La Tulipe In Bloom

        It takes a blend of innocence, arrogance, optimism, and obsessed dedication to venture a French restaurant in Manhattan when you are an American groomed for the law, education, computer domination or creative playthings. But for some of us, tarts will always seem more fun than torts, the rise of yeast infinitely more thrilling than the rise of mortgage rates. Alas, today restaurant economics are heady. Once upon a time, when the green of a $10 bill was still awesome, inspired amateurs set up stove in ground-floor flats and dinner for two cost $20. Now, gastronomy’s ambitious changelings go broke and start at the top, when the tariff hovers near $120, the gaffes are more annoying and the triumphs quite remarkable.  

        “I’m going to open the perfect little French restaurant and show them all how,” Sally Darr reportedly vowed. Poor Sally, I thought. Another victim of the Otto syndrome. New York is not a town that indulges such brashness. But confidence is Sally’s signature. “A friends says she’s going to make me a rubber stamp,” Mrs. Darr confided. “It will say, ‘Mine is better.’” And maybe hers is... but it takes more than sublime desserts and an artistic eye to run the splendid, snug eatery of one’s cuisinary dreams. La Tulipe is a burnished jewel box, and the food can be very good. But for now the kitchen seems sabotaged by what I suspect is inexperience, if not arrogance. The product is inconsistent – sometimes brilliant, sometimes bland. And at times the pace falters. A man’s fish is served. His companion’s chicken arrives several minutes later. When a customer complains that her dish arrived after her guests had finished theirs, she is told that is the risk of haute dining. At times, entrées appear before hors d’oeuvre. Customers leave in a huff. With only five entrées on the ever changing menu (a prudent discipline), how can the house run out of two by 9:30? Red snapper, yes. But chicken?  

        Still, even congenitally paranoid New Yorkers need not feel insecure waiting half an hour in the stylish entrance with its tiny café tables, sleek zinc bar and gatherings of country flowers. After all, Woody Allen is waiting too. Woody, icon of Manhattan paranoia.  A fabric designer, Sally Darr is self-taught and Cordon Bleu’d, a veteran of the test kitchens of Time-Life and Gourmet magazine. One day she decided she was tired of being told what to do “by people who know less than I do.” She explored the catering-and-carryout trade and was discouraged “when I watched customers spending 45 minutes and 65 cents at a much touted food shop.” At the Summerhouse for lunch afterward, she liked the pace and the style. Customers spent money, and the owners looked like they were having fun. “It’s going to be a restaurant,” she told her schoolmaster husband, John. “You’ll need me,” he said, resigning his job at the Friends School in Brooklyn “without a moment of regret” and plunging into financial jugglings. He sold their beloved co-op to buy and salvage a run-down townhouse, because it makes sense to live over the store.       

        Handsomely revived, with a garden that looks loved forever, the house has even won a prize from an enchanted block association. Inside, the rose glow from deep-berry walls reflects on uptown faces eyeing one another in the framed mirrors that expand space cleverly, though not enough at full capacity. These are the knowing mouths that follow stars. Three stars fell on La Tulipe in its infancy. Perhaps too soon. The Darrs had vowed to “keep it small, aim for quality...and no lunch.” Now, a year later, success is taxing the vows of perfection. And at night the handsome room grows shrill and slightly claustrophobic.  

        But sensibilities are swiftly seduced by the Darrs’ passion for perfection – the dessert table, a tub of marigolds, impeccably crisp battered zucchini strips in a tiny wicker basket, a graceful fish timbale afloat in a sublime sauce in copper, on a doily, with a bright shock of smashed tomato. To start, the magnificent langue Valenciennoise – thin slices of tongue layered with a blend of half-cooked foie gras of duck and chicken livers, even more delicious when it is not refrigerator-cold. Wild mushrooms in cream are piled in a buttery croustade. Poached oysters are napped with a splash of butter sauce on a bed of wilted spinach. And, depending on the season, a ceviche of scallops and mussels, herby fresh tomato soup, a rather bland fish terrine, a delicious mousse of pike with a fine beurre blanc, or asparagus in a languorous pool of chive butter.  

        Sweetbreads ($32) can be delicious, with fresh vegetables in cream, though one evening they were overcooked and on another the noodles were rubbery. Red snapper ($31) is tastily baked in paper with vegetables and beurre blanc. Mignonettes of pork ($28) are moist and fragrant with prunes in Madeira. Chicken is a knockout roasted with garlic ($27). There is flavorful steak ($33), with green-peppercorn butter and fried onion rings – more evidence of the kitchen’s frying mastery. And often there is lamb, in noisettes or rack ($32), graced with tomato and eggplant. But only a misguided novice could turn out that underseasoned pigeon so soggily stuffed ($31).  

        The price of the entrée determines the price of dinner; add $2.50 for a sparkling salad of exquisite greens served with goat cheese – we asked to split one salad for two and got one salad and two forks.  

        Ah... the desserts. Here Sally Darr soars. Her lemon tart is pure perfection in a buttery crust. And her rendition of Dione Lucas’s cocoa-dusted whipped-cream-filled chocolate roll is too wonderful not to be a daily offering. Most floating islands are dumb baby food to me. Sally’s is appealingly grown-up, studded with toasted hazelnuts in a haunting crème anglaise. Apricot soufflé is a heady pleasure, and her eclair-shaped dacquoise, oozing mocha buttercream, a joy to crunch. Ices and ice creams are homemade, served in a pastry “tulip.”       

        In the blur of a full house, the staff – men and women in the same French-bistro dress: white shirt and apron, black vest and tie – are attractive and good. But there is a slightly slimy captain who is quick to blame anyone else for his omissions when a simple apology would do. Each time we asked for the hot apple tart, we were told it was too late or the supply was exhausted. Then suddenly one would appear. As I had been recognized both times, this was hardly a miracle. But the tart is exquisite... and John Darr acknowledged our sighs with “My wife made it, after all. Isn’t she wonderful.” 

      Sally Darr is already impressive. I love her dream. Perhaps one day La Tulipe’s performance will match it.     

104 West 13th Street.

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