Todd36

With respect to the wine list, it's big. Loaded with things like 20 or so kinds of Romane-Conti and the like, going up to something like $15,000 a bottle. It's the wine list of a very, very expensive restaurant. It has some cheaper things too...but it also has $100 Alsation Rislings. If you want something very expensive, they may have it. They even have Belijious for $4-50 a bottle (I'm not enough of a wine expert to know how big the mark-up was, smaller producers). Bruni really did tell you all you need to know; it's a place for people who have a big budget for wine and I'd bet even if you really knew what you were doing, there are no bargins.

Natto has a presence too, it is fermented soybeans after all. The rouget that Gilt served wasn't foul, it just seemed to be past it's prime. Now maybe someone is going to say roget is supposed to taste like that...I have my doubts though. I eat fish at about half my meals, including lots of sushi and unusual fish, and I would say this was past its prime. My Japanese born and raised dining friend, who eats mostly fish, independently thought the rouget was past its prime. Yes, I've had off things at some very fine places, and the fish alone was not enough to be a big problem. But combined with poor plating, that from concentrate OJ and a lame execuse from the on-duty manager and a general sense that things were not being run right, indicates to me something wrong with the way Gilt is being run. Note that Gilt has availablity this coming Friday and Saturday. In a 50 seat dining room. Now maybe the NYT still has that kind of power, maybe people read this thread. Or maybe the word of mouth isn't that great.

You could call this the Bruni effect, "I don't like Bruni, therefore, that review must be wrong" effect. If you're going to put faith in the NY Mag review, note that at three stars they put Balthazar, Bouley and Ouest. If you think Bouley belongs with those two.... "If his menu were larger and more varied, we’d be tempted to give him a fourth star" is my favorite quote from the NY Mag Gilt review. I guess that means they like diners. One last point. As we were waiting for out table, we were at the bar. I couldn't help but notice the small, plastic bottles of juices, like Tropacana OJ from concentrate open behind the bar. In the land of the $22 cocktail. I asked about these and was told "well, we usually use fresh squeezed, but when we run out...." If you had a cocktail that Friday, that OJ from concentrate was what you paid $22 for....... For a number of reasons, I would not view Gilt as a safe choice for a special occassion.

There are certainly degrees of "getting your act together." I think most who have opened a restaurant would agree that 7 weeks is very quick to be judged in a way that will greatly affect the ability of the restaurant to survive. Especially if the intended standard is to be high... no matter who you are. The idea that once your doors are open you're fair game is in practice, not all that practical. ← What gives me pause here is the saucing.... I don't recall ever having four courses sauced at a table, being done badly by several different servers and one of them commenting that the kitchen does a much better job saucing than they do. In seven weeks, you can either figure out to train people to sauce or figure out that you shouldn't be doing it so much at the table. You get a general feeling that things are not run as they should be.

At 9 PM on a Friday, about 1/3 of the tables were empty and stayed that way. You can't stay open for long if that keeps happening. I don't know if that is a result of the NYT or not. I just did a seach on Open Table, and Gilt has more opneings for next Saturday night than either Daniel or Danube....not a good sign. Trotting out my 1968 NYT Restaurant Guide, Craig Claiborne gave four stars to Peter Luger and three stars to P.J. Clarke's. In fact, he gave three stars to several bars. Not to mention two stars to Benihana of Tokyo...... In fact, if you think Bruni's reviews are wacky with stars, I suspect you would think Claiborne's were from another planet. People have been complaing for years that the NYT isn't what it used to be, in all areas. I think this is a variation of "nothing is as good as used to be". Given that I have Claiborne's 1968 book, anyone is going to have a very hard time convincing me of the decline in qualtity of NYT food reviews.

Rouget--red mullet? photo link Canadian Food Inspection Agency list of acceptable English, French, Spanish and scientific names ← That might have been it---skin was included and looked like that photo, like red snapper skin. I've seen it on restaurant menus before, I don't think it's that exotic.

The assistant manager on duty said that he felt that Bruni had been unfair by reviewing them so quickly after opening, 7 weeks to the day by his count from opening to the day the review came out. He also thought that Bruni might have been there as few as three time. He also claimed that no one in the industry has a good idea what Bruni looks like....More time might very well help. A staff member who said they had worked for a year at Per Se said that at Per Se, the meal flowed and was well planned, something they felt was not true at Gilt. They also felt that becuase of the fire at Per Se, by the time Bruni reviewed it, they had had got their act together and had improved considerably. That may all be true. But 7 weeks in should be long enough to have their act together.

No, I think the value I got for the money was OK. I mean I paid $135 PP for a large tasting menu, and except for that fishy fish, it was all at least good. I had dinner tonight at Blue Hill, and the food was significantly better, the vegetables in particular, I suppose the ingredents at Blue Hill were not as fancy, no truffle for example. Blue Hill always has very good vegetables, but too much salt tonight. I looked carefully at the Gilt wine list. It's hard for me to judge the mark-up, lots of unusual stuff, but overall, there were a fair number of things under $60 a bottle. They had stuff from around the world, like reds from Argentina for $40 a bottle. Fleur de Sel has a more expensive wine list, little under $60, and Per Se is way more expensive. We did a $75 PP wine pairing, and it wasn't bad. Wines by the glass started at around $14, and on the menu that point out clearly that is a 6 oz glass. They have some crazy expensive stuff by the glass. Gilt also has very expensive cocktails, as in $22. If Gilt gets its act together, it could be very good. I have the impression that it is not a tightly run ship, in the kitchen and in the front. Try confirming your reservation. I think Bruni detected the same thing. Two stars may have been harsh, but I see where he was coming from. Actually, Fleur de Sel seemed to me to be a bit like Gilt, I had dinner there about a month ago. The food was not memorable and I was wondering where it got its reputation from.

Given the timing, a fair inference is that the lunch trade was already dire, but they didn't want to rock the boat till after the review appeared. Had Gilt received four stars, perhaps they would have kept the lunch service going, but this isn't assured. At lunchtime, the market for that kind of luxury dining is much more limited. Even Per Se serves lunch only on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. Alain Ducasse stopped its lunch service several years ago. I'm sure there are other examples—Craft comes to mind. ← Per Se and ADNY are not located in business areas. Gilt is at 50th and Madison, that puts you within a few blocks of among other things the headquarters of Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase, a slew of things at Rockefeller center, the US headquarters of Sony, many of NY's more profitable law firms, primary NY office of IBM etc etc etc, not to mention that Gilt is located in a large and very expensive hotel and is behind Saks and close to Bergdorf. It's also only a 50 seat dining room. If any area could support an expensive restaurant, its where Gilt is. Per Se probably has issues with lunch because of timing, it takes a long time to eat there. Cafe Grey seems to have a significant weekday lunch business in the same building. As someone who works at a bank, I know it is key for lunch business to be able to turn out lunch in at most 90 minutes, and 60 is better. Note that a number of restaurants downtown do OK in the weekday lunch business, Bouley, Chanterelle, Nobu next door..... I work near Craft...no other area that I am aware of has as many high end restaurants that serve lunch...everything from Eleven Madison to Gramercy Tavern to Fleur de Sel.

Todd, to my mind, that's very damning. I consider it inexcusable for fish to be the least bit fishy at that price point. ← Spoke with my dining friend, and she agreed the rougot was fishy. She's Japanese and tends to notice these things. A few more quick comments. The amuses were extensive, but I'll be damned if I know what I was eating. None were super memorable. First real course was dover sole. It's a cold, and very small dish. It tastes fine, but doesn't let the fact that it's Dover sole show through. Could have been any mild, well cooked white fish. Second course, also, cold, and fairly small, was a combo of Dungess crab and foe gra (OK, I can't spell when I am in a rush). It's fine, but doesn't have real impact to me. This has black trufflee, but not as strong as I would expect. In fact, seasoning across the meal is mild. Not a standard dish, the server said it had suddenly been made differently. In fact, for almost every course our servers had to peer at our food to indentify what it was.... This course had something interesting, ground seaweed had been mixed with suger and I think baked, into a disk. Interesting, but not sure what it added here. Kitche has both a sweet and chocolate tooth. At this point, I'm wondering why so much cold food. Also, no salad or soup any where in the meal, unless you count odd foams. Also, they like spooning sauces on things at the table, which is a problem becuase as the server admits, they don't do a good job at it. Third course is the fishy rogout, served warm in larger piece. Might have been good, if it wasn't fishy. At this point, I think we got the olive oil and wasabi sorbet (might have been after the next course). Strong wasabi at one end of my sorbet, none on my friend's. The kitchen seems to have consistency problems. Our meals have slight plating variations. I like the sorbet quite a bit. Now comes the quail, steamed with tea and pine needles. It was good, but not as flavorful as I hoped, given the oders. My friend liked this dish a lot. This is not on the menu, it just appeared, to the surprise of the server. Now the vension. It was fine, but not super memorable. Across the meal, a lack of interesting vegetables. Now, clementine sorbet. Then chocolate desserts, with too much use of chilli pepper. Why the dessert and almost nothing else needs so much spice I don't understand. Overall, it's good. A low three star rating would be fair I guess. The fact that my friend agrees the rougot was fishy makes me harsher than last night. Per Se, which was not my favorite place given its hype and pricing, was significantly better.

Too much food!!! Well, I kept my reservation. I have mixed views. Clearly, the kitchen can cook, and, clearly, something is missing. It's good, and they probably deserved three stars. They did not deserve four. I think I know where Bruni was coming from. Things are not clicking. Most of the combinations don't taste like they should. Almost nothing was super memorable. No transdecent fish. We had the tasting menus, with what seemed like random modifications from the chef. Even the servers were like, ummm, we've haven't seen it done this way before. We also got one dish that I think wasn't on the menu, it seemed to surprise the staff: quail steamed in cryovac with tea and pine needles. Smelled wonderful when opened at the table, not as much flavor as one would have expected. Also, a little hard to eat on the bone. Plating skills are not up to four star standards. Bread was very good, brioche and chestnut in particular. Dover sole seemed to be missing something and another fish course, rougot I think, was slightly fishy in my opinion. We also had the crab app, vension and the aforementioned quail. Not to mention 4 cheeses in the cheese course. It's all good but...kitchen needs more time. Bruni was unfair with two stars but.....he was not crazy, this is a kitchen that isn't there yet. The manager on duty said to give them a few more months. It's not a big dining room, only 50 seats, and we might have shown more food interest than others, clearly, the kitchen wasn't treating us the same, we saw what other people were getting.

When you dare someone......if you want to spend enough money, sure, I can find a place that probably does give more....go to Bouley and ask for the off-the menu $500 per person food and wine pairing. It's very good. Not sure its worth the $500 though and I don't know if its generally offered or not....a friend took me there who is wel known by Bouley. You will not leave hungry. And while ADNY is more expensive than Gilt, again, it delivers a lot of food, if that is your criteria. I'll have a better idea after dinner tomorrow night at Gilt. Heck, in pretty close to the same price range as Gilt Jean Georges delivers quite a lot of volume. My take on Bruni's review is that the kitchen in Gilt can cook and that much of the basic food is very fine, but that they do combinations that just plan don't make sense or work very well together. In Bruni's mind, it may not matter how good the tuna tartar and creme brulee are, if they are on the same plate. Again, I'll let you know. But I also have to wonder how much of the thinking of the people writing on this thread is of the "everyone knows he can cook, therefore Gilt must be good" variety. He can cook and Gilt can still not be so good. BTW, high overhead has zip to do with the stars a restaurant has. High overhead often has nothing to do with the food that sits on your plate. The high end rent at Time Warner compared to a ancient lease for the original Nobu.... do you want to make an allowance for Cafe Gray's rent as compared to Nobu when you do a review???????? I am quite sure there is little correlation between a Manhattan restautant's rent and how many stars it deserves. Want to compare the rent I suspect Bouley pays to what Gilt pays? Gilt chose to open in an expensive space....most of us are not willing to pay a premium over say Bouley just becuase of the high rent Gilt has to pay.

Within the last year or so, I've had dinner at among other places Per Se and ADNY. I don't agree with many of Bruni's reviews. But two stars for something in this price range gives me pause. I've decided to keep my Friday reservation at Gilt. It's going to be an experiment. But the NYT can be right. Someone else on this thread mentioned Asiante as the last place that got really slammed by the NYT. I had dinner there shortly before the NYT review, and Asiante deserved the review it got, it wasn't very good. I also like Cafe Gray, but its expensive. I can spend almost as much on lunch at Cafe Gray as I can on dinner at Bouley, I think pricing has something to do with Cafe Gray's NYT review. Gilt is charging 4 star prices, it should be good to justify that.

And the price range. It's square in three to four star price range, priced right at Daniel and Bouley. Still thinking if I want to go this Friday..........

Can this be right? I can't find the stars either........I have a reservation for Friday....might get canceled if this is true....... I may disagree with Bruni's reviews but zero stars would give me pause....

That's because the US began it's ban of Japanese beef in 2001. Before then, and before the celeb-spouting "Kobe"-beef stupidity, real Kobe and Matsuzaka could be had in NYC. I think Seryna had steaks of them, i dunno that was a while ago. So, it's not cost so much as the law. Law notwithstanding, if they can flash-freeze fly over fish why not beef? Mind you, that beef is pretty damn expensive in Japan too! ← I had dinner at Sugiyama last night. It's American Beef, produced in the US by a Japanese company (Nippon Ham). You might have misunderstood Mr. Sugiyama. Sugiyama was as good as ever.

Given the existence of of the movie, "Scent of Green Papya", which in part revolves around green papaya salad and the results of a quick Google search, I'm pretty sure green papaya salad is a popular dish in Viet Nam. Its also I think on the menu of Pho Grand and I have found that in general, South East Asian restaurants have it even when its not on the menu. I think its a regional dish. I happen to have had the Bo Luc Lac last week at Pho Grand, and thought the beef quality was reasonably high.

Steven, how would you compare this place to Pho Grand? My prior experiences with Saigon Grill, which was some time ago, were not impressive.

Trader's Joes is fine for what it is, a smallish limited service store that mainly sells packaged and frozen goods. The fresh produce, meat and prepared foods sections are weak. Most of what they sell is private label, and is different from what is generally sold elsewhere. Qualitity varies. For example, Trader Joe's nuts are cheap, the ones at Fairway are better nuts. Overall, it's a useful addition to Manhattan. I think Trader Joe's competes more with a conventional supermarket than anything else. For example, they have significant space devoted to canned goods like soups and frozen prepared foods like asian rice bowls. Chances are, you'll find something at Trader Joe's that you like; they sell lots of interesting stuff you will not find in other places. But they are no threat to upmarket stores or even Fairway. Trader Joe's is owned by the same German family that owns Aldi, the cut-rate low end supermarket which is also famous for selling private label goods. Gotta wonder if they source from the same suppliers....

Having been on the other side of the table, one of the less than amusing issues that can be experienced is the date (in my case, a women) that has no idea what to order and who has less than well developed knowledge about food. Like they can only order chicken teriyaki in a Japanese restaurant or pasta with red sauce in an Italian restaurant and they no idea who to do if you bring them to anything even slightly upscale New American or French. It gets very painful.

Perhaps Central Park ginkgos are the highest quality they can find? Shall we expect to see "Central Park ginkgo nuts" appearing in quotation marks on our menus from now on? ← I did think it was pretty amusing. He was in full uniform no less, and I wondered about paying $500 at dinner for......

Even three or four years ago, they were serving American beef. It's a cost thing. Mr. Sugiyama will admit that he doesn't usually buy the most expensive of any ingredent. He thinks that at a certain point, more expensive ingredents doesn't mean a better ingredent, or at least any better than 99.999999% of people can tell. Sugiyama operates at a lower price point than Masa, which does tend to buy the most expensive ingredents available. Although I did a chef from Masa gathering ginko nuts in Central Park....

I think the mention was kind actually, overall, it was positive press in my opinion. "The old gray lady" used to mean the Times of London....

Had dinner there (the tasting menu) about a month ago. It was good, but not highly memorable. I did not like the room. It also has a very, very high end wine list. Lots of burgendys. If you want to spend money, and know what you are doing, might be interesting. But it's an expensive wine list, with very few modest bottles. Overall, not a place I'm likely to visit again.

I've never had from Japan beef served at Sugiyama, I'll have to check on that. It's always been US beef. I eat there several times a year, it doen's seem to change, good as ever. Disclaimer. I know the Sugiyama family.