Augustine

This Wall Street addition to the Keith McNally brasserie collection contains all of the usual elements in the master’s time-honored formula. There are the waiters with their tie-on aprons, and the silver tub on the bar filled with icy wines and Champagnes. There are the vintage mirrors and café tables that appear to have been transported directly from some vanished café in Belle Époque Paris. And of course there’s the familiar brasserie menu with its time-honored soufflés and plates brimming with shellfish, and platters of steak piled with tangles of frites. The problem, as with so many other McNally outlets around town, is the lack of a steady hand in the kitchen (Shane McBride, formerly of the doomed Cherche Midi, left long ago), and the nagging sense, as one dish succeeds another, that we’ve seen it all before.