Out of the Pool and Into the Grill

        The Four Seasons’ Grill has always been sexy by day, in that perverse and tantalizing way in which power and money are the musk and the deal is consummation.  After dark, the tension sputtered and cooled, leaving the Grill sexless and abandoned as the Pool Room buzzed.

        Not anymore. Abruptly, boldly…just in time for holiday flirtation and romantic awakenings…the house has a gift for you: dinner you don’t need a small business loan to finance. Yes, at around $100 for two – the tariff of the yawn-provoking pasta in one of those copycat trattorias pocking the Upper East Side – all that spiffy coddling in the glow of Philip Johnson’s handsome silver-shaded candlesticks, the shimmering metal architecture-as-metaphor, and newly inspired very good food is yours.

        To Julian Niccolini (one-fourth of the powers who pull the strings here), this Head Start program for the upwardly mobile feels like a political gesture. It was not quite the fall of the Berlin Wall, but if you listened hard you could hear a toot or two on Joshua’s trumpet. So even before Vernon Jordan got his marching orders, chef Stefano Battistini had his: Be frugal and imaginative. Now, while Pool Room and congregants tuck into a $38.50 prime sirloin on an almost naked plate, Grill-seekers get Black Angus entrecote with pommes frites, and $37.50 pays for three courses, espresso, and cookies too.

        And when was the last time anyone saw a wine grander than Beaujolais for under $25 on the list here? Decades ago? A generation? The Grill at Night offers 34 wines (all of them American) for $30 or less – some in the teens: lusty Syrahs and Zinfandels ($5 the glass), perfect with juicy smoked pork wrapped in crisped potato on caramelized onion and savory curried lamb shank.

        Suddenly the Pool Room – for me a landmark of intimidating beauty, glamorous, forbidden romance – seems old fogy, even booked as it is with a swing shift piling in after 11 p.m. The mythic Grill luncheon club is still a territorial imperative for sachems of media and commerce. Sure, a few faces have vanished, off to overseas exile or halfway houses. But how can you feel deprived when with one gawking revolution of your head, you can see Barbara Walters lunching with Barry Diller, Joni Evans in one corner and Linda Wachner commanding her favorite booth along the wall, Mike Ovitz, Pete Peterson, Lally Weymouth with the Iraqi Ambassador…all from second-class-citizen’s roost above? (And you were lucky to get it.) Notice the food, sadly lackluster this Friday, chowder too sweet, penette so bland? Of course not.

        But given a fresh mandate to fill the Grill at night, Battistini and his sidekick Albin Hitch have come alive. Orecchiette with cauliflower and mushrooms resonates with flavor. Shrimp and pork are enfolded in rice paper with a spicy apricot marmalade. And the root vegetables of autumn lend amazing sweetness and complexity to a pot au feu entangled with leek vinaigrette. When my guest pronounced feu correctly, our captain, a precise young woman in a black blazer (discreetly embroidered with the famous tree logo), responds, “I just love the way you said that. It sends chills up my arm.” The familiarity that makes my teeth grind elsewhere seems proper tonight, a brief irrepressible flash of humanity in the brisk spiff of efficiency.

        The four of us are so pleased to rediscover the sensuality of this legendary space, we don’t really mind the tardiness of entrées – kitchens often seem to slow when the “critic alert” flashes. And perhaps we need a few more grains of semolina with our luscious lamb shank. “This isn't couscous,” my guest complains. “It’s just cous.” That and the soggy octopus, the only complaints in a remarkably pleasing dinner. Impeccably baked black cod crowned with a lemony tangle of vegetable julienne. Crusty rabbit spicily stuffed, beside fried-polenta “custard.” Well, perhaps desserts lack real oomph. Best: intense smooth sorbets. And, of course, cookies. And coffee. Then the check comes, and it’s not a dream. Given dinners priced from $26 to $37.50, it really is just $105 for two, tip included. Enough to make even a Republican smile.

Four Seasons, 99 East 52nd Street 

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