Some Like It Haute

          Is there a land of no return for the restaurant critic? Does the feverishly indulged mouth lose its sense of reality…become inevitably jaded? Can the pilgrim who has tasted the perfect panache de poissons aux petits legumes stay in touch with the raison d’être of a fast-food hamburger? If the antenna is tuned to cracks in the china, can one just plain succumb to the apple pie? I ask myself these questions because it’s been ten years since I dedicated myself in these pages to the gourmand’s pleasure principle—slow death by mayonnaise.

          I’ve been numbed with joy, paralyzed by brilliant excess…suffered insult and mediocrity…brooded, analyzed, and dissected. I despair. And rage. But nothing seems to tarnish the thrill of perfection discovered. The critic’s sensibility never spoils the fun. The evolution of my own taste—I now find myself asking for beef “blue”…chicken, lamb, and fish “rare”—and a passion for the nouvelle cuisine (brilliant in the hands of its masters, outrageous and silly in the whims of less talented imitators) do not dull my affection for la grande cuisine, robust bourgeois classics, or even, Escoffier forgive me, Fritos and peanut butter. Each time I rise from the ashes of an overdone chicken liver, hope flickers. And flares. Tonight…this will be the night…a timbale scented of the sea, some humble innard elevated by sauce to sainthood, a sorbet to write a poem about…faith restored.

          And the same innocent faith fires the ambitions of New York’s unsinkable restaurateurs.  Into the frying pan they leap—trained veterans and amateurs; real-estate magnates and shirtmakers; waiters (apprenticed at twelve, up from the ranks), bravely liberated housewives owing everything to Julia Child, misguided neophytes betting all on cumin and flash. Here is a harvest of ambitious entries—a few still ripening, some shaky—all but one so high-priced you may need a small-business loan to pay the check.

***

          Suddenly, on a blustery December day, with a flickering gas glow in the fireplace and little fanfare, Restaurant Raphaël opened in a sliver of a floor-through at 33 West 54^th Street—dedicated to the piety of the nouvelle cuisine. How swiftly serious becs fins around town sniffed it out. Above the buzz of our indefatigable Cuisinarts, faces flushed from the steam of our bubbling veal stock, we Food People telegraphed the news. Cozy cubbyhole, unpretentious. Expensive, yes…teetering on the edge of outrageous. But heavenly. Authentic nouvelle cuisine: flourless sauces, yolkless soufflés, seaweed-scented fish.

          “Rarely surpassed in France,” one critic raved. Rash hyperbole, alas. Still, Raphaël is good news for discriminating epicures—a real contender in the struggle against the Franco-Manhattan menu doldrums.

          There is a welcome restraint in the simplicity of bare brick, brown corduroy, starched white cloths, and a patch of garden. Bare sconces glare, but the rose light above flatters. And the few prints of Raphael paintings are silly but not obtrusive enough to count as a felony. The fussy formality of French service is dispensed with too. These could be waiters in your neighborhood bistro.

          What clearly concerns proprietor Raphaël Edery, once director of the now defunct L’Amorique, is quality…quality at any price. He buys the very best sweet butter…costly crème fraîche…aristocratic veal from the revered butcher Piccinini. Remarkable crusty little rolls, baked for Raphaël in Queens, are served warm in a napkin swaddling. There is pungent crottin de chavignol ($4.75), a feisty goat cheese steeped in herbs and oil to douse with fresh-cracked pepper. Raspberry vinegar from Fauchon in Paris, to flavor a sauce, costs Edery $120 a case postpaid. And in season the house offers mango, kiwi, and fresh litchi.

          The pleasure quotient of that first dinner got a boost from the joy of discovery. The highs were vivid. Ethereal nuggets of scallop—not cooked but, rather, marinated in lime—bound with tangy crème-fraîche ($6) as an opener. Perfectly poached red snapper ($17) with a silken beurre blanc and a counterpoint of anise in fennel purée. Rack of lamb à la vapeur ($20)—not roasted or charred, but marinated in herb-steeped oil, then steamed—the two outside chops rose-red, tender as butter, the two at the heart faintly cool. And astonishingly moist chicken ($14) in a sauce that was broken but wonderfully savory with its accent of sherry vinegar.

          Everything was graced by precisely carved vegetables with a measure of crunch, the lamb with a purée of flagolets. Even those dishes that failed to live up to their French inspiration (the raw salmon unevenly sliced and soggy, poor homage to that of Paris’s fabled Le Duc; the colorful vegetable terrine, a rather dowdy country cousin to the sophisticated mosaic of Troisgros; the passion-fruit and jasmine-tea sorbets—one too icy, the other too sweet) were welcome as a challenge to the French-menu cliché. And even at an outrageous $230 for four—we drank two and a half bottles of wine from a small and uninformative wine list—there was a glow and a sense of promise.

          With the published raves came full houses and nerve-jangling visitations; Margaret Truman Daniel, Beverly Sills, Candice Bergen, Sarah Caldwell, Douglas Fairbanks, and…ultimate benediction…Jacqueline Onassis. Truman Capote reigned, dressed in what might have been white cotton pajamas, and never once took off his white planter’s hat. The kitchen began to falter. The waiters began to run.

          Inconsistency reigned, and Raphaël Edery, in his stylish brown velvet blazer, lulled by the celebration, seemed oblivious. Warned of the flaws by an early admirer, he was too distracted to listen. Since lunch for two can easily run $70 and dinner $50 or $60 a person, including the sting of an automatic 20 percent service charge computed into the bill (without any warning on the menu), there was no excuse.

          At one lunch the raw salmon—previously wet and clumsily sliced—was inedible. The vegetable terrine, with its nicely zesty horseradish mayonnaise, tasted like tired soup greens in gelatin. Lamb à la vapeur ordered “medium” lost its sublime texture and—curiously—its herb scent as well. The sauce on the asparagus was so subtle it had no flavor at all. And that beautiful veal was so ascetically presented, I fell asleep over it. Aristocratic salad greens were neither chilled nor crisp nor properly dried. An attempt to do something different with snails—fricassée de petits gris, involving bits of garlic and crouton in cream—proved quixotic. The billowing raspberry soufflé, savory one evening, was a sponge the next. Even the admirable little rolls were abused one noon by improper reheating.

          Great foolishness is committed in France every day in the name of the nouvelle cuisine, and M. Edery is not immune to that affliction. Natural flavor does not mean one must exile all salt. Vegetables with a crunch on the tooth need seasoning—perhaps a dash of lemon and a quick toss of butter. Vegetable marmalades are very chic, à la Michel Guérard, but legumes and navets confits mustn’t taste like candy. And vinegar in three out of nine entrées begins to sound like a fetish. Scampi à l’ail doux aux legumes confits, three chewy shrimp with garlic and preserved vegetables—an $8.50 hors d’oeuvre—is miscegenation in the name of “new” that might work if the vegetables weren’t gumdrop-sweet.

          And for my taste, there is no foie gras coming into New York good enough to shine, all on its own, simply sautéed, certainly not at $25. It is also doubtful that magret de canard—the splendid duck steak served rare in France—can be more than hinted at, given the anatomy of our local ducks, though Raphaël’s magret scented with honey vinegar ($18.50) definitely pleases.

          Why am I so cranky with this small, serious, admirably intentioned restaurant? Precisely because it is serious, and because I sympathize with Edery’s intention. He has a sense of the nouvelle faith. He needs to explore the intellect of it. Happily, in recent weeks the kitchen has seemed steadier. Try the salmon blushing with raspberry and the masterful cold soup of tomato and sorrel. Lunch has become calmer, not so crowded. Edery is humbler…and really trying. Raphaël is good enough at it is, though admittedly a luxury. With more care and discipline, it might one day be great.

33 East 54^th Street

***

Not a bored sulk in the crowd at La Folie.

          Pretension is one of the deadliest sins in my book. But outright honest vulgarity touches a soft spot. That’s what I am more amused than offended by La Folie. The spider-lashed eye painted inside the toiled bowl is outrageous. So is the neon phallus on the men’s room ceiling. And the well-shod feet holding up the bar are not terribly clever. Perhaps the malachite-striped dining room does look like the salon of a nouveau riche hairdresser…à la mode de bordello. Still, I love it. Love the mirrors and marble, the malachite sheathing—at a rumored $4,000 per column. The imitation Van Dongen paintings of ladies with sinus despair, the roulette cocktail tables, the blown-up chemin-de-fer-board dance floor are the kind of through-the-looking-glass fantasy you’d expect in a restaurant-cum-disco, a mutant beast to begin with.

          Beautiful People leeches, be warned. The night crawlers at La Folie are not exactly the names that get columned. I see neighborhood affluentials. Stretch leisure suits. Five women dancing with one another, dressed for the prom…maybe they got stood up. Hastily matched couples—the second act of some singles mating scene, perhaps—and odd twosomes where someone, surely, is being paid for the pleasure. Not a bored sulk in the crowd. Weekends, frenzy. The music is disco-familiar, the dance floor slick. No conversation is possible from 10:30 P.M. on. Does anyone care? That the menu is ambitious and the food sometimes surprisingly good is a welcome astonishment. Yes, dinner costs $80 or $100 for two. But…all that flash! Easy to feel you’re getting a lot for your money.

          Watching La Folie shake down has been fascinating. There were signs of talent in the kitchen from the beginning, but the performance was wildly uneven. The captains had as much style as salesmen in Barney’s budget-suit department, and the busboys in colorful racing silks (excuse me, polyesters) were confused. Even when chef Bernard Norget began to attract glowing notices, La Folie was still struggling to find its clientele. Consultant George Lang took over the management, trimmed the menu severely, slashed prices a tot here and there, devised wickedly greedy wine tariffs, and put in a caviar bar, hoping to lure epicures with beluga and blinis at $7.50 to $12.50 an ounce.

          So now the nasty cover charge is gone. Gone, too, the seltzer in handsome old bottles and the yellow roses. There is one $12.50 prix fixe lunch that includes coffee and almond-studded tuiles on the à la carte menu. Theatergoers are offered a $15 dinner (6 to 7:30 P.M.). Dinner entrées start at $12.50, most are $16, and the menu is still an escape from our town’s classic French-restaurant boredom. The magnificent house-baked rolls everyone found too sweet have been replaced by Pepperidge rolls, and the kitchen is—sorry—for all of Norget’s talent, still skittish.

          At one lunch the leeks vinaigrette were bland, and a picture-pretty artichoke held a puddle of water in its nicely manicured core. Three wonderfully fluffy ovals of pike quenelles, handsomely studded with bits of seafood and specks of truffle, had no pike taste. A rusty over-tomatoed Nantua sauce didn’t help. Desserts were sweet enough to send an insatiable sweet tooth into overdose. But the chocolate cake with candied chestnuts wrapped in green-leaf marzipan was so pretty, it almost didn’t matter how it tasted.

          Mussels à la riche, mantled in wine and cream, colored under the salamander, evoked haunting memories of the long-gone Café Chauveron. They were glorious at one dinner, stingy and sandy at another, tepid on the third tasting. The captain gets a point for his concern about my uneaten paupiettes of salmon. The kitchen loses a point: The fish was dried to a tasteless crumble. Two quail in crisp potato baskets ($18.50)—one stuffed with sweetbreads, the other fat on wild rice and orange zest—struck me as fussy if not tortured. The medallions of beef were not aristocratic meat; the Dijonnaise sauce hadn’t much bite. The house white wine was undrinkable. And the coffee often tastes twice-cooked, or, perversely, weak.

          But sitting here with the notes of nine meals at La Folie, I find myself remembering the triumphs. After all the perfunctory, characterless terrines around, La Folie’s Armagnac-scented duck terrine ($5) is a fresh tapestry of taste and texture. And I cannot imagine a happier fate for a snail than to wind up as snail potpie bourguignon ($5.50)—drowned in garlicky butter in its tiny crock and crowned with a layered pouf of pastry perfumed by the heady scent, perfect to dab at the last sticky drop. There are oysters swiftly poached and napped in a delicate champagne sauce ($7.50). A mammoth lobster carcass on a carved red caisson is sheer Barnum & Bailey at $35, with tender lobster chunks in fine sauce tucked into crêpes beneath a fluffy blanket of soufflé—enough for two to share.

          What a joy to find tart ices and homemade ice cream—Amaretto and Irish-coffee flavored. It would be an untarnished joy if the textures were not sometimes grainy or icy. Recently, the once invisible pastry cart has taken to poking about the room—bumping chairs en route, sad to say—and its offerings tempt. Some are clever, all are sweet.

          The truth is, I suspect, that La Folie’s noctambulists are mostly happy, and given the right companion, a whiff of snail potpie, all that malachite, something rummy, and my incurable Saturday-night disco fever….so am I.

21 East 61^st Street

***

If a Jewish Mother Were French, She’d Be Jean Jacques Rachou at Le Levandou

          We’re all hungry in our way, but there is a certain breed of New Yorker who is hungrier—perhaps insatiable. He doesn’t mind the crowds at Zabar’s. She is lean and tanned, and dimples when the captain presses her to taste three or four desserts. They were born to warm a banquette at Le Lavandou. While Raphaël and La Folie struggle through pains of adolescence, Le Lavandou has come of age and is thriving. The menu is classic. The theme is…lots. And the shock is…how gentle the tariff.

          Once Le Lavandou could have won an award for unabashed homeliness. Now it has been redecorated, and the effect, through scarcely worth a second glance from Billy Baldwin, is benign. It was only a matter of time before Jean-Jacques Rachou would hit his stride after an uneven beginning, for he is ambitious, serious, proud—see his medallions marching along the margin of the $11.50 prix fixe lunch. Astonishing bargain. And $20.50 at dinner. Practically pre-wheat-deals prices.

          Rachou is good, sometimes transcendent. And he seems to have a fix on how to please a hungry New Yorker. If a Jewish mother were French…she would be Jean-Jacques.  Instead of serving chopped chicken liver sculpted in the shape of a Torah, she might spend hours crafting the staggering seascape someone in Le Lavandou’s kitchen has arranged on a slice of egg white—palm tree, sailboat, ocean waves, even a sea gull winging it across an egg-white sky, all in tiny fleck of black olive—gracing a bountiful portion of silken baby scallops in a creamy rémoulade. Delicious excess.

          The crystal chandeliers are a bit too bright at night. Tables are pressed close. Waiters slither by, seemingly happy, reasonably attentive. There are diners who will feel claustrophobic—smothered by the crush, the giant portions, the jungle of garnishes. And the most pampered mouths—indulged by the very best chefs of  France and their own supernal cooking—will not be happy with Rachou’s heavy-handed sauces that slick and break en route from the kitchen. There are other imperfections: overcooked chicken in an underdone feuilletage, limp string beans, a dense and unexciting fish mousse, faintly primitive pastry…his sometimes preposterous garnishes—a flying buttress of strawberries and cream on apricot tart…a fillet of sole wrapped around salmon on a bed of spinach with a slab of fish mousse on top and a circlet of truffle and a fluted mushroom and a crayfish and and…

          Rachou cooks as if nothing new has happened to French cuisine since Carême…never mind Escoffier. And why shouldn’t he? Le Lavandou gourmands love it. The dazzling innovations of a creator like Freddy Girardet of Crissier may bring you to your knees. But so will a perfect saucisson en croûte. A stalwart of the classics need never stray from what he does best to please me. And Rachou can do a moist, magnificent veal chop, blushing at the bone. Voluptuous sweetbreads in a shiny, dark Madeira sauce. And one day at lunch: thinnest slices of veal alternating with tiny rounds of baby eggplant—faintly nutty from a light dusting of bread crumbs. And properly poached bass—three neat, sparkling fresh fillets—in a fair-enough sorrel sauce.

          For starters: good ballottine of sole in a red-wine sauce with that Rachou touch, an extra toss of scallops, and, alas, a skin on that wondrous sauce. Deep, dark lobster bisque with tender bits of lobster. Still, even a gourmand blissed out by the sweetbread-mushroom stuffing of a squab might wish the bird’s flesh were moister. And watching one of the best chefs in New York across the room eating Rachou’s cassoulet—he seemed reasonably content with the slightly mushy beans, the crustless mix of pork and sausage and duck—I thought how much happier that chef would be tasting his own infinitely more splendid stew.

          The seduction never ceases. Ask for a bombe for dessert…voilà. Three slices of frozen soufflé arrive—cassis, Grand Marnier, and mocha praline, smooth as silk, dolloped with cream and grape halves arranged like petals of a flower around a dot of candied mimosa. The apricot tart sits on an almondy bed of frangipane. And there is a black-currant ice…a Grand Marnier mousse—with strawberries, for goodness’ sake…a disappointing soufflé au Calvados. Poufs of whipped cream everywhere. Practically a Ziegfeld Follies.

          Oh, I know a few purists who would get the heebie-jeebies from this loving overkill. But not for the world would I advise Jean-Jacques Rachou to change it. New Yorker’s can buy “less is more” elsewhere. “More is more” makes the hungry waif inside some of us feel cozy and loved.

134 East 61^st Street.

***

Here is Le Chantilly, Across the Street from the Old Pavillon

          For me, the corner of 57^th and Park has long been haunted by the plump, owl-faced ghost of Henri Soulé. Shivering as I pass the Women’s Bank, I imagine that thousands of feminists have stashed their jewels and divorce papers in the bank’s cellar vault, where once the Pavillon’s great chef Clément Grangier beat pike into a frothy mousse of submission (why is there no bronze plaque to mark the academy that bred New York’s French-restaurant tradition?). If I didn’t believe in reincarnation, I do now. For here is Le Chantilly, a spirit’s leap across the street, with Roland Chenus, last chef of the Pavillon, at the pots and Paul Dessibourg, by way of Soulé’s Côte Basque, conducting the dining room.

          Soulé’s obligatory red-velvet banquettes are tufted leatherette—red, of course. There are the inevitable murals. And the extra wattage Soulé favored bounces off fussy sconces and chandeliers. Even the typeface of the menu is familiar. And listen to the roll call of classics—lobster bisque, soupe à l’oignon grratinée, quenelles eminence, délices de sole, goujonnettes de sole, sole anglaise grillé, pepper steak, frogs’ legs.

          Close your eyes. Time stands still. Surely I’m not the only one who can imagine the old headmaster of Academy Pavillon with his waxen restaurateur’s pallor smiling benediction on this homage. The house tonight is full of Gray Power. For a moment I imagine we are the only diners under 60. These could be Pavillon pets frozen on the day of Soulé’s death, to be thawed for this revival. Adding to the sense of déjà vu are recycled staff faces…Maurice from the old Brussels by way of Lutèce, émigrés from Le Cirque and Le Côte Basque, a dining-room platoon not yet marching with optimal precision. Their smiles told me anonymity was impossible.

          Still, if Roland Chenus were to open a restaurant of less than professional excellence, given his long experience as an executive chef, first under Soulé, then as a partner at Veau d’Or, that would be news. The kitchen of Chantilly performs with classic finesse. Carefully grilled fish. Sensitively crafted sauces. Impeccably tended roast. Mature craft. No thrills. For those whose taste has evolved in the aura of the greatest chefs in the world, Restaurant Raphaël’s failures are ultimately more exciting than the successes of Chantilly.

          The judgment will not blur the obvious pleasure of Chantilly’s conservative claque. Contentedly they bask in Dessibourg’s fussy concern, pay $13.50 for lunch, $21.50 for the prix fixe dinner (coffee, salad, and certain specialties extra)—ultimately $40 to $50 per person. The cold bass is fresh and silken, its sauce scintillating. Fish mousses are delicate and smartly sauced. The soupe de moules is an intensely heady concentration of mussels with a gentle saffron accent. A perfectly balanced mustard sauce graces grilled sole. Canard de la Belle Epoque—duck with black cherries—is cooked with classic care. Only one grown fond of duck slightly pink might complain. Sweetbreads that seemed a marvel of delicacy one evening were not properly cleaned on a second evening and tasted of uncooked flour. But the kidneys were a miracle—rare and tender in a masterful blend of two mustards, port, Armagnac, and cream. Beautiful batons of carrot, turnip, and zucchini come alongside with little croquettes of potato.

          A simple braised chicken is a good test of a restaurant. Chantilly’s was overly humble and dry. Délice de veau Franc-Comtois, with its layers of cheese and ham, was hearty, almost primitive. The terrines—eel, sweetbread, and duck—were all more pleasing to the eye than to the tongue. The poached eggs in a mundane cheese-soufflé were hard-cooked. And the most spectacular plump mussels were overwhelmed by a rémoulade so rich I found myself scraping it away. Beautiful salad greens are lost in a watery vinaigrette, and the oysters of Malpeque lying low in their shells look exhausted from their journey. I doubt if anyone in the kitchen had tasted the rice one night recently. It was only half cooked.

          Surely such missteps will dwindle as the kitchen seasons. The style is a commitment to traditions Pavillon’s wandering orphans will appreciate. Another tradition that is, sadly, fast disappearing is the skilled pastry chef. While many new restaurants rely on the best French bakeries, Chantilly has recruited the highly respected Dieter Schorner. If the pastry of the raspberry tart is a bit tough—it could be thinner—and the plum-tart dough is rather eggy, the fruit fillings are lovely. The chestnut meringue cake shows style. The chocolate cake is a dream. And what looks like whipped cream at first, nestled next to anything from the dessert cart, is a haunting Grand Marnier mousse. Don’t miss it.

          I loved Henri Soulé. When he did it his way…his was way wonderful. Unhappily, he was also a tyrannical snob. If he decided she counted, Soulé could make a little girl from the coalmining company feel like the queen of England. His disdain could wither grown men. And many an obstreperous parvenu found herself turned into a pillar of salt.

          The climate is warm at Chantilly. Happily, classic haute snobbism is not on the menu. Except for one outrage—the pampered-pet-petits-fours conceit. There I was, swooning over the melting macaroons and the grapes and strawberries in crackling candy—biting into that grape was like diving into a black crystal ball. Then I realized everyone around me had far humbler goodies. And at lunch no one had cookies at all, except me. Remember how they liberated Marie Antoinette from such silliness?

106 East 57^th Street.