The Standard Grill

After a 15-year absence from the New York restaurant scene, onetime celebrity chef and TV personality Rocco DiSpirito has returned to the kitchen at this newly renovated Meatpacking District standby, and the results (to our quiet astonishment) are generally stellar. There are a variety of expertly procured, well-executed steaks and chops on the nostalgically themed menu (try the 60-day-aged New York strip or the sliced short rib), along with an array of lustrous pastas and risottos (we recommend the red shrimp risotto, which the chef stirs himself). The baby chicken bathed in truffled Périgourdine sauce is a thing of beauty, but if you wish to experience the kind of subtle seafood magic which made this hypertalented chef’s reputation way back in the mists of time at his first hit restaurant, Union Pacific, call for the signature raw Peconic Bay scallops and uni with tomato water, which tastes like it was conjured up yesterday, or that old locavore favorite black sea bass, which is served as a starter in crudo form or as a delicately poached entrée scattered with green olives.