Restaurant Bouley: Vaulting Ambition

        Those of us who indulge our mouths as we would a beloved child have been worried about David Bouley. The young chef’s long-promised restaurant has taken forever and a year. Now it stands, Restaurant Bouley, an enchantment, a brilliant mirage… France transported to a quirky corner of TriBeCa in the butter-and-egg district of Manhattan. And we have been stunned by a cuisinary flat effect. Out goes the message: Love the stage set; hate the food.

        What a puzzlement. Is it possible that the magic that made Montrachet a mecca overnight has dimmed? Can Bouley be an artist in need of an editor? Or have New York’s avant-garde eaters lost patience for a style without substance? And is it true you could film Gone With The Wind in the time it takes for dinner chez Bouley?

         My reading is it’s just a bad case of opening jitters. I hope. Bouley is clearly obsessed – a kid from Connecticut with a crush on France trying to be Gallicly grand. And it’s tough enough being serious with a petulant posse of foodies crowding the dining room in the first fifteen minutes.

         Well, Bouley has heard the mutterings of discontent. Now he’s clocking the kitchen flow, and though the ceremony still moves with the pace (but not the confidence) of a British coronation, the kitchen is cutting loose. On my most recent visit, flavors are more emphatic and there is a truly translucent moment: An intensely perfumed pot-au-feu of foie gras and pheasant in a mingled bouquet of mushroom, celery root, and Madeira, sweetened by a turnip and kohlrabi, evokes squeals and sighs. Most everything is tastier. Hope glimmers.

         Not that it’s an evening without torture. Getting a reservation – the choice is 6 or 10 p.m. – means spending a chunk of the morning on “hold” going through the ranks for approval to come at 6. And of course, Wrong Way Corrigan at the wheel of my taxi lightens my wallet the price of a hamburger at “21.”

        But there’s a sweet triangle park opposite the distinctly Provençal façade of Bouley. For the 34-year-old chef, who spent so many weeks of his life in the kitchens of Bocuse, Lenôtre, Girardet, and Vergé, nothing but Limoges will do, and real space between tables, tidbits to nibble even before you get the menu, and a finale of petit fours. Handmade linens and more furniture for what could be the cellar of a small French chateau (he calls it the basement) are still en route.

         The graceful vaulted ceiling with its artful lighting, indeed all of the construction, was done by the chefs (they needed work while waiting out roller-coaster delays) under the direction of Bouley’s builder brother Martin, who spent days at a computer calculating the angles: a miracle of plywood, Sheetrock, and IBM. The pleasant green paintings of the Provençal countryside were created to order and framed on the premises. Even the carpenter who came from France to hang the doors – beautiful, concave, carved in walnut, was wowed by the bathrooms with their custom-fired tiles and decorative antiques.

         Old-world shaded lamps on each table make everyone look fresh from a spa, though a tipsy gent knocked his off the edge twice one evening, blowing two bulbs. It’s no trick at all to get sloshed waiting for dinner. And though the staff has been trained, they are stiff and clearly uncomfortable. Perhaps it’s partly that I’m recognized, doubling the terror. How about just one little smile?

        Still, our five, amazed to find ourselves dining at the cocktail hour, are primed for pleasure. Three bottles of wine definitely help, as do the kitchen’s bitsy offerings – thyme-and-goat-cheese tartlet, basil’d curl of eggplant, a smidgen of tuna with dilled yogurt, eel and horseradish cream, a tiny yellow plum tomato with pearls of salmon roe.

        Even in the earlier, disappointing evenings, there are moments to remember. The simple perfection of three green beans – roma, fava, and haricots verts – in sherry-vinegared crème fraîche. Lobster touched by the smoke of the grill with a scattering of sliced artichoke heart, a grilled mushroom, and chervil on a puddle reminiscent of sauce amèricaine. A trio of perfect little salads – seared foie gras, shrimp, and wild mushroom. Pigeon both roasted and braised with foie gras and cabbage.

        Alas, deep-fried zucchini flowers are greasy, and nearly raw foie gras sits on a mucky corn pancake. But there is no serious flaw in cherrystone-clam ravioli or an eggplant terrine or kidney and sweetbreads in cider vinegar – except for a subtlety I, for one, do not respond to. As the two-star chef at the next table observes, “It’s not what I want to eat, but it’s very good nouvelle cuisine.”

        Now, on this final visit, the waves of taste are playing at a higher decibel – although it’s a shame the clam-and-saffron soup with chanterelles is overwhelmed by cream. (By the way, my guests adore it.) I love beets and I’m a fool for goat cheese, but nothing really brings the two together in Bouley’s terrine, an unattributed borrowing from Troisgros. (“He’s just Biden his time,” my friend quips.)

        But the Riesling cured mahi mahi with fresh fat juniper berries sparkles. Smoked scallops and mussels nestled in aristocratic baby lettuces – sweet tendrils of chicoree frisée, young arugula, just-born romaine, and shoots of oak-leaf – play in spirited contrast with a gentle horseradish vinaigrette. That dizzyingly ethereal pot-au-feu is a borrowing from the $65 tasting menu and worth whatever extra it costs a la carte. Perfectly cooked lobster swims in red Sancerre thickened with roe and garlic puree. Crisp duck is lean and moist, tastier this time than last, with confit of duck leg, caramelized endive, and the essence of foie gras in a pasta triangle. A “quiche” is paved with sequins of zucchini in the style of Buccelati, and I love the potato puree, but the lamb is drab and undistinguished.

        As you might guess, each dessert plate is a still life garnished with ice cream or sorbet in cookie cradles – an upscale gentrification of clafoutis with blueberry ice cream, figs in a froth of sweet white cheese layered in pastry, poached peach riding a passion fruit charlotte flanked by banana beignets. Best are the duo of soufflés – raspberry and pear larded with chocolate, the luscious pistachio opera cake with chocolate ganache terrine and a bitter-chocolate sorbet, and a crackling sugar-glazed tuffet called “green apple conversation.” With coffee comes a silver tray of pistachio tuiles, blueberry-studded financières, brandied cherries, and truffles. And perhaps, at the last minute, lemon tartlets still warm from the oven.

        Wine prices quickly edge toward Mount Everest, but with a modest wine – the Rully or the ripe and complex Chateau Poujeaux’82 – three courses and coffee easily costs $130 for two. Évian at $5 a bottle and espresso (we paid $5 for a double) kick the tag even higher.

        Now that autumn is here, Bouley hopes to draw a lunch crowd from Wall Street ready to eat light and, he promises, fast (entrées $14 to $20) or willing to linger over a pampering $25 prix fixe including canapés, spinach soup with fava beans and a chestnut-crème-fraîche quenelle, swordfish in warm thyme vinaigrette, sorbets, a tart, petits fours. If lunch catches on, he won’t have to push tables closer at night, won’t lose that French luxury of space.

        Perhaps the tariff is rather greedy for a house that’s still in spring training. But go. Go for a sense of escaping to a lovingly created bourgeois inn somewhere between Paris and the Riviera where a creative chef with a passion for perfection is trying very hard.