May 15, 1972 |
Vintage Insatiable
Le Cygne: The Swanpond
They came to tame and salvage the native palate: missionaries from France, disciples of Escoffier. Their greatest golden days in Manhattan are past, for now we are almost civilized. Still, expatriate keepers of the faith abide. And in 1969 three serious restaurants were spawned in the tradition.
La Seine was the gaudiest, the snootiest, the most over-hyped, the most expensive, the most ambitious. So gifted. And it failed. Le Madrigal was infinitely modest, as understated as its narrow citrus corridor overlooking the Salvation Army garden, a discreet retreat for summer’s illicit lovers and for the very private rich who do not advertise but like to be recognized as brand names. It flourishes.
Le Cygne thrives, too. Not on a bedrock of chic. Not on a veneer of elegance. Not on the genius of a transcendent kitchen, though young chef Herman is imaginative and ambitious. Le Cygne, the Swan, prospers on warmth, reliability, and bravado – non-snob warmth, pride, snap of service. For sheer coverage, consider the cheese tray. Who else dares to offer perishable cheese in such variety? Not merely brie in a sublime itch of readiness, but chèvre, silky reblochon, coulommiers, Caprice des Dieux, pont l’éveque, montrachet (goat cream), port-salut, Swiss, peppery margotin, Roquefort, boursin. All wait at room temperature. How wonderfully wanton.
Having come to bloom as captain in the hothouse cocoon of La CaravelleLINKtovintgCaravelle, Gerard Gallian of Grasse and Michel Crouzillat of Toulouse are properly ambitious. The menu may look familiar but daily improvisations go beyond cliché. There is always a quiche du jour on the $8.25 prix fixe lunch – onion-layered Lyonnaise, the inevitable Lorraine, a quiche of mussels, piperade or, perhaps, pissaladiere – the onion, anchovy, black-olive flan of Nice. Salade Nicoise, céleri remoulade, cold striped bass with a piquant sauce gribiche, and mussels in a sharp mustard-y cloak are staples of the cold buffet, but there is also a rice salad: one day a splendid texture of cauliflower, green pepper and cold bass, the next day inspired by bits of beef or chicken. And there is always a quintet of pâtés and terrines – a rough ham-tongue-and-chicken-studded loaf en croûte; cognac-spiked terrine of chicken liver, another with a heart of foie gras and a punctuation of pistachio and minced truffle, a country pâté, and that rich fat pork forcemeat called rillettes. If you waver, torn between two, Michel or Gerard are likely to offer a little of each. “We are friendly,” Michel explains.
Most French kitchens do a soup du jour. So does Le Cygne. Also a puree du jour – puree of carrot, turnip, cauliflower, string bean. And an hors d’oeurve of the day – voluptuous sausage in a pastry wrap with sauce périgueux at lunch or a mousse of salmon trout in a pastry shell with tarragon-scented cream at dinner. Then there is the silver trolley’s blessing: a handsome breast of veal or two large saddles of lamb to be carved into precise pink rectangles and served with an exquisite garnish of eggplant and tomato. The menu says “suprême de sole bonne-femme,” but if you lust for sole bercy or meunière… just ask. And every night on the $12.50 prix fixe dinner, there is dodine de volaille homardine, boned breast of chicken stuffed with ground veal in sauce américaine with bits of lobster. Even the finale echoes the theme of plenty: candied confections, sugar-glazed strawberries and orange slices, dates stuffed with fondant, cookies in curls and clusters, not just for Serge Obolensky or Mrs. Lyttle Hull, but for you, the lady from Kalamazoo and me.
The cordial benevolence of the Swanpond attracts those of measured habit, businessmen repeaters – R.D. Saypol, president of Lionel Corp., is a daily luncher. And on one recent spring evening, the crowd was unabashedly plain, as under-reaching as the room itself with its stolid mustard walls, its noncommittal heaviness un-enhanced by the series of lacy pastel oils. The only visual grace: The scattering of spring blossoms – carnations, irises, anenomes – in funky pottery jugs.
Watch as the flowers on that table are whisked away, the better to woo Julia Child with a hearty sausage en croûte. Now the flowers are replaced, now whisked away again for a full presentation of the plat du jour, poached salmon, its carcass already ravaged by the sharks of East 54th Street. Mrs. Child brings greetings to Gerard from Grasse. It was in the marketplace, filming a segment for her television show, that Julia was approached by a little woman: “You are American,” she said. “You must know my son. He runs a restaurant in New York.” Now Gerard and crew are doing handstands to please Julia. And she is exulting over the exquisite little black ovals a waiter had ladled into a dish – the olive gems of Nice. Back and forth go the flowers as the entrées are presented, the wine, the cork, the formidable cheese assemblage, the dessert wagon and now another cart bringing hauts digestifs lined up like an airport honor guard – calvados, marc de borgogne, poire, framboise, Mirabelle, cognacs.
If only the sauces were as brilliant as the performance. Yes, the kitchen does have moments of greatness. For simple perfection, there is l’émincé de filet de boeuf bercy – tiny chunks, quickly sautéed, tender and rare in a Madeira-enhanced bercy. Delicate slices of kidney are impeccable in a dark mustard-laced dress. There is gossamer sole in a truly stirring white-wine sauce. And a fine plump squab escorted by precisely turned spools of potato. But there is a bit too much salt in an otherwise exquisite hors d’oeurve of fragile bass, topped with mousse of pike, bathed in a pool of sorrel-scented cream. And a last dusting with coarse salt has almost ruined a truly extraordinary invention: clams blanketed in a duxelle of mushroom, a swim in garlic butter. Too many dishes ride a kind of plateau: good, merely good. Duck, with a thick layer of fat beneath its crisp crust, is tender but lapped in an unexciting sour-cream sauce. The quenelles are not the ethereal dumplings they might be. Le salmis de caneton is tough. And the sauce, a rich, shiny, peppery pond, lacks the spark of greatness. The sweetbreads are overcooked, leathery along the edges with rubbery bits of chanterelle. With all that warmth and charm and pride, with so much imagination and courage, why can’t the food be more brilliant?
The price tag is disturbing too. Already the prix fixe, $8.25 and $12.50, has climbed close to that of La Caravelle ($9.75 to $14.75). Many of the specialties carry a supplementary tariff. And the handsome leather-bound album of wine labels records the painful inflation of the grape. Le Cygne is no more villainous here than many others, but the most modest of the Bordeaux is $9.75 for a ’64 red Graves, Chateau Picque-Cailloux. A pleasant Muscadet – once considered only a table wine – must be taken seriously at $9.50. We drank Chateau Lascombes, a fine full Margaux, $16 for the ’66 and a ’62 Chateau Gruaud-Larose, $16, that tasted strangely thick, a bit like cherry cough syrup.
If Le Cygne at times disappoints, it is not so much in its occasional mishaps as for its even keel of unstirring near-excellence. Still, it is wondrously reassuring in this abrasive town to find a cloister where chic and style and pedigree mean nothing and there is a sense of plenty and a promise often enough fulfilled.