Judging by the volume of tweedy, bespectacled, child-friendly folk surging into Telepan on the evenings I visited, the Greenmarket revolution is playing well on the Upper West Side. The bar offers a variety of decent cocktails, but the restaurant’s eclectic wine list (presided over by a genial, well-informed sommelier, who, in keeping with Telepan’s bucolic themes, seems to dress in casual, even woodsy clothes, and has a goatee like a leprechaun’s) is better. The desserts tend to be creative variations of comfortable old favorites, like steamed chocolate cake with banana ice cream instead of vanilla, and profiteroles constructed with sticky rum-soaked apples and caramel-flavored brioche. The strangest, everyone seemed to agree, was a kind of carrot-cake sundae, topped with iridescent flakes of carrot. The best was a smooth wheel of custard spiked with sherry and covered with a sugary pecan tuile. Maybe cream custard isn’t exactly your grandmother’s idea of mannered gourmet cooking. But in this new era of haute-peasant cuisine, it’s a dish many hoity downtown establishments would be happy to serve.

TELEPAN
Address: 72 W. 69th St., nr. Columbus Ave.; 212-580-4300
Hours: Dinner, Monday through Thursday, 5 to 11 p.m., Friday and Saturday to 11:30 p.m., Sunday to 10:30 p.m.
Prices: Appetizers, $9 to $19; mid-courses, $15 to $26; entrées, $23 to $36.
Ideal Meal: House-smoked brook trout, coddled eggs, lobster-braised halibut.
Note: If you’re looking for interesting wines, turn to the “new world” sections of the list.

Scratchpad: The rustic theme feels a little derivative, and the extra “mid-course” section of the menu comes perilously close to price gouging. But there’s no doubt about Telepan’s talents as a chef.

Related:

• Archive: “Restaurant Review”
• Articles by Adam Platt
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