October 17, 1994 | Vintage Insatiable
Bar Time for Bonzo

        Scratch a cynic, find a romantic. Tough as we are, New Yorkers are sappy over the past, pushovers for revivals. “Show Boat,” “Grease!,” “My Fair Lady.” Sardi’s resurrected from the dead. Chock Full O’Nuts born again. And all spruced up for a second adolescence, cozily haunted by the ghosts of Tallulah and Tennessee -- the Monkey Bar, 61 years old, looking not a day over 1933.

        Like their simian cousins at Le Cirque, these monkeys, lovingly restored on the barroom walls, ape human games: Damon Runyon chimps to Sirio’s Louis XIV troupe. In the crush of the crowd, you can barely see the banana-leaf linoleum underfoot or the wonderfully silly pimento-stuffed-olive bar stools, interior-design whimsy from the Rockwell Group. So far, it’s an eclectic powwow -- locals on R and R, tourists, night riders driven by the usual urban wanderlust, guests from the adjoining Hotel Elysée (called the Hotel “Easy Lay,” an insider confides). Tonight, John Bobbitt and a party of ten have threatened to descend for a nightcap.

        Swivel through the mob to the staging area. Day two, the Times food commandos have bivouacked. Day four, a trio of high-heeled princesses at the top of the steps unwittingly parody the classic monkey poses -- see evil, hear evil, and speak evil. All week, the kitchen plays to a tough house, professional mouths, and tonight, Planet Hollywood’s Keith Barish with a few pals -- Sly, Bruce, Ronald Perelman. With its fat suede-stuffed columns, abstract jungle banquettes, and tiny bronze monkeys hanging from leafy fixtures, the glorious room celebrates the magic of Technicolor. Bold russet and hyacinth blue, sage green and radiant yellow -- yet all is somehow serene. Settled in front of a tall screen with a vintage skyline etched in glass (“urban heroic” is how David Rockwell describes the exaggerated perspective), we can actually hear ourselves talk. Noting the cobalt-blue bread plates and blue-footed glasses, recognizing the perfect beauty of Tyrone Power in the photo gallery in the walls, “Grease!” producer Fran Weissler, empress of the Revivalists, predicts a hit: “It has the feel of old-time glamour.”

        And even in that first week, chef John Schenk’s food is surprisingly accomplished. At times, the serving corps is inept, distracted, or ingenuous. One quite efficient fellow delivers the chef’s résumé as well as his own. Another night, our waitress is always rushing. And its a cosmic mistake with bread as good as this to send out only three slices - the four of use are practically killing one another over the ration of chewy olive sourdough.

        Schenk said he would reprise the best of his stint at West Broadway and what we loved the most in his days at mad.61. The chef has dragged his cod around like a kid clutching a security blanket. But I wouldn’t have it any other way: the plump cut of sweet, barely jelled fish on a mash potato nest with roasted carrots and celery-root chips. The gossamer scallops with shards of corn and a frizzle of leeks, looking exactly like the photograph this magazine ran with my 1992 review of West Broadway. The familiar squid plumped with couscous and the crisp garlicky chicken beside a hill of shoestring fries he tricked up for Pino Luongo below Barneys in the style of his alma mater, Gotham Bar and Grill. Folks who get around won’t actually need to see Gotham’s chef, Alfred Portale, across the room (he is tonight) to identify the inspiration for the interlocked ribs of thick, garlic-crumbed lamb chops and the tall, leafy plumage on so many salads. Seven of the eleven starters are listed as salads, most of them fabulous.

        Even out of season, asparagus adds a nice crunch to a salad still life that is as much about beets, grilled leeks, tony lettuces and Roquefort as anything else. My guest gripes about just three cuts of celery in a toss billed as braised celery with feta, where grilled tomato, black beans and green-olive tapénade with ruffles of greenery more than make up for the celery deprivation. Sure, the brandade ravioli -- they look like mini-knishes -- are in reruns, but with stewed onions, curls of frisée and the perfume of white truffle oil, who cares? Tonight’s soup, asparagus with Maine oysters, potato and caviar with the obligatory denial -- “just a touch of cream” -- provokes contented murmurs. And the unagi (eel)-and-potato terrine with wasabi in a lemony yuzu sauce may signal a whiff of Nobu in the air, but it’s new to me. Barbecued squab served with red beans, collards, and spiffy cuts of deep-fried okra shows off Schenk’s soul. That rare, world-class lamb gets goat-cheese macaroni in a gentrification of home cooking.

        “Is this skate piccata?” a friend asks. It’s definitely high fashion, delicious, too, with escarole, gnocchi, capers and sun-dried tomatoes in a powerful lemon vinaigrette. Snapper braised with baby artichokes on celery root with borlotti beans is also elegant, but just a jot overcooked. And the tuna may not be rare enough, either. Serving spinach as a garnish with so many dishes strikes me as laziness. And one night, three out of four entrées swim in very similar overreduced sauces, too salty as well.

        The menu doesn’t offer sides à la carte. Our sybaritic crew insists. And the kitchen obliges with superlative onion rings, usually a grace to the house’s most ordinary steak, and a wonderful horeradish-potato soufflé in a crisp potato-skin cup (the accessory to a good but boring veal is worth the $6.50, I suppose, especially if someone else is picking up the check.) Indeed, entrees that start at $16 seem almost gentle, but they climb to $26, and with starters from $7 to $10 - greedy for just two shrimp, no matter how stylishly fried in spiky kataifi dough -- dinner can run $120 to $150 for two, everything included.

        Schenk has brought along his West Broadway pastry chef, Stacie Pierce. Eyeing a small round of very good lemon cheesecake on a near-invisible biscotti crust wearing a crown of champagne grapes, I agree with my chum who longs for old-fashioned desserts - heftier and not so precious. And why does Pierce’s pleasant-enough warm chocolate cake have us all reminiscing about moving chocolate moments of cakes past? (No one pretends we’re not hopelessly obsessed.) But the hazelnut cake with passion fruit and sautéed berries is a luscious triumph. No flaming brandy mars the caramel-ice-cream baked Alaska. And the cappuccino parfait of espresso and cinnamon ice cream with chocolate sorbet is comfort food for the sweet tooth.

        Up front, the menagerie is still raucous, pairing off, breaking hearts, slipping away into the barroom solipsism. And the fantasy of a thirties show-biz dining room is the almost perfect place to be “partially paralyzed with pleasure,” as one of our guests puts it. Monkey Bar, warming the cold front of midtown, adds to the sense that Manhattan is wired again. Now, if the keepers can just get the serving menagerie to perfect their parlor tricks, too.

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