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“Aix Brasserie”

Occasion:	Cuisine:	Area:	Cost:	Rating:
Night Out	French	Upper West Side	Moderate	Great

MY DINNER AT AIX BRASSERIE

The Upper West Side has always been the Bermuda triangle when it comes to culinary invention. Anything that even remotely echoes ambition is shunned with a Scarlet A. Do people up there sign a pledge to eat only Chinese, bagels, sushi, Italian, and burgers till death do they part? I mean it’s sort of ridiculous at this point. I applaud Bill Telepan for making it work. He was smart. He is offering a three part menu of small plates, apps, and entrees in an innocuously presented menu that includes pastas, braised dishes, eggs, smoked fish, and the like in a casual setting that perhaps allows those timid Upper West Siders to feel like they can handle the roster of seasonal ingredients and Telepan’s considerable kitchen talent. Tom Valenti is also the right sort of chef for this population of dull diners. His restaurants are perfect for the UWS mentality—gussied up comfort food in lively convivial settings.

But Aix, a Provencal restaurant headed by chef Didier Virot, who made a name for himself as Jean Georges Vongerichten’s executive chef, didn’t want to play by the Upper West Side playbook. Virot had a serious vision for his food and his restaurant, and it did not include dumbing anything down. After three years of trying it his way, he and owner Phillip Kirsh decided to evolve and meet the neighborhood half way. They have removed the carpets, and stained the floors a dark espresso color. They have stripped the tables of white tablecloths and replaced them with glossy wood ones instead. They have removed the high art from the walls and replaced it with vintage French posters. CNN and ESPN still play in the bar, but now the lounge menu of burgers, pastas, and sandwiches has been folded into the main menu, and fries top mostly every plate in both the bar and the dining room. They changed their precious Aix of haute cuisine into a casual neighborhood place they now call Aix Brasserie, a place that boasts crowd-pleasing plat du jour like Coq au Vin ($27) on Wednesdays and a smoked Peking duck with braised red cabbage and apricot jus ($32) on Thursdays (that is calling my name).

The change is working nicely with the neighborhood. When I went in last week with my friend Diana we found the bar filled with a mix of handsome grey-haired couples, sexy burger boys glued to the hockey game, and pen ... [more, click below]

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Posted: March 20, 2006

Other restaurants in Upper West Side :
+ 'Cesca   + Asiate   + Blue Hill Stone Barns   + Per Se   + The Neptune Room   + Spigolo   + Telepan   + Aix Brasserie   + 'Cesca   + Bar Boulud   + Dovetail   + BarBao   + Dinosaur Bar-be-Que   + Kefi   + Bar Luna   + Ed's Chowder House   + Red Rooster, by Rachel Barbarotta   + Loi by Dara Pollak   

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