<< previous review   next review >>

reviews

“Harbour”

Occasion:	Cuisine:	Area:	Cost:	Rating:
Night Out	Seafood	Tribeca	Moderate	Good

Restaurants rarely surprise me anymore. You eat out in this town for long enough and you kind of know what to expect. It’s not a necessarily a bad thing. After all, it’s possible for a restaurant to be thrilling without being surprising. But my recent visits to Harbour surprised me for two reasons. First, I was surrounded by men. Honestly, they were everywhere. I found them first seated at the smooth highly polished teak bar where I was sipping a virgin mojito (a fantastic minty limeade), waiting for Craig. Four scruffy guys, who looked like they’d just hopped off their surfboards, were nursing cold frosty pints of Rogue. A few minutes later, a pack of young suits strutted in after work, as if Wall Street were still thriving. And then a cast of more distinguished men, the sort that might appear in a Viagra or Cialis commercial, made their way through the white-washed bar room into the dining room.

I was perplexed. Now, men eat out, I understand that, but not at restaurants like Harbour, and not in such numbers. It’s not like I was at Peter Luger’s or Hill Country. Harbour is no boy’s club. It’s a breezy, yacht-inspired fish restaurant where food is delicate, service is precise, and the décor makes you feel like a suntanned goddess on the bow of a yacht sailing through St. Tropez. It’s not exactly the sort of place you’d expect to find packs of men drinking pints of beer, but there they were. I felt like I was a fly on a wall in the men’s locker room.

Perhaps the heavy male crowd comes from the fact that owner Richard Schaeffer has served on the board of NYMEX Holdings Inc. since 1990, and in 2006 led the company as Chairman, or perhaps just because of the restaurant’s proximity to the financial district. Who knows?

While the crowds of men didn’t necessarily make sense, they seemed to be quite happy drinking at the beach-house inspired bar, and feasting in the rear dining room, fashioned like the interior of a yacht with mirrored portholes, glossy ocean liner inspired woods, and white leather booths topped with glowing skylights. I can’t blame them. Joe Isidori, a young, ambitious chef transplanted from Donald Trump’s DJT in Vegas (where he earned one Michelin star), is doing some nice work here at Harbour, serving a fresh market-driven menu heavy on sustainable seafood.

Michelin stars must still be on Isidori&rsq ... [more, click below]

Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  

 Make a reservation

<< previous review   next review >>

Posted: April 26, 2009

Other restaurants in Tribeca :
+ Lunchbox Food Company--Closed   + 66: THIS RESTAURANT IS CLOSED   + Ola-- Closed   + Bouley   + Dominic   + Landmarc   + Pace-- Closed   + EN Japanese Brasserie   + Centrico   + Cercle Rouge   + The Harrison   + Turks & Frogs Tribeca   + Devin Tavern   + Dani-- Closed Now   + Bacaro/Smith & Mills   + The Harrison   + Matsugen, By Guest Reviewer Kathleen Squires   + Forge   + Macao Trading Company   + Harbour   + Review text tbd...   + Mehtaphor   + Brushstroke   + Jung Sik   

Share ! Post a comment