Today's review roundup includes: Cru, Kuma Inn, Kittichai, Dushanbe.
NYTimes Restaurants Frank Bruni gives Cru three stars (24 Fifth Avenue; 212-529-1700):
Up until dessert, most of the dishes at Cru are splendid. Tilting heavily toward Italy, nodding slightly toward Spain, the restaurant's chef, Shea Gallante, produces what he calls modern European food and walks a pitch-perfect line between precious and creative, busy and resourceful.
To read his menu is to feel an initial stab of alarm: do slivers of raw albacore tuna really stand to benefit from bits of caper and a sauce of black olive and espresso? Yes, it turns out, they do, because those flavors come and go: fully present one moment, less detectable the next. They give the tuna some salty, bracing character, but not too much. Mr. Gallante knows not to let the sidekicks steal the show.
If he were not on top of his game, the rieslings and Riberas del Duero would usurp him. To some extent, Cru was born from, and built on, wine. The restaurant's owner, Roy Welland, has a private collection of about 65,000 bottles. About 3,200 are on the regular list, which appears in gorgeously leatherbound, beautifully organized books, and on any given night, more than 50 wines are served by the glass and half-glass.
. . . Cru has placed itself at the crossroads of several restaurant trends. The availability of so many wines in small measures is just one example. The raw tuna appears on a section of the menu that is devoted to crudo, or slightly seasoned raw fish, which is becoming as ubiquitous in Manhattan restaurants as Jude Law is in Hollywood movies. And the first three of the four savory courses on the menu — crudo, appetizers and pastas — tap into the small-plates craze, because the pastas can be ordered in half portions.
RECOMMENDED DISHES Langoustine, Arctic char and bluefin crudo; skate wing; quail breast; gnocchi with oxtail; tagliolini with clams; lobster; turbot; veal.
NYPost Steve Cuozzo also reviews Cru this week, and gives it two and a half stars (". . . Cru deserves three stars — that is, until Will Goldfarb's smart-alecky, flavor-conflicted desserts"):
. . . It's a thrilling first taste from executive chef Shea Gallante, former chef de cuisine at Bouley. His style also reflects modern-American and northern Italian influences, with the odd squirt of foam as a nod to Spain's blender-mad Ferran Adria and his cutting-edge ilk.
Few kitchens lay on so many complimentary extras, like dreamy Kabocha squash soup with prune-puree tortellini. Equally winning is rabbit cotechino ($14), a twist on the traditional pork sausage; a trio of them perch atop a rustic quilt of Casteluccio lentils, diced liver and mustard emulsion.
Gallante's best entrees deliver flavor constellations that live up to the rich surroundings. Soft-shell (newly molted) lobster ($36), a rarity, was sweet, if slightly overdone, after slow-cooking with olive oil and butter. It was served with a complex but cohesive ensemble of garlic-braised escarole, corona beans and bacon embraced in lobster-sage sauce.
Luscious venison loin ($36) glistened under prune glaze, supported by wonderful baby beets, chestnut puree and black trumpet mushrooms — simple on the plate but by no means easy to pull off.
