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Story by Manos Angelakis
A Difficult Decade
We are ending a very difficult decade for many upper echelon New York City restaurants. The past year has seen many high profile closings, following the demise at the beginning of the decade of numerous illustrious establishments starting with Lutece, La Caravelle, and La Cote Basque. We now add to the deceased grand kitchens such names as La Goulue, Chanterelle, Lever House, Montenapo, and Café des Artists; though I know that many of them might reopen with different names and different chefs in charge of their kitchens. The West 67th Street café closed last August for a month-long vacation and never reopened, disappointing the artists, musicians, and celebrities who patronized this Lincoln Center stalwart. It marked the further disappearance of New York restaurant luminaries during a tough economic downturn, subsequent to the shuttering of the Russian Tearoom, the Tavern on the Green (a venue known more for its over the top décor than its cuisine) and the Rainbow Room at Rockefeller Center.
Not everything is lost however. San Domenico finally reopened at a lower Murray Hill location. Andrew Carmellini is now (temporarily?) cooking at Locanda Verde, in the Greenwich Hotel, Robert DeNiro's Tribeca hostelry where Locanda Verde is located, and it is rumored that he is opening a new restaurant in SoHo. As far as the Cafe des Artistes is concerned, Gianfranco Sorrentino, has signed a deal to take over the space. Sorrentino, the owner of Il Gottopardo in Midtown, plans on operating the space as an Italian eatery by February or March 2011, but without the union that caused Café des Artistes to close and scared away many other potential operators that were looking to revitalize the space. The chef de cuisine, whose name the restaurateur wouldn't disclose, will come from Mr. Sorrentino's native Naples. The restaurant’s name will change to reflect the new Southern Italian focus, but all of the famous murals will remain intact. A number of less iconic establishments with excellent kitchens are also making their debut (see Red Egg and Chado Sushi in the Restaurants section).
We are also now starting to see more and more exceptional restaurants opening outside of Manhattan, for example in Bergen County, one of North New Jersey’s bedroom communities adjoining New York City. Many of the local residents that work in the city find that they no longer have to be in Manhattan for an outstanding meal. The rustic Saddle River Inn’s chef/owner Hans Egg, that came to New Jersey via the kitchens of the Suvretta House in St. Moritz, the Cavalieri Hilton in Rome, the Nile Hilton in Cairo, and the Swiss Center in Manhattan, creates extraordinary “Continental” fare in his French/New American kitchen. In Englewood, Chef John Piliouras, formerly of New York City's Molyvos, presides over a Greek kitchen at Nisi Estiatorio that creates fairly traditional appetizers, excellent main courses mostly based on the freshest available fish and seafood and of course, the appropriate desserts (see New Jersey Greeks in the Restaurant Notes section). In Ridgewood, the Village Green is a BYO restaurant with tasting menus. Friends comment that it has phenomenal food, beautifully plated, and excellent service. As they said, you can taste the chef's passion in every bite.
The recession notwithstanding, the number of restaurants in Manhattan keeps growing with the years, even though luxury dining in New York is now down by 35 percent from its late ‘90s heights, and even more iconic venues have difficulty staying open and keeping up the gastronomic lavishness that made them famous. Not all of the new restaurants are temples of gastronomy, though most of their owners and chefs try to provide good, fresh, appealing food to the aficionados. Sometimes the prices are reasonable, sometimes they are not. But it is for the clientele to decide how much they want to pay, and at what restaurant.
© September 2010 LuxuryWeb Magazine. All rights reserved.
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