Allen & Delancey
115 Allen St., New York
212-253-5400
Little Owl
90 Bedford St., 212-741-4695
Market Table
54 Carmine St., 212-255-2100
Each $125 for dinner for two with wine, tax and tip
First, get a reservation. Good luck with that. Having researched the three hottest bistros in the Big Apple (a town that has almost given up haute cuisine for bistros), I called Market Table on Feb. 15 and asked for a reservation for March 15. They were already booked. I tried for March 16. No to that too: Too soon to book. I asked about their reservation policy. The (not very) friendly phone person said they take reservations starting one month before the date, at 10 a.m. I said that I would be on a plane the next day from 9 a.m. till 2 p.m. and unable to phone. Would she make an exception and take my booking today? No. Would she take my booking if I made it on their voice mail the next morning at 8:30? No.
The other two hot bistros had identical reservation policies. Little Owl had March 15 tables open at 5:30 and 9:30. Am I going to eat then? Sure, when I'm old enough for the early-bird special, or old enough to die and get reborn as a twentysomething. The three restaurants had different times of opening their reservation lines (as well as varying times on weekends). I took detailed notes and got someone to call for me. For some bizarre reason, Allen & Delancey in the East Village gave us a table on March 15 at 7:30.
Does that mean they're not really hot? The entrance is hot: One has to push (hard) through a wide heavy black velvet curtain to enter the bar, which is dark and dramatic and has a lot of very good-looking people in it. We stand a while in the bar, trying to figure out 1) where the restaurant is and 2) if we're supposed to walk through the bar to get there. The bartender polishes the occasional glass insouciantly, as if it's a New York spectator sport watching the rubes be uncomfortable.
After a while, we go find the resto at the back, are seated at a small table and wish for a flashlight because the room - which resembles an attractive roadhouse (low-beamed ceiling, old-fashioned amber sconces) - is so dark. We love the food, which is classic bistro: Buttery, assertive comfort. As in bone marrow that has been browned, served with caviar and shallot jam to spread on grilled baguette. Perfect scallops on creamed parsnip with bacon-studded onions and maple butter.
We're on an express train for dessert, which is a clever play on middle Americana: molten peanut butter and chocolate in short crust, served with uber-creamy malted ice cream and ethereal whisky milkshake in a shot glass. Before that, there were equally fantastic mains: corn-fed chicken so well-bred it tastes gamy, with crisp skin to boot, served with charred wild maitake mushrooms and fresh crayfish in crayfish sauce. And Tasmanian sea trout ferociously browned and wet on the inside.
But it's 8:45 and we're out on the street again. Yes, they've turned our table in less than two hours and we hardly felt a thing. The next night at Little Owl in Greenwich Village, we find that they've taken the dark arts to another level: The resto is so cramped that four of us are seated at a table that would be a deuce in Toronto. Kneesies are not optional, and the noise level is stressful. Nobody takes your coat. Wanna hang it up? Your sole option is in the entrance foyer hidden by the velvet curtain, where anybody could grab it.
Little Owl makes Allen & Delancey look well lit. This boîte is so dark that we have to steal a candle from the next table to decipher the menu. This table also turns in less than two hours, but we're so uncomfortable in the cramped dark that we're glad to go. And hard-pressed to understand why they're flocking to Little Owl, for the kitchen has an unfortunately heavy hand with both salt and pepper.
Save for very southern Italian cavatelli with rapini and bacon in rich tomato broth, the food lacks both refinement and technique.
Beef, veal and pork "sliders" (a.k.a. baby burgers) are pleasant but undistinguished.
The vaunted pork chop is heinously overcooked, equally overcooked chicken is also over-salted, scallops and halibut are nicely cooked but both too peppery and the $8 Brussels sprouts side is impaired by big, tough bacon chunks - whose persona is about as soft and cuddly as our waiter, whose disregard for our pleasure and comfort is almost palpable.
We're beginning to blame the Big Apple for dark, surly and hurried restaurants. Until dinner at Market Table (also in the West Village, and owned by partners who also own Little Owl), which is a sweet roomy bistro aglow with tall forsythia branches in a riot of yellow bloom, splendid against brick walls. If that were not enough eye candy, Gabriel Byrne, the gorgeous star of In Treatment (the hottest new show on TV, on HBO), is two tables down from us.
Is dinner more delicious because a movie star eats there? No, just prettier. Both crab cake and gnocchi are credible but not special, we can't find the bacon on the so-called bacon-wrapped scallops and the blood orange salad is almost as appetizing as Gabriel Byrne: It (not he) is delectably decorated with batons of fresh heart of palm, pomegranate seeds and shreds of fresh basil.
Market Table's mains are good comfort food, but no more: Pan-roasted chicken boasts ultracrisp but too salty skin and slightly overcooked flesh.
Braised lamb shank is gummy, but creamy gouda scalloped potatoes rescue it from obscurity. Arctic char is perfectly grilled and it sits on nicely creamed leeks, and monkfish is treated with equal respect, but its accompanying risotto is bland, and the $7 sides are inconsistently executed (dry hush puppies, Brussels sprouts not caramelized).
Market Table's desserts are ho-hum - pistachio muffins with a dab of mascarpone? Ordinary cheesecake?
If this is what movie stars like to eat midweek, I'd stay home and cook.
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