élan: Daring Again on East 20th Street (Closed)

Guac traditionalists might be disturbed but I think this uni-guacamole with taro chips is a new classic.

          Chanterelle fans rushed into élan making it impossible to book at a civilized hour. We were curious too, of course. What would David Waltuck do in his own kitchen again after five years in limbo? Where would he find his muse after the shocking death of Chanterelle, just on the eve of its 30th anniversary celebration -- the sudden death that “kind of broke my heart,” as Waltuck described it to chef-ghost Andrew Friedman on Eater.

I can resist radishes with cumin vinaigrette for more compelling fare but my companion loves them.

          For a while, he believed someone would step up and find him another Chanterelle, he told Friedman. But no one did. He’s spent the last five years as a consultant to Ark. I remember him in chef’s whites behind the counter at Clyde’s supervising a pop American menu to please Walt Frazier. Plotting a return? Suddenly, here he was on East 20th Street with Chanterelle’s manager George Stinson as a partner and Will Edwards, last at Betony running the bar.

          To the Chanterelle enthusiast, it didn’t matter what Waltuck did. French. Chinese. Evolved American. We had to check it out.  In the 12 bar stools and the 48 seats that used to be Veritas -- indeed, in those same chairs, at the same tables, dark finish sanded away, tablecloths abandoned -- I see faces that look familiar, foodies of that early age before the word existed.

Tonight looks like a class reunion from every decade of Chanterelle.

          Not everyone is as old as the veteran foodies at my table, but this crowd is decidedly not the youngish hotties we find at major openings these days. The Valkyries on spikes and platforms, towering over their guys, making some of us feel earthbound and redundant. It’s definitely a Chanterelle crowd.

The front is discreet with the name nowhere to be seen.“It’s subtle,” David admits.

          There is something mannered, or maybe defensive, about élan from the beginning. There’s no sign of a name out front, though, I’m told it’s printed in a frosted band somewhere on windows folded open, “It’s a bit subtle,” Waltuck agrees. He liked that it was the same word in French and English and evoked sophistication, confidence, energy.

You can sit at the counter open to the street traffic on East 20th.

          And about the lowercase élan -- “I like the way it looks,” Waltuck says. The Times will chew that up with its style book. Spellcheck doesn’t like it either. Past the bar, you walk so close to the Chuck Close wall, it’s hard to make out that it’s multiple closeups of Close.

The chef is pleased Chuck Close agreed to be the first artist in élan’s changing art gallery.

          Waltuck called his old friend to ask his help borrowing art for the changing entry display and Close offered. Walking in, I’m surprised to see Karen Waltuck standing in the aisle. I knew she was not joining this venture and now works for the non-profit Job Path, helping disabled people find jobs. She’s come for dinner with friends, it seems.

The silken mustard butter is worthy of the excellent home-baked pretzel amuse.

          The type on grey paper is hard to read without a flashlight. We want to taste everything. It takes forever for the four of us to agree on the order. There are starters and appetizers, $7 to $18. Main courses top out at just $33, but if you are omnivores like us, expect the check to creep up. So it’s nice that cocktails are a merciful $13 (not the $19 or $20 that we might pay at the new Beautique or The Lambs Club). My “Un Pez” is boozy, what I had in mind. Peter’s “This Just In” is refreshing. The welcome is a tangle of marvelous, soft warm pretzels, made in house, with whipped mustard butter.

Foie gras pops are rolled in chopped pistachios. “Didn’t David Burke invent these?” someone asks.

          Depending on your mood, depending on whether or not your inclination is to want to love whatever David Waltuck does -- for auld lang syne, or any other reason -- you will find the back room with its white-washed brick serene or spartan. Note the acoustical panels overhead. You’ll be grateful for that. They work right up to the final table turn when the place fills up and there are many inebriated squeals of recognition.

Fried oysters remoulade with a bit of caviar can be ordered by the piece.

          Did our server suggest we would want to order three plates each since the main courses come unadorned? That kind of pronouncement usually annoys me. But, as I said, we’re already in over our heads. To the market radishes we’re dipping in an opaque cumin vinaigrette, and the fried oysters with a small crown of caviar on remoulade ($3.50 each), the kitchen adds foie gras pops -- the rich duck liver with bits of fig rolled in large chunks of pistachio.

Big half moon potato potstickers with summer truffles sit on vegetable compote.

          Sea urchin guacamole may sound bizarre, yet somehow it isn’t. A huge bowl of it is parked near me, and I’m piling it on crisp taro chips for a while before my friends notice. Two half moon potato potstickers, even with a rain of summer truffle, seem pricey at $17 -- they sit on a cooked-down vegetable compote that changes with what appeals in the green market. There is dried porcini powder and truffle salt in there too.

Chanterelle’s signature seafood sausage is back with sauerkraut.

          But we can’t complain because every spot on the table is now covered with whatever we didn’t order: Thin leaves of soy and sake-cured beef with mushroom batons. Stuffed zucchini blossoms with lemon crème fraîche and tomato confit. I thought we ordered the resurrected house classic -- the seafood sausage? The chef’s sent it out anyway. It’s now served with sauerkraut in a beurre blanc.

The chef feels free to make General Tso’s sweetbreads even more Chinese than they were.

          Waltuck was always drawn by Chinese food. At Chanterelle he served sweetbreads with caramelized leeks and orange. “But in the kitchen we always called it General Tso’s sweetbreads,” he told Friedman in their Eater Q&A. The version at élan, made in the wok he found in the kitchen, is even more Chinese, he says, with large chunks of leek and chile heat. It’s a must too. It comes in two sizes and is more exciting than the chicken pot pie with chanterelles and bacon. Though, yes, the big chunks of dark meat chicken are perfectly cooked. (I’m spoiled by Daniel Humm’s pot pie with foie gras and truffle in the new NoMad Bar.)

I might like the pot pie more if I hadn’t just fallen for Daniel Humm’s at the new NoMad Bar.

The fine $20 foie gras duck burger with bacon mayonnaise on brioche is a nightly off-the-menu special.

          You might overlook the sides, but our crew never does. I insist on the duck fat hash browns. Someone else has to have the snow pea leaves -- the essence of pea magnified by peeling away most of the stems. Would we bypass creamless creamed corn? Impossible. Corn kernels lurking in a swamp of creamy no-added-cream corn porridge. I consider taking the leftover home for breakfast.

Our team favors the snow peas leaves, duck fat hash browns and creamless creamed corn.

          We are about to order the cherry sundae and four spoons when our waitress distributes a small pre-dessert -- pistachio panna cotta with cake and strawberries. And then the cherry centerpiece swirls in. I don’t think I’ve ever had such large and perfect cherries. The fruit itself is as thrilling as the amaretto cake and the powerful cherry sorbet. Dark little balls arrive with the check. Salted caramel chocolate, the waiter identifies them. Sadly, all I taste is salt. It obscures everything else.

This would be my dessert choice as long as sweet black cherries are in season.

          This is an early first impression. I’m eager to go back and taste more. But I can imagine Chanterelle fans furious élan is not Chanterelle. And I suppose there is a generation who never knew Chanterelle that loves guacamole and doesn’t love uni and won’t be amused by General Tso’s sweetbreads.

          I remember when I first saw Chanterelle, “like a mirage…a stage set…a teasing dream after black streets desolate and littered” against the shadowy facades of deserted Soho at night. In my December 1979 review, “The Daring Young Man on Grand Street,” I wrote:

Chanterelle was like a mirage…a teasing dream…in deserted, darkened Soho in December 1979.

          “On the door is written Chanterelle. Inside, a studied elegance. Soaring columns and wooden wainscoting, a blizzard of white linen against gray carpet, a great fan of stately flowers, birds of paradise. A stylish Sally Bowles gets up from a handsome writing desk to greet you, and hangs your wrap in a tall carved armoire.

David rarely came out of the kitchen. Karen hung your wrap in the armoire and ran the dining room.

          If you did not already suspect a serious drama about to unfold (big balloon glasses, splendid bread, a ramekin of sweet butter are all cues), the menu would confirm it. Drawing by Marisol. On the right is the $30 seven-course dinner. For feebler appetites, the à la carte is on the left. Chef David Waltuck is 24, and he is in love with the mythic Fernand Point's fabled Pyramide. The Pyramide, its three stars tarnished, is not as brilliant as it was, and David Waltuck is not yet as brilliant as he intends to be. But when he is good, Chanterelle is astonishing.” Click here to read the review.

          That was the breathless report that brought New Yorkers and the Times to Chanterelle. But the Waltucks remember only that I said it wasn’t perfect yet. I thought they’d do better if people didn’t come expecting perfection. I’ll say that again.

43 East 20th Street between Broadway and Park Avenue South. 646 682 7105. Dinner Sunday through Wednesday 5:30 till 10:30 pm. Thursday through Saturday 5:30 to 11 pm.

Photos may not be used without permission of Gael Greene. Copyright 2014. All rights reserved.


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