May 29, 1975 |
Vintage Insatiable
Gavroche: Patchwork and Whimsy
Gavroche, a wee and precious nook on East 58th Street's budding restaurant row, nurtures my recurring schizophrenia. Relax stern critical bite, and the clumsy imitation of serious cooking can be somehow pleasing. The faunlike waiters in the Provençal print smocks are amiable, if hopelessly unprofessional. Ours had a mental block against soupspoons, but when reminded, delivered one with exquisite style -- on a folded napkin on a plate. And steak knives for tough pork circlets are served blade pointed toward the customer's duodenum.
Yes schizophrenia. What bliss to escape the red-banquette New York French restaurant mousetrap. How cheering Gavroche's patchwork and country whimsy in blue, the forsythia blooming in a barrel, and the still lifes of "notre panier de crudités" and "notre potence de cochonnailles" -- or basket of raw vegetables ($2.50), our gallows of pork ($2.50). I love the blue flowered service plates, the giant tulip glasses, the candles in hurricane chimneys, and the Paul Newman blue-eyes napkins, fan-pleated. So pretty…too pretty, too cute, too cramped.
One voice of my schizophrenia tells me the average mildly discriminating New Yorker with $40 to spend on dinner for two could be reasonably content with nicely poached salmon wrapped in a faintly soggy crêpe and a chewy, cheesy Provençal crêpe with leek, celery, and tomato tucked into a half-baked crust. The kitchen has a familiar style and generosity and opulence, the eagerness and eccentricity often demonstrated by the irrepressible self-taught cook midway through apprenticeship -- food often clumsy, but usually edible. The other voice of my schizophrenia reminds me that the strict purist would find Gavroche hopeless…at any price.
But as Fritos fan, Fig Newton lover, White Castle celebrant, I am no purist. In benign moments of cuisinary permissiveness, one can admire the excellent perfume of Gavroche's too thick lobster bisque; a strange yet robust onion soup with a stretchy corset of fine cheese; less than aristocratic veal in delicious tarragon-haunted cream; an eclectic gathering of underdressed greens; and orange juice-basted bananas flamed with cognac. A moist breast of cold chicken with a macédoine of vegetables makes a fine lunch for $3.75. (The mustard yellow glue served with it remains a mystery.) Ham rolled around nicely al dente vegetables in a creamy mayonnaise is a modest $3.45 at noon. And the 58th Street salad, steeply priced at $5.25, is a fresh if somewhat bizarre assemblage of cabbage and carrots, Swiss cheese, ham, bananas, avocado, melon, and greens, with mustardy vinaigrette.
Even a determined purist could be pleased with the chef's excellent pâté, served in a handsome oval terrine…help yourself. Four of us did. Could any gourmand resist the pear-and-chestnut-stuffed crêpe, oozing cream and caramel, its sweetness not even feebly tempered by a dash of lemon? Doubtful. But too many promising inventions don't work at all. All the sausage and chestnut stuffing east of Central Park cannot save a poor dried-out Cornish hen. Medallions of tough, juiceless pork in a hideous orange sauce are simply inedible. Ham, endive, and cheese in casserole invoke memories of a woebegone frozen dinner. Strawberries in wine taste of cardboard, and the sabayon is a too-liquid imposter. There are decent wines at gentle prices -- an innocuous blanc de blanc of Dulong, unremarkable Muscadet (both $6.50), and pleasant Beaujolais, but the Sancerre, at $9.90, is to be avoided.
My schizophrenia is difficult to resolve. I was in love one night at Gavroche…but even love did not blur the sense of improvisation. It is pretty. And it is precious… but it can cost $25 for two at lunch, $40 or more at dinner. Still, a certain sweetness does blur the faltering competence.
Gavroche, 222 East 58th Street.