A Breakthrough on the Western Front

        Oh how hungry we are, we Zip Code-hopping cowboys of Manhattan’s West Side. How we’ve longed for a cozy neighborhood feeding station, a savvy after-theater supper stop with good food that is more than drearburgers and less than pheasant Souvarov, a retreat from the bedlam of Columbus Avenue.

        That’s exactly how Keith McNally and Lynn Wagenknecht felt, they say, trekking north from TriBeCa to the Regency or the Thalia for a movie, or craving a bite after an evening at Lincoln Center. The pampered mouth knows: The West Side renaissance has provoked a plague of ptomaine guzzleries and only a scrimp of restaurants we dare to favor. But since McNally and Wagenknecht are two-thirds of the force behind TriBeCa’s successful Odeon, they felt equipped to recruit some partners and take direct action to subdue their hunger. Voilà! Cafe Luxembourg. Installed just a few weeks ago in the freshly Art Deco’d space (till recently the ill-fated L’Elysée) on 70th Street west of Broadway, Luxembourg already feels like a winner.       

        The kitchen is reasonably good at worst; at best it is impeccable. The menu cleverly appeals to almost any appetite – vegetarian, gourmand, anorectic – and any purse (dinner entrées, $9 to $23). Supper is served till 2:30 a.m. The mostly amateur staff is graceful and exceptionally well coached (though oft-times overwhelmed), the women in black à la Parisian waifs, the men in brasserie garb. And the setting is subtle, so artfully contrived it’s impossible to tell what is old, what is new: beveled mirrors; zinc bar, of course; black-and-white terrazzo floor; Deco fixtures casting a blush-and-ivory glow; pale-green and Depression-blue tile against cream; you don’t think about, because it’s so soothing, yet amped for serious people-watching; and a steel rail framing the red banquettes and making a shelf for coat stashing.

         Just two weeks old, the café was already fully booked. Saturday-night shoulders were bare. This was definitely not your slouching-down-Broadway crowd. Almost everyone was wearing black and white or red. The bare-shouldered glossographer from Women’s Wear eyed the scene. Jonathan Scull had dispatched his driver for more Champagne (no liquor license yet – bring your own or let the house send out). Brooke Hayward and Peter Duchin were a dining duo. Gallery chiefs and poet-habitués of Elaine’s flanked Halston mannequins, and, from the neighboring Dakota, film-and-TV producer Gil Shiva and Bridgemarket builder Harley Baldwin. It’s that Instant Standing-Room-Only phenomenon. “There are people here who only go to new restaurants,” observed McNally. “I haven’t seen them since the week we opened Odeon, and I don’t expect to see them again. But we hope the neighbors are here, too.”

        What a joy to have something wonderful to eat besides Chinese food north of Columbus Circle. Luxembourg’s cassoulet is one of the best I’ve tasted in years, full of rich, moist confit of duck, garlicky sausage, and white beans under a thick crunch of crumbs, sizzling in its own covered crock. And it’s only $10. Odeon’s Patrick Clark runs the kitchen, dividing his time between uptown and down. Soups and many entrées are far from thrilling, but there are triumphs too. Rich chicken-liver terrine ($3.75) is smooth and wondrously tasty, with its own grenadine-scented onion marmalade. Fresh lumps of crab, shrimp, and scallop in sole mousse ($6.50), shaped into sausages and wrapped in spinach float in a cream-softened beurre blanc. The country salad ($4), a delicious toss of chicory, Roquefort, garlicked croutons, and lardoons of bacons, is rivaled by an even more winsome notion: an almond-flecked melt of goat cheese on radicchio, arugula, and romaine ($4.75). Those are the four best beginners. Wellfleet oysters glazed in a champagne sauce ($7.50) are good, but there is something vaguely unpleasant about the texture of so much garlic in an otherwise well-thought-out cassolette of snails ($4.50).

        Twice the pasta of the day ($9.50) was green-and-white fettuccine (served once in a creamy pesto, the noodles a bit mucky, and once carbonara, with fresh Parmesan grated at the table and ham that turned out to be a bland substitute for classic pancetta, that smoky Italian bacon). Besides the superlative cassoulet, good mesquite-grilled lamb chops ($21), and a pleasant-enough breast-of-duckling salad ($10.25), the best entrees were daily specials: a sublime ragout of lobster and sea scallop ($23) swirled with leek, and moist, sweet halibut ($19) under a stunning mantle of cracked white peppercorns – dynamite not everyone might love as much as our fire-eaters did.

        Did the precise mastery of the fish cooking have anything to do with my being recognized? Let’s hope sea creatures will always be snatched form the fire at the instant of just-cooked perfection. The details are so carefully conceived – excellent warmed rolls, a carafe of ice water at each table – it gives the perfectionist hope. One day perhaps the cubes of tomato will not be so wantonly dispensed, the chicken may be tastier, less cooked, the duck somehow improved, the steak less gristly, more aged, and the frites as good as the crisped pommes Maxim (which could be even crisper and more generously portioned).

        White- and dark-chocolate mousses ($4.50) float on fine chocolate sauce, and the chef’s chocolate torte ($3.25) is a crunchy, mysterious must. Homemade cheesecake ($3) is simple and good, and lemon-curd lovers will appreciate the house tart ($2.75). Excellent American coffee is infinitely superior to the house espresso. Brunch Saturdays and Sundays is equally thoughtful, equally uneven – everything from oatmeal ($2.95) to chicken salad ($7) and eggs Benedict ($6.75), hussard ($6.75) and Sardou ($7.25). The last – exquisite poached eggs with ham and artichoke heart in a fine, tangy hollandaise – is a model of perfection, while gluey disks posing as potato pancakes ($6) may leave morning spirits dragging. Yes, there are flaws. But Cafe Luxembourg is still young and tender. It’s almost everything our unquiet Western Front has longed for. If we’re lucky, the bare-shouldered chic-lets will leave us room.

Cafe Luxembourg, 200 West 70th Street

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