Beyond Meat and Frites: Steak Frites

        It must have seemed like a brilliant idea at the time: in the age of specialization and simplicity to create a menu with just two options – steak frites and the fish of the day. The ponytailed one, Andrew Silverman, and the one with the scholarly beard, Terrance Brennan, had won my heart with their ambitious $21 menu at Prix Fixe (now $24). Together, they hoped to transfuse sex appeal into Silverman's languishing bistro, Espace, an also-ran on a street boasting Union Square Café, Coffee Shop, and Metropolis.

        Even before the switch, they went to work on the old seedy space, where pleasant folding doors open to the sidewalk and ceilings soar but the ruling mood was murk and gray. Ruben Toledo's urban cave drawings are barely dry. Sorry, but stingy velvet swags and odd skirts atop tall columns do little to warm the gloom. As for the concept, Steak Frites – alas, no one liked it.

        By the time I arrived for lunch, the monomania had been abandoned for a limited menu of what New Yorkers want to eat at gentle prices (entrées $7.50 to $17.50 at lunch, $12 to $22 at dinner), all with a distinct Brennanesque sophistication. And the food is good. Unlike many new ventures, where the waiters seem to have been hijacked from a Trailways bus somewhere in the Midwest and brought blindfolded to New York, these seem to be trained, have pride in the burger's house-baked oregano roll, know the provenance of the great onion rye (Bread Alone), and thoughtfully rotate the ketchup and mustard bottled label-out, Mr. and Mrs. Condiment, side by side.

        Except for one day's epidemic of saltiness (apparently cured by dinner a few days later), most everything has a certain elegance and lots of flavor. Two specials – at lunch, intense portobello-mushroom soup, and at dinner, a napoleon of cod-and-mashed potato brandade between toasted croutons with olives, greens, and a red-pepper coulis – are more successful than fresh artichoke with warmed goat cheese in a broth heady with carrot, leek, fennel, celery, and onion. Impeccable mussels are piled into a saffron'd bath, and sprightly frisee with bacon and haricots verts makes a splendid salad.

        Noontime signals a focus on pasta, sandwiches – a fine burger with first-rate fries – and salads, many repeated at dinner for a dollar or two more. Moist curried-chicken-breast slices are hidden in a towering haystack of the great greens you'd expect a fast walk from the greenmarket, on a foundation of apricot-and-currant-studded couscous. More couscous at night in grand, slightly Frenchified style – chicken, lamb, and spicy merguez sausage in one bowl, grains, vegetables, and currants in another, a deep, dark glaze rather than the classic broth, and torrid harissa to intensify the heat.

        Brennan's signature saumon a l'unilatéral reappears, rare at the heart, skin a nutty crunch, beside a nice fennel-and-walnut salad. For vegephiles, there's a tempting assemblage of asparagus, mushrooms with shallots, creamed spinach, endive braised in port, ratatouille, and a potato gratin cake (rich in milk, cream cheese, and butter). Braised lamb shank may please carnivores even more than the strangely dry rib-eye.

        Excellent sorbet or pot de creme au chocolat with a striped pastry "pole" and whipped cream (rather than the too-sweet coconut-banana napoleon) is comforting punctuation for the insistent sweet tooth. No need to apologize if  Union Square is all booked up or you don't make the cut at Coffee Shop. Now there's a new contender on 16th Street.

        What was this nonsense? Longtime customers of Rocco were aghast. For more than 50 years they'd come to count on this dowdy little storefront for all the southern Italian familiars -- spaghetti marinara, the melts of mozzarella. And now such outrageousness. Grappa-cured salmon with fallen leek soufflé, indeed. Potato gnocchi with fresh tuna ragu. What sacrilege. Mouths in need of veal parmigiana snarled and fled.

        But a handful of the adventurous lingered. With his father's retirement, the wandering son had returned from kitchens in Miami and Aspen. Now Arturo Sighinolfi and his pal from Rutgers days, Mario Batali (an economics major who preferred to cook), are in charge. And they are finding an audience for potato-crusted prawns in tomato-mint dust with white beans and a roasted-tomato vinaigrette, for scallopini of monkfish with preserved lemon, caper berries, and black-olive tabboule. All at gentle storefront prices: entrées $12 to $18, but mostly at the lower end.

        Spruce up the joint? Well, they've done what they could on a budget – do-it-yourself painted mock marble below the chair rail, some Matisse-like squiggles just below the ceiling. And the story would be better if I could say everything emerging from the old-fashioned kitchen is wonderful. But it isn't. The truth is, some fancies work better than others.

        Mussels in a sweet-pepper broth with beet-green-topped bruschetta; aristocratic greens with white beans and corn and a tomato chip; spicy mushroom hodge-podge with crispy polenta... all three are splendid starters. And affetatti misti – a platter of sausages with olives and black-pepper focaccia – could perk the appetites of three or four. Even a flan of roasted peppers is saved from being nursery pap by its grown-up flavor.

        Or start with pasta ($6 as appetizer, $10 as entrée): monster-size potato gnocchi, light as can be, with tuna in minted tomato sauce; herb-flcked twists known as strichetti with a cremini-and-porcini cream where the mushrooms win, tortellacci of brains and Swiss chard in a sage-touched brown butter; or remarkable old-fashioned tagliatelle in a ragù Bolognese. (All of these are better than the stolid potato ravioli, less-than-thrilling wheat spaghetti, and black-pepper pappardelle with shreds of stewed rabbit.)

        The chef is hooked on dust. He likes to roast herbs and tomatoes all night in a 150-degree oven and then pulverize them. He can't reist scattering paprika on the sausage plate. I'm reminded of my living-room floor the month the cleaning lady disappeared. But he didn't invent this silliness, so I won't condemm him. And his dayfish (Rocco-speak for the fish of the day) is carefully braised, whether scrod or swordfish, in a saffron-perfumed potion with tomato, beside cabbage stewed in red wine and vengar and topped with a peppery toss of parsley salad. Even something as mundane as chicken salad gets a boost from balsamic vinegar, marinated mushrooms, and polenta croutons. Osso buco with saffron orzo, veal chop with sauteed greens and roast garlic, and duck confit with frisée and lentils are good enough. But the huge, tough pork shop should be avoided.

        There are just a few wines, nicely priced, carefully chosen. A Brusco di Barbi at $20 or a rougher Centini at $17 goes well with the food. Sorbetti may arrive, gift of the house - lemon, pear with red-wine granita on top, or grapefruit (from Papa Sighinolfi's garden in Florida). If dessert has to be chcolate, ask for the terrine.

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