pancakes or French fries?
When we're awake, we want to eat. Sometimes, I still crave a waffle, even after a three-course dinner and a few glasses of wine.
January 20, 2009
311 Church St., near Walker St.(212) 431-8750
Seven days, 5 p.m.-4 a.m.;
CUISINE Global fusion;
VIBE Exotic speakeasy;
OCCASION Swanky date, bar bites, festive group dinner;
DON'T MISS DISH Sticky rice-stuffed quail, Portu-guese-style shrimp with green sauce, trio of flans;
AVERAGE PRICE Appetizers $8, entrees $22, desserts $7;
RESERVATIONS Highly recommended.Macao Trading Company
At the moment, the most beautiful bar in New York may be the one at Macao Trading Co.. It's a grownup's bar - owned by grownups, staffed by grown-ups. But really, it feels like a bar for 8-year-olds. That's a good thing.
I suppose you could get a Grey Goose martini, dirty. But why, when you can drink Drunken Dragon's Milk or down a Bashful Maiden or be treated by Dr. Funk? After all, what's a bar for, if not to free you inner 8-year-old?
The bar resembles the Nike swoosh in mahogany. People sit at it, eying what looks like a mirrored cage full of magic potions, their drinks resting in pools of light cast by the stage lamps overhead.
The bartenders are wearing berets and ridiculous mustaches, like characters in some French cartoon. A second-floor gallery frames the room. It's a warehouse for fantastical junk, a balcony where people might eat if they were the size of elves.
You lean in, order a Lovee Long Time and suddenly you're onstage. And all of this is the very reason the bar at Macao is crowded with 8-year-olds every night of the week.
What does all of this have to do with the real Macao?
Absolutely nothing. Which is just about what the food has to do with the real Macao. In a way, the food is as fictional as the mood at the bar. The real Macao is a Chinese territory that was once ruled by the Portuguese.
But here, in Tribeca, instead of a fusion of Chinese and Portuguese food, there's an uneasy negotiation between the two cuisines.
According to the menu, you can order things Chinese-style or Portuguese-style. But whatever you do, don't think too hard about the meaning of "style." After all, how would you feel if you were served ribs "American-style"?
Bottom line: This is fictional food. Forget the Portuguese-style food - except for the prawns in green sauce. And if it has tomatoes? Skip it. There are musty-tasting tomatoes in the mackerel escabeche, sautéed black bass and the braised ribs.
What's left? There are the dishes with sticky rice - those are good. At first, this doesn't seem like the kind of place where you'd imagine yourself picking meat off of a fried quail. But the sticky rice-stuffed quail is worth it.
The Chinese pearl balls are just a fancy name for steamed pork rolled in really sticky rice. And you're safe with the chicken or the lobster dumplings. And the trio of flan - coffee, dulce de leche and vanilla.
A final food note: Do not order the ants climbing the tree.
The real mystery at Macao Trading Co. is the brains behind it. What were they thinking? The chef is David Walluck from Chanterelle. The management is the mustached gang from Employees Only. Surely, they know better. This is the problem with fictional food: The fact that you can dream it up doesn't mean anyone wants to eat it.
Eating at Macao Trading Co. makes you wonder what they're eating in the real Macao tonight.
November 11, 2008
Dinner as improvisation at Bouley's Secession30 Hudson St., near Duane St., (212) 791-3771
Mon.-Thur., 5 p.m.-10 p.m.; Fri.-Sat., 5 p.m.-10:30 p.m.
Cuisine: Franco-Italian
Vibe: Gilded Tribeca affair
Occasion: Downtown date, family dinner.
Don't-Miss Dish: Boudin blanc, Princess crab & avocado salad, chocolate banana with prune Armagnac ice cream.
Average Price: Appetizers, $12; entrees, $23; dessert, $9.
Reservations: Recommended
Let's start with the numbers. On the menu at Secession, there are eight charcuteries, a dozen salads, seven types of oysters and clams, four soups, three risottos and three kinds of fries. And that is only half the items. I haven't mentioned the classics or the sides or, for that matter, what's been roasted, fried, grilled or cooked a la plancha. You might be tempted to hand the menu back to your server and say simply, "Bring me food."
Order a glass of wine instead and put on your reading glasses. It's worth it. "Secession" may sound like a Southern restaurant, but it's actually a union of Italian and French kitchens - from Cesare Casella and David Bouley. What's interesting isn't the content or the size of the menu, it's the philosophy behind it. This isn't dinner in two acts with a brief intermission and a curtain call for dessert. Or a tasting of 20 bites. This is dinner as a mosaic.
Bouley - this is really his restaurant - allows the diner to improvise. A meal might look like tomato, mozzarella, basil and a New York sirloin with Tuscan fries. Or, it might look like a foie gras terrine and iceberg hearts with Langres cheese, mint, tomato coulis and grapefruit powder. Or how about a pâté, boudin blanc, French fries, and call it a night? Dinner can be as formal or as informal as you want, traditional or nontraditional, or all of the above.
One thing's certain - it's almost impossible to go completely astray. Not that there aren't a few flubs on the menu - spaghetti with Manila clams, the roasted lobster and a wildly overcooked Oregon wild salmon. (I love almost anything confit, but now I know that gizzards are the exception.)
Think of this menu as a map. Plan on spending a little time in charcuterie country. The boudin blanc - a pistachio-studded pork sausage - defies its peasant origins. It has a wonderful depth of flavor and lightness of texture. So does the terrine de volaille "grand-mère," made with chicken liver, Cognac, mushrooms and milk. My favorite was the pâté de campagne aux noix - a coarse pork pâté with walnuts, parsley and garlic. Just east of the charcuterie lies a land of salads. It is ruled by the Princess crab salad, which was wearing a wonderful tarragon dressing - all of it couched on two avocado halves. This doesn't sound like a $16 salad, but it is. And that's one of the pleasant surprises at Secession - its affordability. One of the most expensive items on the menu is the $32 grilled New York sirloin, but it's excellent. The $9 Tuscan fries might make you blink, but they're just as good.
Save room for some swooning strawberry-white chocolate parfait and a banana-chocolate brioche with prune Armagnac ice cream.
You also get a lot of room at Secession - a lot of Klimt, a lot of gilding, a lot of atmosphere. Perhaps a little too formal for the spirit of this food.
Secession is pure Bouley. It's Tribeca, it's a revision of the classics, and it's a revision of his Danube - the only thing left is the Wiener schnitzel and the Klimt. Who knows what this space will be in five years? All the more reason to live in the present.
August 5, 2008
Paradise found in a bowl of soba noodles.
241 Church St., at Leonard St.
(212) 925-0202
Tues.-Sun., 5:30 p.m.-midnight; Fri. & Sat., 5:30 p.m.-1 a.m; closed Mondays.
CUISINE: Taste of Tokyo
VIBE Hip, tranquil Tribeca haunt.
OCCASION Intimate date; business dinner; serious noodle endeavors.
DON’T-MISS DISH Homemade tofu; Matsugen special soba; inaka soba with goma dare sauce; grapefruit jelly.
PRICE Appetizers, $9-$65; entrées, from $12; desserts, $9-$14.
RESERVATIONS Recommended
The last time I ate food cooked by the Matsushita brothers, the chefs at Matsugen, was in the Ginza District of Tokyo. I went to both of their restaurants. It was my first serious introduction to the simple, intense flavors and ingredients of Tokyo cooking - astonishingly fresh soba noodles, grilled pork belly, homemade tofu, even my first taste of uni. And I can tell you that Jean-Georges Vongerichten has done New York an enormous favor.
He's brought the Matsushita brothers - Taka, Yoshi and Masa - to Church St. And they have brought their buckwheat grinding machine.
Leave your carbon footprint at the door. Because the list of what they've brought from Japan goes on and on - most of the sushi menu (from Tsukiji Market), the pork belly, the wagyu beef, the Mount Fuji lava rock on which it's served, and who knows what else? But the quality of these ingredients would make no difference without the most skillful preparation, which is what you get at Matsugen.In a way, it all comes down to noodles - smooth, medium, coarse, some hot, some cold, bathing in a dozen different broths, each one a world in itself. Imagine you're peering down into the dish called Matsugen soba. It look likes a glossy spool of yarn unraveling in a ceramic bowl. In its midst, an uncooked egg, a sprinkling of scallion ringlets, cucumber, nori, sesame okra, smoky bonito - an utterly unarchitectural compilation. And when you stir it with your chopsticks - piercing the egg yolk - suddenly you find yourself staring into a swirling galaxy of soba. It looks like a warm dish, and yet it's surprisingly cold, which is all the stranger because you knew it was cold when you ordered it.
There are so many flavors, and the cold keeps each one distinct. Try the coarse, cold inaka soba, a perfect match for the goma dare, a thick sesame sauce. The servers explain that the goma dare is Jean-Georges' favorite soba dish. Twirl a few strands around a chopstick, dip them into the nutty sesame paste, and you'll understand why. Don't overlook the warm soba, some served with sweet, tempura-battered shrimp, others with raw, grated yam. This is an expensive restaurant that serves exquisite food for peasants, and while we're eating here we all get to enjoy being peasants.
"This is the best rice I've ever eaten," said a South Asian friend one evening. He was talking about the kamameshi - peekytoe crab and Japanese mushrooms cooked in an earthenware pot. I was transfixed by a bowl of slippery, soft tofu, served with a wooden spoon and sweet dipping sauce.
This is a menu made for exploration - pork loin shabu shabu, halfbeak sushi, sea urchin kamameshi and grilled wagyu rib eye.
If cattle lived in the sea, beef would taste like the rib eye - an incredibly rich filet topped with thin slivers of garlic and a thick nub of asparagus.
For dessert, there is a deceptive grapefruit jelly. It looks like four simple grapefruit sections, but it tastes like grapefruit fireworks, with a surprisingly un-citruslike texture.
Unlike his other New York restaurants, Vongerichten remains mostly behind the scenes at Matsugen, with the exception of his signature chocolate molten cake, served here with green tea ice cream. As I walked back out onto Church St., I could picture him sitting contentedly slurping noodles in the restaurant after hours, after the customers have all gone home.
July 29, 2008
134 Reade St., between Hudson & Greenwich Aves. (212) 941-9401
Tue.-Sun., 5 p.m.-11 p.m.
CUISINE Modern American
VIBE Wintry Tribeca haunt
OCCASION Casual date; group dinner
DON'T MISS DISH Kampachi tartare; fettuccine "carbonara"
PRICE Appetizers, $12-$18; entrees, $26-$34; dessert, $9-$11
RESERVATIONS Recommended
Larry Forgione is often called the "godfather of American cooking." His restaurant in St. Louis, An American Place, is a tribute to our country's rich culinary history, a place where home-cooking standards like mac and cheese go to get refurbished.
For Marc Forgione,
Larry's 29-year-old son, that's a tough act to follow. But after
working beside his father for a couple of years, he has opened an
American place of his own, Forge, in Tribeca. The
windows have been flung open onto the overheated streets. Customers
have come in a summery mood, wearing sundresses and sandals. And yet,
it feels like winter inside this dimly lit cocoon.
Forge is a dressed-up, down-home restaurant that serves dressed-up, down-home cooking. But don't let looks fool you. Potato salad can be a splendid thing. At Per Se, Thomas Keller lifts it into a state of transcendence. At Forge- not so transcendent. The amuse bouche is a simple spoonful of potato salad topped with caviar. It tastes like a picnic gone awry, a muddle of flavors that even caviar can't redeem.
Or take the chicken "nuggets." To my companion's disappointment, they aren't fast-food size. Or fast-food priced. They cost $14, and they're the size of chicken handballs, served, as handballs should be, with onion remoulade plagued by much too much mayonnaise. Not everything is American at Forge. And not everything at Forge is unsuccessful.
The fettuccine "carbonara" - not my quotations marks - is really good: supple ribbons of pasta painted with cream sauce and specked with crispy chunks of bacon, peas and oyster mushrooms. It's a do-it-yourself carbonara, crowned with a sunny yellow yolk.
But the kampachi tartare is even better - fresh, sweet shreds of baby yellowtail sprinkled with pine nuts, radish, and avocado.
Most dishes seem to be missing one pivotal player. It's a slightly tragic but recurring theme that unfolds over a succession of dinners. The coco bean "risotto" ends up tasting like overcooked white beans, a listless landscape for sliced medallions of lamb that deserve something brighter than a whisper of lemon. There is a duck entrée that comes with its own cloying swamp of cherry reduction as well as a virtually tasteless snapper "en croute."
Come dessert, do the American thing and order the summer berry pie. It arrives in a teacup, but the ripeness of the berries could easily engulf a pie of extravagant dimensions. It comes with a crème fraiche ice cream. Or try the chocolate bread pudding with kirsch-steeped cherries and pistachio ice cream. Whatever you do, Forge on to dessert. No pun intended, of course.
June 22, 2008
New York gets a hollow replica of the original Ago.
377 Greenwich St., at N. Moore St., (212) 925-3797
Dinner, Sun.-Thurs., 5:30 p.m.-11 p.m., Fri. & Sat.,5:30 p.m.-midnight; lunch, 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. daily.
CUISINE Tuscan Italian
VIBE Hip, bustling trattoria
OCCASION Group dinner; Tribeca dining
DON'T-MISS DISH Burrata con fagiolini; eggplant parmigiana
PRICE Dinner, appetizers, $12-$18; entrees, $19-$44; dessert, $10-$12
RESERVATIONS Recommended
The New York debut of Ago restaurant in the newly opened Greenwich Hotel had the makings of a summer blockbuster. The famous West Hollywood flagship has long been a powerful magnet for celebrities and movie moguls, including film giants Robert De Niro and the Weinstein brothers, who are partners in the Ago empire. This Tribeca outpost is the fourth offshoot of chef-partner Agostino Sciandri's Italian eatery, following expansions in Las Vegas and Miami.
The recruitment of Grayling Design - responsible for such iconic venues as Balthazar and Pastis - set high expectations for an impressive, Old World interior. Though the space is detailed with antique mirrors, vintage farmhouse chairs and terra cotta tiles imported from Tuscany, the sprawling setting fails to achieve the warmth or authenticity of an Italian trattoria. If you're seated in the rear dining room - worlds away from the buzz of the bar - you'll feel as though you've been exiled to Siberia.
My qualms about the vast surroundings temporarily faded when a rich burrata arrived at our table. It was a creamy mound of mozzarella that melted blissfully on the tongue. Many Italian classics - eggplant parmigiana, veal Milanese and fritto misto - make an admirable showing, and there's a fine assortment of wood-fired pizzas that taste as good as they look. The best variation is the "Capricciosa," topped with fresh artichokes, black olives and wafer-thin ribbons of ham.
The small dishes in this oversize eatery prove to be the most reliable. An appetizer of moist baby cuttlefish skewers, ringed in a savory squid ink sauce, and juniper-smoked swordfish carpaccio both stand out. There is also a distinguished salad of baby artichokes over a tangle of frisee, enlivened by a lemon dressing.
But the pasta dishes - a bellwether of any worthwhile Italian restaurant - charted a much bumpier course. The veal-stuffed spinach cappelletti arrived in a greasy puddle of butter-sage sauce; the gnocchi tossed in a lamb ragu tasted like Play-Doh pelted with gravel; a bowl of spaghetti with clams and broccoli rabe was horribly oversalted.
A thick and finely charred rib-eye suffered the same salty fate. This kind of sloppy execution continued with a disconcertingly gamey squab served over polenta. Then came an overcooked fillet of salmon with oily escarole, which my dining companion likened to inedible banquet food served at a wedding.
The desserts were a collective washout. There was a sorry excuse for a tiramisu, runny and bombed with cinnamon, as well as a chalky chocolate tortine glued to the plate by a mucky passionfruit sauce. A listless apple tart capped off with burnt slivers of almonds was equally unimpressive.
Didn't Ago get the memo about New York's newfound predilection for modest restaurants with modest prices? This is a big-city restaurant with prices to match, but there aren't enough reliable pleasures or sparks of invention on this tired Italian menu.
Stars may be attached to Ago New York, but in the end it summons memories of a film franchise in decline: the Part IV you wish you hadn't paid to see on the big screen.
Diners would be better off pursuing De Niro's earlier work - perhaps Nobu, which is conveniently located right down the street.
February 26, 2008
Owner Stephen LoCastro has transformed what was formerly Tribeca Studio Deli into Greenwich SteakNBurger. Don't be deceived by the name as LoCastro (Tre Scalini) to implement an American bistro menu with an impressive selection of gourmet burgers (ten to be exact) and homemade sauces.
Highlights include a New Zealand lamb burger with smoked onions, Maryland crab burger, and Sicilian veal burger with sweet potato gnocchi. There's also a sizeable bistro menu with a signature "NY steak tartar burger" appetizer, grilled skirt steak with coffee barbecue sauce as well as grilled salmon with balsamic reduction.
The 70-seat space is outfitted with cherry hardwood floors, iron chandeliers and Morroccan benches. Come spring, Greenwich SteakNBurger will also offer al fresco sidewalk seating.
Address: 369 Greenwich St., corner of Franklin St.
Hours: Mon-Sat, 11a.m.-11p.m., Sun, 11.a.m.-9p.m.
Phone: (212)625-1010
Until we eat again,
Restaurant Girl
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April 16, 2007
Ladies and gentlemen, this is delivery at its finest. Behold, what I ate for lunch...
What was once a delivery ghost town just may have changed forever this fine Nor'easter afternoon as Landmarc was transported to my midtown doorstep in just under forty five minutes. Not bad for opening day. While I've never had tartare of any kind delivered, I tempted a chunky salmon tartare, washed in a lively dijon mustard and handsomely speckled with zesty lemon confit & fleur de sel. Monday's rigatoni alla genovese arrived blissfully sauced with an unusually soothing walnut-spiked pesto.
I'd say the real estate value in these parts just went up.
Until we eat again,
Restaurant Girl
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January 11, 2007
313 Church St., btwn. Walker & Lispenard Sts.
(212)625-1007
www.dennisfoynyc.com
LX TV with Restaurant Girl
After spending over thirty years in haute kitchens in both New Jersey (Townsquare & Bay Point Prime) and New York (EQ & Mondrian), Dennis Foy settles into Tribeca with a eponymous new restaurant. An artist himself, Dennis Foy has transformed the former Lo Scalco eatery, into a warm space, elegantly furbished with brightly colored arches, cranberry-stained silk chandeliers, gold leafed-walls and dark wood floors. As if spending the evening in the chef's home, diners sit among land and seascapes, all personally painted by Dennis himself (and for sale). While the white tablecloths and prices may suggest formality, the space manages to evoke a sense of ease, perhaps a product of a seasoned chef with a bounty of restaurants under his belt.
While rooted in classic French cooking, Dennis explores modern American fare, even dipping in his toes in molecularly-altered waters with a terrine of foie gras, featuring "Eis and Snow" - Eiswein gelee and foie gras powder. With his wife at the front of the house, Dennis focuses his efforts on a petite, but refined menu, including roasted lamb with acorn squash, crabmeat tian and arctic char with spinach & nutmeg. Having grown up in New Jersey only minutes away from Townsquare, Dennis Foy deflowered my then, unrefined palate (at the tender age of 12), with his signature crabmeat tian, sublimely sauteed crab, gently washed with chive butter. 
Suffice it to say, I was eager to sample his lastest incarnation, a culmination of Foy's "favorite dishes, techniques and ingredients".
I was off to a nearly perfect start, surrendering to a simple, but intensely satisfying bowl of potato gnocchi - celestial sauteed dumplings, tossed with chives, sage, garlic and earthy, porcini mushrooms. I was beyond grateful to Foy for breathing new life into the now trite dish of caviar-topped scallops atop cauliflower puree, serving them instead, on a crisp bed of bright savoy cabbage with a simple swirl of buttery, parsnip puree. Then, it was onto a somewhat uninspired wild striped sea bass, served atop a mound of bland tomato confit, dotted with black olives, and black olive paper. But the impeccably braised short ribs were a work of art, pleasing on both the eye and the tongue. Nicely crusty on the outside, the short ribs were deeply moist and savory, expertly complemented by spiced red cabbage and baby carrots.
Dessert was the work of Kimberly Bugler, who fulfilled my deepest chocolate craving with her chocolate hazelnut dome - a dark chocolate shell mounted over layers of creamy chocolate mousse, crunchy hazelnut and a wonderful coffee-laced brulee. I wasn't nearly as charmed by the coconunut caramel bar with a ribbon of litchi, but the accompanying mango lime sorbet is worth sampling, a impressive interplay of sweet-n-tart notes.
While rich in both flavors and textures, the fare here is surprisingly simple and yet, precisely executed - there's clearly an accomplished chef in the kitchen. Though I'm not sure Dennis Foy's will ever become a neighborhood haunt, it dutifully earns the title of dining destination.
