The Restaurant Review

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Salmon Cured?

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Do dishes like this reveal the tired fish in a whole new light? I suppose they do. And if you still can’t taste the difference between a king salmon and a coho after a couple of visits to Wild Salmon (I couldn’t), there’s nothing about the Cheerios of restaurant food that a few hours in a smoker, and a platter of first-class latkes, won’t cure.

Given the chef’s seafood fixation, you’d expect the desserts to be an afterthought, and for the most part, they are. The featured item is a non-flaming baked Alaska sculpted in the shape of a white marshmallow igloo, with a strange penguin figurine made of fudge chocolate on the side. I liked the igloo okay, but the penguin had been sitting in the fridge for about five days too long. Ditto the cup of lemon panna cotta, decorated with vaguely plasticated swirls of raspberry. But the strawberry-rhubarb crisp is serviceable, and if you’re looking for something appropriately risqué to top off your Chodorow experience, try the apple upside-down cake, which comes with a scoop of ice cream, flavored, not disastrously, with Tillamook cheddar cheese.

Wild Salmon
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Address: 622 Third Ave., nr. 40th St.; 212-404-1700.
Hours: Lunch, Monday through Friday 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Dinner, Monday through Wednesday 5:30 to 10 p.m., Thursday through Saturday 5 to 11 p.m., Sunday 5 to 9 p.m. Brunch, Sunday 11:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Prices: Appetizers, $11 to $26; entrées, $21 to $38.
Ideal Meal: “Mt. St. Helens” seafood platter, house-smoked salmon platter, sand dab or sablefish, apple upside-down cake.
Note: Recently opened for brunch. The specialty: eggs Benedict with house-smoked sockeye, king, and coho, over latkes.
Scratchpad: This isn’t a great restaurant, but if you choose wisely, you’ll have a good meal. Half a star for the grandeur of the room; another half for the chef’s basement smoker.