Today's review roundup includes: Babbo, Loreley, Vento Trattoria, Extra Virgin, Monkey Town, Sumile.
NYTimes Restaurants Frank Bruni gives Babbo three stars (110 Waverly Place; 212-777-0303):
Among the restaurants that make my stomach do a special jig, Babbo ranks near the top, and that's one reason a fresh review appears today, six years after Babbo opened and received a three-star rating in The New York Times from Ruth Reichl.
But there are other reasons, including this: Babbo provides a clear example of what separates an absolutely terrific restaurant, which it is, from a wholly transcendent dining experience, which it is not. It traces one of the dividing lines between three and four stars, a stratum that makes demands well beyond the perimeter of the plate.
At present, five restaurants in New York City have four stars from The Times. All are French in pedigree or predilection, and that rightly prompts notice as well as debate, at least around the tables where restaurant lovers huddle and feast.
Can the list be complete without Japanese restaurants, so wildly in vogue? Will it ever accommodate Italian restaurants, so many and beloved? Why not Babbo?
. . . This slightly ragtag quality is Babbo's limitation, not because it bucks classic formality, which matters less than ever, but because it undercuts the kind of coddling that restaurants can also provide.
They can muster a style of theater and degree of pampering that make more universally appealing sense than the sounds and scrum of Babbo. They can be easier on the ears and elbows.
They cannot be much better to the belly. Mr. Batali makes sure of that.
RECOMMENDED DISHES Lamb's tongue in a black truffle vinaigrette; mint "love letters" of pasta with spicy lamb sausage; goose liver ravioli; beef cheek ravioli; spicy calamari; grilled lamb chops; pine nut crostata; pistachio and chocolate semifreddo.
NYTimes $25 and Under Julie Moskin reviews Loreley (7 Rivington Street; 212-253-7077):
With wursts from Schaller & Weber, the traditional German butcher in Yorkville, Loreley caters to New York's downtown expatriate German community and the hipsters who love them — and their beer.
German food can be a hard sell. It is deeply unfashionable, pleasing neither Atkins types (all that starch!) nor low-fat reactionaries (all that meat!). Loreley is a hymn to carbohydrates and fat: well-made mashed potatoes; excellent sour bread; thick, springy spaetzle noodles; and juicy sausages with just the right snap.
Many menu items are variations on the sausage theme: plump bratwurst, liverwurst seasoned with a hit of spice and served with crunchy cornichons, slim hot-dog-like würstchen, even "currywurst," a Berlin street-food specialty of sliced bratwurst covered with a ketchup-based, curry-spiced sauce. The dish, served with a mound of French fries and greasy in the most irresistible way, reeks of late nights and youthful indiscretion.
BEST DISHES Bratwurst; liverwurst; potato soup; spaetzle; chicken paprika; potato pancakes; goulash; ice cream with chocolate or raspberry sauce.
NYMag reviews Vento Trattoria (675 Hudson Street; 212-699-2400):
The menu, as composed by Michael White (who is also the executive chef at Hanson’s flagship restaurant, Fiamma), is utilitarian, too. It’s built for volume and for quick, easy consumption, and in general the more complicated the dishes get, the more they fall apart.
The baby polpette (meatballs sprinkled with freshly grated Parmesan) are as good as you’ll find in a standard trattoria, and so is the crisp, salty fritto misto, served with a sidecar of citrus-flavored aïoli. There are seven wafer-thin pizzas to choose from, and all the ones I sampled were quite fine, especially the macellaio (spread with a crumbling of sausage and onions) and the funghi (composed of wild mushrooms, mozzarella, and many drops of white-truffle oil).
NYMag also reviews Extra Virgin (259 West 4th Street; 212-691-9359):
In the evenings, the crowd spills out onto a row of café tables set up above the sidewalk, and if you happen to be crouched in the dark-blond, Lilliputian dining room, it’s sometimes difficult to hear yourself over the frantic, late-night din. No doubt the kitchen is Lilliputian, too, but the food that issues from it is reasonably priced (no dish is over $20) and often quite good. This is thanks to chef-owner Joey Fortunato, who has long experience in the bistro world and has filled his menu with satisfying items like fat scallops served “saltimbocca style” (in a rich veal sauce), pots of mussels flavored with curry and Chardonnay, and platters of frites that you can dip in a wickedly rich Gorgonzola fondue.
Village Voice Robert Sietsema reviews Monkey Town (222 Leonard Street, Brooklyn; 718-384-1369):
Trooping upstairs with 30 other guests, all of whom had made reservations online, we found ourselves in a loft lined with projection screens. Inside the screens mattresses were arranged in a square, inside of which ran low tables. Within the ring of tables glowed a pile of electronic gear. As we assumed our seats on the mattresses, the lights dimmed and four nerds took their places in the center and began playing Halo, a shoot-'em-up Xbox game soundlessly projected on the screens. A pair of waitresses in svelte gray jumpsuits with "Monkey Town" emblazoned on the back moved among the guests, taking drink and dinner orders. Black Dice set up in the corner and, bowing their heads over guitar, drums, and synth, began pouring out their trademark cacophony.
A pair of moonlighting chefs from Texas named Josh Cross and Coleman Lee Foster are credited with the food at Monkey Town. That evening we enjoyed a Mexican-themed repast of chicken mole poblano, pork enchiladas, vegetable tamales, and tilapia ceviche at prices that ranged from $6 to $9 per dish. Best of all was a tasting plate encompassing everything for $15. Though the food was somewhat uneven—falling somewhere between haute cuisine and TV dinners—it was playful, satisfying, and occasionally brilliant. It was every bit as good as it needed to be, given the limitations of space and situation, I later told a curious friend. If the food was a good deal, the wine was a better one. A bottle of decent Italian primitivo went for $16, and there were also beer and—in a move that probably makes sense only to Texans—Dr. Pepper.
NYPost Steve Cuozzo reviews Sumile (154 W. 13th Street; 212-989-7699):
Sumile opened last fall to puffball writeups and strong demand for its 60 seats — the kind of instant success that jinxes many a place after six months of glory. But sleek little fusion factory Sumile is in no danger of going stale.
Sumile's menu famously prices all of its smallish dishes, with a few exceptions, at $14. Although the waiters tell you each diner should order three (not including dessert), I've found that five shared by two people will easily suffice.
It's what's on those plates that's the real news. New Jersey-raised DeChellis, who's worked for a squillion restaurants in Europe and the U.S. (including Union Pacific in better days), is a truly original talent.
He applies time-consuming French technique to American and Japanese elements — a claim made at scores of places. But few can boast the ingenuity or flavor calibrations that make Sumile special. Each dish is a self-contained little world, as precise in its effect as a Joseph Cornell box sculpture.
