Feature

Where To Eat Now 2002

Slide into home: The steak slider from AKA cafe.

(Photo: Joe Scafuro)

A Culinary Art Tour
The roosting habits of New York restaurateurs are always difficult to divine. For whatever reason, some of the city's grandest chefs have recently been setting up their kitchens in art galleries, auction houses, and museums. Our tour begins at the AQ Café at the Scandinavia House, on lower Park Avenue, for a quick glance at August Strindberg's predictably gloomy photographs, followed by an uplifting lunchtime helping of Marcus Samuelsson's salmon lasagna, a smorgasbord of four herrings (for only $6.50), and a frothy glass of Carlsberg Elephant Malt beer, all served cafeteria-style on translucent plastic trays. The simple tuna burger with wasabi mayonnaise is my very biased father's favorite dish at the Garden Court Café in the newly renovated Asia Society (he is president of the institution).

For the best rainy-day cup of hot chocolate in the city, visit the lavish Neue Gallery on Upper Fifth Avenue, home to Café Sabarsky, Kurt Gutenbrunner's ode to the strudels and dumplings of his youth. There are eleven varieties of cakes and tortes on the menu, plus dainty breakfast dumplings smothered in bacon and onions, gourmet liverwurst sandwiches (served open-face with a sweet onion confit), and creamy bowls of chestnut soup, all of which you can walk off by climbing up and down the great curving marble staircase leading to the galleries upstairs.

Finally, there's Bid, the ambitious, loungelike restaurant on the ground floor of the Sotheby's fortress on York Avenue. The straightforward menu doesn't quite live up to the novelty of its surroundings, although I like the roasted quail garnished with turnips and savoy cabbage, and the milky pink lobster chowder, larded with satisfying deposits of potato and smoked bacon. If there's an evening auction on, mingle upstairs with the legions of paddle-wavers; if not, the whole experience feels a little bizarre, like dining in the lost corner of a vast, deserted corporate museum.

A Really Good Sandwich
The sardine sandwich was never high on my list of gourmand delicacies until I sampled the one at Bread, a new sandwich parlor in NoLIta. It's built on a fresh baguette from the Balthazar Bakery, with tomatoes and big silvery Sicilian sardines, all bound together with a slather of Thai pepper mayonnaise. It's on the menu along with brick-size bruschetta loaded with basil and plum tomatoes, and other mildly odd sandwich combinations like wedges of ciabatta with prosciutto, Danish butter, and mozzarella, or white Mediterranean tuna with lemon-mint dressing. Here the sandwich contents tend to melt together in a precariously messy fashion; gobble them too quickly and the whole structure becomes unhinged, like a proper sandwich should.

That's true, too, of Douglas Rodriguez's bountiful, un-tapas-like veal-brisket sandwich at Pipa (smothered in mushrooms and caramelized onions on a toasted baguette), and, to a lesser degree, of the pressed hanger-steak slider concocted by Scott Ehrlich at Wylie Dufresne's new storefront diner on Clinton Street, the AKA Cafe. The slider comprises tender marinated steak, creamy pickle relish, and a bialy, squeezed in a sandwich toaster. It's roughly the size of an English muffin cut into tiny halves, so order several (if you add up the entire dinner menu at AKA, the grand total comes to $84, including a superior oyster soup and delicious pork-and-ginger empanadas), then consume them with your friends, in little bites, like tea sandwiches.

And Finally, a Few Family Favorites
My uncle Frank, the family gastronome, is a lifetime New Yorker and a gentleman of solid, traditional tastes. These days, he mourns the passing of the great Galician establishment, Meigas, on Hudson Street, which in his estimation served the finest dish of tripe in the entire city. But to anyone who considers New York to be on the verge of a new and chaotic Dark Age, he commends, in no particular order:

The lobster soufflé at Orsay, the cassoulet at La Côte Basque, and the chicken tetrazini at Pietro's.

Herring Week every April at The Oyster Bar in Grand Central Terminal (or an oyster pan roast served at the counter any day, preferably by his favorite waitress, Patricia, to whom he sends a Christmas card every year).

The tripe soup and any kind of enchilada at the original Gabriela's uptown.

The midnight menu at his favorite bistro, Balthazar, particularly the duck shepherd's pie and the fat boudin noir (with gravy, crisped potatoes, and two poached eggs).

The mutton chop at Keens Steakhouse. "They get them from Montana, where they let lambs grow to be big, old-fashioned things," he says.

The minestrone at Teodora, on East 57th Street, an establishment he has been frequenting ever since he spied two portly Italian priests dining happily at the bar some years ago.

To this list, I would add, in no particular order or preference:

A luncheon of blinis and Osetra caviar at the Grill Room of The Four Seasons.

Christian Delouvrier's confit of suckling pig at Lespinasse, the rack of lamb at Daniel, and the braised fresh bacon on the tasting menu at Gramercy Tavern.

The hot pastrami sandwich at Carnegie Deli, preferably devoured next to a gaggle of fellow patriots from Sioux City or Dubuque.

A bowl of clam chowder at Pearl Oyster Bar, any croissant at Fauchon, a vodka martini and a Portale tower of seared tuna at Gotham Bar and Grill.

Weekday breakfast at Barney Greengrass, of salmon and eggs, preferably (as recently happened to me) with Philip Roth the only other diner, sitting in the corner pondering his morning bagel and cream cheese.

A weekday lunch at Peter Luger.

Most anything for lunch at Union Square Café and most anything for dinner at Jean Georges; most anything any time at Bouley Bakery, provided the joint reopens.

And finally, a simple cup of the special split-pea soup at the original Joe Jr., on the corner of Sixth Avenue and 12th Street, where I like to repair, on my off days, with the morning papers and a soothing green canister or two of Extra Strength Mylanta.