Tag Archives: steak tartare
The Elm
There’s a certain sort of meal you expect to have in Paris – white tablecloths, foie gras, beautifully plated food and bespoke service – that unfortunately I rarely get to have. During fashion week I am too busy running around taking photos, and at the end of the day I often emerge rain soaked and generally unpresentable for fine dining. (more…)
Posted in Cuisine, French, Neighborhood, New York restaurants, restaurants, Williamsburg
Tagged cocktails, dessert, duck, foie gras, pasta, restaurant reviews, seafood, steak tartare, The Elm review
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Mini Palais
By day seven of our Paris trip, D. and I had eaten a lot of decadent French food. We braced ourselves for lunch at Mini Palais, the new restaurant installed in a wing of the famous Grand Palais, where all the elaborate Chanel shows take place. Surely this would be the pinnacle of decadent French-ness.
But already from the looks of things when we walked in, Mini Palais was not what we had expected. We were hoping for something classically romantic, like the Last Year at Marienbad themed Chanel show, but what we got was something between the grimness of the smoldering earth theme and the chilliness of the iceberg theme. Mini Palais has the soaring ceilings and huge French windows you would expect, but the dreary gray and beige tones of the decor and industrial lighting quashed any ideas of romance. If you didn’t know you were in a palace, you might think you were in a corporate dining hall. (more…)
Brindle Room
Though it’s a noble goal, authenticity isn’t always what you want when seeking out imported regional specialties. Take saucissons bourguignons. Few New Yorkers would likely complain that there isn’t enough tripe in French sausages here. Just pork and beef is fine, thanks.
Likewise, though authentic poutine has its devotees in Quebec, you might not want to recreate it exactly. Fast food fries slathered in mystery-meat gravy and piled with heaps of cheese that’s a cross between regular and cottage cheese is an acquired taste, even in a drunken state at 1am – which is generally when poutine is consumed in Montreal, under the fluorescent lights of a take-out shop. (more…)
Posted in American, East Village, food, New York restaurants, restaurants
Tagged bars, beef, beer, burgers, duck, New York, steak tartare
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Georges
A huge amount of light and space, bordered by clean lines, with a stunning backdrop of the Paris skyline: Georges on the top of the Centre Pomidou is a veritable temple to modernity. But before you get all serious in the face of art, know that Georges is not nearly as austere as it seems. It’s New York’s Modern meets Fred’s at Barneys – a sleek, contemporary space that’s a real social scene, with forward-leaning French cuisine to match.
Though you could have a romantic dinner here, Georges is the perfect spot for a long, leisurely lunch. Just take the escalators to the top floor before you view the museum and put your name in at the door. (more…)
Monkey Bar
Back in the mid-’90s, when investment banking ruled the day, Monkey Bar was the place to see and be seen. There was a certain type of guy who gravitated here – the one who would wear his Brooks Brothers suit and Hermes tie out at 11pm rather than change. But on a recent late night, a group of white collar guys who huddled around their beers were stripped down to their undershirts – a suit isn’t exactly the badge of pride it used to be.
Is it strange that Monkey Bar of all places has been resuscitated now? Perhaps, but if anyone who could get glamorous media types and bankers together in Midtown, it would be Graydon Carter. (more…)
Posted in American, food, Midtown East, New York restaurants, restaurants
Tagged beef, Glenda Bailey, Graydon Carter, New York, steak tartare
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Hôtel Costes
What would you do to score a coveted table? Call a restaurant one month ahead of time to the day at exactly 10am, speed dialing incessantly – nay, moronically – until you get through? Arrive at 6 o’clock and stand at the bar in four-inch heels for a couple hours if you want to eat by 8? Get there at 5:05pm on the Fourth of July if you plan on eating at all? But of course.
Restaurants are becoming more like nightclubs every year, and if you don’t play by their rules, you ain’t getting nowhere. The rules can be nonsensical: I remember a particular nightclub warning potential clubgoers that they didn’t want to see any kind of gold jewelry. ????? Yet if the right person rocked gold jewelry just so, he or she would likely get in. It’s nightclub physics: for every ridiculous stricture there is an equally ridiculous but opposite exception.
So when the reservationist at sceney Hôtel Costes in Paris told me that I’d have to call back on a Monday at 9:30am for a reservation at 8:30pm the following Thursday, I said great and hung up. Then I realized: 9:30am their time that Monday would be 3:30am New York time.
This is where most people might throw in the embroidered hotel towel. Looking for a loophole, I found none. There was no one I knew well enough in Paris – heck, anywhere – to ask to speed dial on my behalf. I’d already been warned by frequenters of Paris fashion week that it is not the sort of place where one just shows up expecting to get in.
Why? Because there are several layers of door people checking and rechecking your credentials before they lead you through the labyrinthine, deep red interior of the Hôtel Costes lobby restaurant. Don’t even ask to eat in the beautiful open air atrium in the middle of the action. Those seats are for hotel guests.
At least the place has the credentials for cool. The restaurant at Hôtel Costes is a nightclub. In 2000 they launched the career of DJ Stéphane Pompougnac, whose remixed French tunes you’ve likely heard at every upscale boutique/party in the last few years.
The elaborate interior design recalls 19th century Napoleon III France – or the Bowery. Potted palms, fluted columns, gilded mirrors, dark wood furniture, and red velvet drapes between the myriad rooms create a hide-and-seek effect that lets you spy on or hide from the fashionable diners, who are just as likely to fixate on your handbag as they are on you.
Like the crowd, the menu is eclectic and international, and these dishes, not the traditional French ones, are the best. My insanely stylish friend, Miss Thing, ordered the caprese salad then the Peking duck. Only the French could make a caprese salad so decadent. The young, slightly tart mozzarella was nearly melting back to milk on the plate, and the tomatoes were dressed with a touch of syrupy aged balsamic and fragrant basil.
Juicy slices Peking duck had the authentic taste of tea smoke and Sichuan pepper, and the accompanying hoisin sauce was spot-on. This was the best of the entrees, and a lot easier to eat at Costes’ small, low tables than the traditional type of Peking duck with pancakes.
The escargots were real – and by that I mean they were actually attached to their shells, not taken out of a can and stuffed in there, American-style. Doused in a rich butter sauce of garlic and parsley, they were wonderfully fresh and good.
We had a 2004 M. Chapoutier “La Bernardine” Chateauneuf du Pape with the meal. I will always be biased in favor of this French varietal because of a Belgian waitress who used to work with me at La Jumelle in Soho. Whenever anyone ordered a Chateauneuf du Pape, she was extremely satisfied and counted them as true francophiles. Ever since then I’ve been drawn the earthy flavor of a good Chateauneuf du Pape, and this one was excellent.
My friend Burning Woman doesn’t eat meat, which can be a problem in France, especially if you’re also avoiding fat. Just forget about any kind of dieting here, because the light but flavorful California-style cuisine we’ve come to expect in the U.S. hasn’t really caught on. Whoever’s in the Costes kitchen seems to be pooh-poohing the non-buttery fish dishes and not expending as much effort on them. Ergo, salmon and green beans at Hôtel Costes were pretty much just salmon and green beans – nothing spectacular.
Steak tartare was also disappointing because of its simplicity. Sure, it’s supposed to be just ground meat and toast, but one hopes for all the mix-ins and special sauces that that you’d find at the excellent tartare at Employees Only here. That trumps the bland tartare at Hôtel Costes.
Make sure you use the loo here, because doing so will take you on a journey through the labyrinth. Just don’t stop and take a photograph of this gorgeous private dining room, or a French woman may shriek at you: There are no photographs at Hôtel Costes! (Though they’re not too shy to have their own lifestyle magazine: see below.)
The fact that this review exists is a testament to insomnia. Finally, waking up at three in the morning as usual, there was something constructive and necessary for me to do: call Hotel Costes. One call was all it took to get three people on the books at prime time, 8:30 on a Thursday. All I had to do was speak French while closing my eyes, hopping up and down on one foot, and throwing away all my gold jewelry.
See? Easy.
The restaurant at Hôtel Costes
239, rue Saint-Honoré
1e
Paris, France
01-42-44-50-25
Cafe Cluny
Much ado has been made of the female pedigree of Cafe Cluny, which is owned by Lynn Wagenknecht. She’s the ex-wife of Keith McNally! She’s trading in on his contacts! She has pictures of celebrities up on the walls! She expects people to come to her cool new West Village restaurant just because of who she is! Can you imagine? It’s unheard of!
You’d think that in this city of 18,696 restaurants, this was the only one started up and owned by a woman. Oh wait – that’s nearly true. (R.I.P. restaurant Dona – we loved you, and your truffled gnudi too.) Many critics seem to be completely flabbergasted by this woman who dared start a restaurant without her husband. 
Any minute now, a movie extra is going to pop up behind her and say, I told you, Miss Scarlett, don’t be ridin’ through that shanty town on that buggy by yourself… It’s dangerous!
Boy, that Wagenknecht sure is uppity.
The interior of Cafe Cluny is unapologetically feminine. Botanical prints abound, but they are more in the stylish John Derian/Fornasetti vein than the girly Shabby Chic one. The decor celebrates the subversive, from taxidermied birds and fish to a giant wooden bug lurking on the ceiling. The press descriptions of the restaurant’s pointed femininity have become self-fulfilling prophecies: on the nights I was there, the place was populated mainly by women and the men who love their shoes. Attention straight men of the West Village: proceed immediately to Cafe Cluny. You’ll be shooting fish in a barrel.
Several people I know are crazy about the food at Cafe Cluny. I’m not sure why. Wagenknecht does have the Odeon owner’s gift for anticipating just what customers want: tuna tartare, steak, short ribs, addictive French fries. But even casual dining in New York has undergone a sea change. As much as critics like to kvetch (as in Bruni’s well-deserved slap “You May Kiss the Chef’s Napkin Ring“) about the needless copy on menus telling you everything from which field your greens are from to what the pig ate for breakfast that morning*, many of us can now tell the difference between very fresh and local ingredients and ingredients that are not so. Don’t get me wrong: it’s not that the quality of the ingredients at Cafe Cluny is terrible. The tuna tartare is dressed perfectly with mustard oil and cilantro, but the tuna itself doesn’t taste like much. And the frisee in the frisee salad (my handy bistro barometer) just hides under the lardons and egg without really adding anything but texture.
The short ribs were melt-in-your-mouth good. But this very cheap cut of meat was priced at $28. Sure, there was some foie gras thrown in there for good measure. But $28? The steak – hanger, another not-so-ritzy cut – was $25 and cooked medium-rare on the inside, as I ordered it, but charred to the point of complete carbonization on the outside. And it was a faux steak-frites! They wouldn’t give me fries with that – not unless I ordered them separately for $8. I loved the pan-roasted scallop special with pureed butternut squash and oxtail ragu. Loved it, that is, until I realized that two scallops set me back $27, and then I felt gypped. The place reminds me more of Village restaurant than Odeon or Balthazaar. So why aren’t the prices more in line?
In this too, Wagenknecht is the savvy business owner, who probably does not want to go the way of Grange Hall (sob). We diners want fresh, local ingredients. We want a cool interior. We want a lovely, romantic location in the West Village, one of the most expensive zip codes in New York. We want low prices. We want instant access. New Yorkers want everything our way. And for the most part recently, we’ve gotten it, and in the process we’ve gotten awfully spoiled.
At least Cafe Cluny goes a long way in gratifying some of these wishes. It’s a nice neighborhood restaurant full of taxidermied creatures, a place where you can see some of your friendly West Village neighbors like John Waters. It was so apropos to see him just as I was taking all these pictures of fashion week, because he wrote a few of my favorite lines on fashion in Serial Mom. Here’s the final scene, cribbed from IMDB:
Patty Hearst is talking on a payphone when Kathleen Turner comes up behind her and grabs the phone from her.
Kathleen Turner: You can’t wear white after Labor Day!
Patty Hearst: That’s not true anymore.
Kathleen Turner: Yes it is! Didn’t your mother tell you?
[She whacks her in the face with the phone]
Patty Hearst: No! Please! Fashion has changed!
Kathleen Turner: No… It hasn’t.
[She bludgeons Patty Hearst to death with payphone.]
Cut to Patty Hearst’s white high heel, now covered in blood and gore.
See? What’s so threatening about a woman in a position of power?
Cafe Cluny
284 West 12th Street at West 4th Street
212-255-6900
* The apex of this trend was a note at the bottom of the Waverly’s preview menu saying “All drinking and cooking water is reverse osmosis.” It made one wonder why, exactly, it was necessary for the Waverly Inn to reverse-osmose the water coming out of the inn’s pipes, which presumably do not originate in Mexico.
Posted in food, French, restaurants, West Village
Tagged Graydon Carter, Keith McNally, New York, steak tartare
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