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The re-Renaissance of Harlem can be measured in the steady sprinkling of bistro openings on Frederick Douglass Blvd. Revival is of this ilk, though it doesn't look quite as smart as some of its brethren. Between the bar up front, colorful hanging lamps, booths, tables, and modern prints and paintings, the large room seems jumbled and overly busy. Often, so is its cuisine, which seems stuck in the early 90s. Each dish on the menu is accompanied by a descriptive paragraph that names every ingredient and cooking method involved in the dish’s creation. Yet almost every main dish comes with the same side dishes—mashed potatoes and steamed broccoli, carrots, and cauliflower. Diverse culinary influences fuse in discomfiting ways. Take shrimp risotto, which arrives with three sauces: tomato, butter, and an unfortunate cranberry. Or flavorless scallops blanketed by smoked salmon are paired with an inexplicably teriyaki-vinaigrette-dressed green salad. Dishes that work lack this confused ambition. Cider-brined ribs, for example, are relatively tender and not too sweet. A college kid might have dreamed up the stack of cornbread surrounded by a creamy pool of sauce stocked with mushrooms, onions, and oddly, chickpeas. Nevertheless, it's substantial and satisfying, like the community it serves. — JJ Goode

Cornbread mushrooms, $6.50; spicy butter shrimp, $9