February 26, 1990 |
Vintage Insatiable
The Ballad of the Glad Cafés
Yes, it is unnerving to kick the Perrier habit cold turkey, but you’ll save a fin at every meal drinking eau du tap. Tomorrow is already here today.
You know the bittersweetness you feel when your favorite couple have split and he or she invites you by to meet the new heartthrob? That sinking sense of betrayal, curiosity, why-are-you-two-doing-this-to-me? That’s what I feel, sitting in the new, old, somewhat revised Café Rakel – heartbroken, compassion sorely stretched.
I never understood why the hordes of free-spending gourmands who’d meekly wait weeks for a table at Chanterelle and suffer the languor of Bouley never thronged this grand, soaring space on Varick Street for the dazzling masterworks of Thomas Keller. Friends complained that the lofty room felt austere. I loved the grandiloquence, the painted clouds above, that handsome old bar, even the closed-circuit video of street traffic on the giant screen someone dreamed up to jolly the scene. Now they’re projecting old movies without sound – tonight, Elvis as King Creole. The light seems rosier; votive candles flicker; blinds and curtains soften the windows; the serving crew seems warmer.
Prices are down. Keller is gone, though his ghost hovers in the crisp frizzles and chips that grace each dish and the insistence on foie gras in a downscale concept that could thrive without it. (Owner Serge Raoul feels a grand café should serve everything from burgers to foie.) I suspect that chef Stephen Kalt, who found his way here via Le Cirque, Arcadia, and Huberts, has been required to do stripped-down Keller along with his own homier notions. He is definitely not Keller. But what he does can be very good.
After feeding on the “discount trail” all week, I find I am happiest at Café Rakel, even though I was longing for Grandmother’s cooking, not the grand-café fuss I find. I especially like lunch or supper at the bar – where the fries are great (classic, sweet potato, or cayenne-hot) and the shrimp-and-bacon club sandwich, the good burger on a house-baked brioche bun, and almost everything else is under $10. Try a hand-chopped tuna burger with splendid salty fries, tomato fritters, and soy-scented clutch of greens.
Basking on a roomy banquette at dinner in an island of luxurious space, sipping a remarkable bargain magnum of red – a $35 Trintaudon or a $44 Crozes-Hermitage (no longer on the list but still in the cellar) – I am shocked when the trimmed-down tab totals $100 for two, even though half a dozen entrées are under $20. But it’s difficult to stay angry when you’ve eaten well. Kalt sends out perfect little ratatouille-filled ravioli, sheer and delicate, flecked with black olive and red pepper. There are sweet-potato chips for scooping up zesty salmon tartare, and thin corn pancakes under strips of moist rabbit with currants, walnuts, and red and yellow peppers. Four crisp little trout, big as sardines, come with a drift of spicy greens, and one evening’s special starter – crayfish under a sheet of green lasagna, with fat, fresh asparagus – looks like Chinese calligraphy and tastes rich and buttery in an old fashioned way.
Expertly cooked lotte arrives ringed with lentils edged in curry oil. Black linguine is rolled into an elegant chignon, a luscious seafood sauce surrounding it. Disks of artichoke heart and ribbons of sweet-potato crisps vamp up the moist grilled chicken. One evening’s calf’s liver is especially delicious, with its zesty fusillade of sweet pepper, cornichons, capers, hard-boiled egg, black olives. Some portions seem a bit chintzy – especially the risotto, witch needs to be cooked, not merely sauced, with wild mushrooms.
A new, desperately needed pastry chef arrived two weeks ago, in time to improve the brioche and turn out a sublime warm apricot bread pudding. His ice-cream-filled profiteroles are tender in a puddle of deep, dark, superb chocolate, but other desserts are still works in progress.
231 Varick Street
Humbled and Wised Up at Rose Cafe
Is it instant love for Rose Café? The way folks are backed up at the bar, waiting for a table to turn – glaring, anxious, cantankerous – certainly looks promising. That tall, pale man with the long, tamed-back ponytail, popping into the room to deliver an odd plate or two, is the energy force himself, chef-owner Richard Krause, wised up and humbled by the perversity of Manhattan success: The kisses feel so good, you don’t notice the nasty stab wounds till after dessert.
Fresh from California, Krause was adored in the open kitchen of Batons. Then he scooted off to the Melrose, a cramped burrow on Barrow Street, where his wonderful food suffered from the space pinch and a crew that seemed slightly bratty.
“I’ve learned some lessons,” Krause confides. “The setting needs to match the prices. You can only be the new boy in town once. After that, you have to be smart and give real value.” And that’s what he’s trying to do in the 100-seat space jinxed by a merry-go-round of disappearing restaurants at 24 Fifth Avenue: dinner starters from $4.50, entrées under $20; lunch even friendlier; brunch on weekends; discount supper from 11:30 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. weekdays, till 2:30 a.m. Fridays and Saturdays. He must be bunking in the cellar.
Look at the menu. Krause is cooking just what nineties jaded mouths love to eat: chili and crab cakes, chowder, polenta, mashed potatoes, pasta, four-bean penne in sage potato broth, cassoulet. Good winter fare. Since I clearly agree with his philosophy, I’m sad to report that what was tasty and carefully cooked at Melrose can be mushy, soupy, and hastily dispatched here. You won’t mind at all if you’re not so fussy and you’re sufficiently distracted by leggy beauties in minuscule frocklets – shoulders bare except for cascades of taffy-blonde hair – nibbling lettuce (they just look vacant; I’m sure they’re all nuclear scientists).
And you’ll mind infinitely less if you’re planted next to the window in the glass-enclosed terrace, which its rollicking sidewalk floor show – the flights of younglings dressed by Details, the deals on wheels of the strolling toy-duck vendor who stops to comb a downy duck foot. But if you’re trapped inside, where the pressed-tin ceiling revs up the din – it’s like sitting inside a boom box – you could get cranky. Shreds of duck and venison in less-than-thrilling chili; tempura sashimi mired in a sea-urchin cream reminiscent of peanut butter; the black bean soup with its odd, almost burned aftertaste – all disappoint. The four-bean penne is listless, as is the brunch time meatloaf on wonderful grilled country bread.
But I like the crusty corn crab cakes with roasted red pepper and the crisp potato pancakes with crème fraîche and a trio of caviars that cost $7.95 here and were $12 at Melrose (don’t let them get cold and leaden). There is duck, rabbit, pork, lamb, and country sausage in the flavorful cassoulet, and splendid lamb with turnips, carrots, leeks, fennel, and potatoes (just $14.95). Rabbit is served with linguine or, as in one evening’s special, moist under a coat of tomato-studded mustard cream. Krause’s Peking dick is crisp-lacquered and served with ginger-scallion crêpes. Melrose fans will find here his famous wok-charred tuna with tangy mango-tomato-scallion salsa.
Hilary’s candy bar is an iced sweet confection of chocolate, praline, raspberry, and caramel. That’s Hilary Bein, a veteran of Jams and Bud’s. Survivors of la dolce vita will recognize her exquisite ice creams and superb nut brittle. Half-baked Alaska is a crackling goody, too, with a plop of lemon pudding cake, but blueberry crisp, hot from the oven, topped with a tart pouf of whipped cream, is irresistible. And Hilary bakes heart-shaped fruit-studded muffins for brunch.
It looks as if the ill-fated Mosaico became Rose Café with a minimum cash outlay, the glitter stripped away except for the charming Venetian glass sconces, only the chairs replaced, and the dark-green marbling to finish the edges. If Krause’s energy holds and he can conquer the glitches, there may soon be loot to muffle the boom box and hang a picture or two.
24 Fifth Avenue at Ninth Street