<< previous review   next review >>

reviews

“T-Bar Steak and Lounge”

Occasion:	Cuisine:	Area:	Cost:	Rating:
Night Out	New American	Upper East Side	Moderate	Great

arin Oriental Hotel and worked at Petrossian as a sous chef before taking over as head chef at Lenox Room, offers a menu for the varied appetite of the neighborhood, from chicken to salmon, to pasta, veal, and lamb. This may be a place for steak, but it’s wrapped inside a seriously good modern American restaurant. It’s a compelling formula that works really well.


As we looked over the menu, a basket filled with long fluffy lengths of rosemary and black olive focaccia landed on the table. Hands went in, bread came out, and quickly disappeared. Hands went back in. This was good stuff. As were the appetizers. We had to have the Angel Chicken Wings ($11), a signature dish from a recipe by Gray Kunz. (Tony and Gray worked together at Lespinasse, and when Tony opened Lenox it was his “gift.”) The wings are presented like gobstopper lollipops, the meat pushed down the little French’d bones into plump juicy orbs, glazed with tamarind and what tasted like a warm spice rub of cinnamon, cloves, all-spice, and cumin. They’re not atomic or sloppy, nor do they require gnawing; they’re delicate and lovely, sort of the Princess’s chicken wings.

The hit of the table was something called smoked salmon “ravioli” ($18)—a fun riff on a morning bagel and lox that has more to do with the Sunday Times than pasta. Zwicker takes two sheets of Catskill farms smoked salmon and fashions it into a ravioli pocket, fills it up with a spoon of cream cheese and tops it off with a spill of caviar. To complete the breakfast experience, there’s a side of pickled pearl onions and some mini toasted bagel chips. While I could’ve done with a bit less cream cheese, this was a total crowd-pleaser.

My favorite appetizer was not the ravioli, but the steak tartar, a gorgeous glistening mound of hand-cut black Angus beef tenderloin treated to just the right amount of mustard and Worcestershire sauce. The crab cake was not really cake as much as crab—in fact there’s no breading in here at all. It’s just a wildly generous amount of sweet and luscious Maryland crab formed into a sort of swirled meringue, set on a plate slick with spicy tartar sauce ($14). Fried Blue Point oysters ($15) were also quite impressive, snuggled inside a light sheet of batter that’s crisp and not the least bit soggy, and then rested on a small mound of seaweed salad and a hidden hit of wasa ... [more, click below]

Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  

 Make a reservation

<< previous review   next review >>

Posted: October 29, 2007

Other restaurants in Upper East Side :
+ Sfoglia   + Zoe Townhouse   + Accademia di Vino   + T-Bar Steak and Lounge   + Parlor Steakhouse   + Le Caprice   

Share ! Post a comment