Tavern on the Green 2007-end

[Fat Guy]

It has been almost a decade now since the tragic death of chef Patrick Clark at age 42. From 1995 through 1998, Clark -- one of the most respected African-American chefs of the 20th Century -- oversaw the kitchen at Tavern on the Green, the landmark restaurant in Central Park. Clark resigned in October of 1998 to receive a new heart, and soon after died awaiting transplant while being treated for amyloidosis. Clark's short tenure at Tavern was also the last time the restaurant had a modicum of culinary street cred. Ruth Reichl of the New York Times, while bashing the restaurant's yawning service (which to this day leaves much to be desired), praised Clark's food and awarded Tavern a star. After knocking the service around, she wrote in December of 1995:

For all that, the food was impressive. Mr. Clark is serving more than 1,500 meals a day, and he has carefully constructed his menu within the limits of quantity cooking. He builds each plate around a sturdy centerpiece, starting with food that can take a little abuse and using imaginative accompaniments to perk it up. His grilled pork porterhouse, a robust portion, was served with a glorious mush of potatoes, bacon and cabbage. On the side, standing in for applesauce, was a zesty rhubarb-apple chutney.

Grilled swordfish steak was accented with sauteed pea greens and wild mushroom dumplings. He made salmon special by giving it a Moroccan glaze, setting it on a buttery bed of savoy cabbage and a cake of couscous. But he also knows when to leave well enough alone; his rotisserie chicken was sensibly plain, served with haricots verts and potatoes mashed with just a hint of green chilies.

Then, just three years after the death of Patrick Clark, the great restaurateur Warner LeRoy, who had run Tavern since 1976 (and spent three years renovating it prior to that), also passed away. It would be difficult to overstate LeRoy's importance in the modern history of New York dining. Not only was he responsible for making Tavern on the Green the nation's highest-grossing restaurant, he was also the restaurateur behind Maxwell's Plum, described by Eric Asimov in LeRoy's obituary as "an explosion of brass, wood, fresh flowers and Tiffany glass at First Avenue and 64th Street that opened in 1966 and closed in 1988." Asimov wrote:

The smart set -- Bill Blass, Barbra Streisand, Warren Beatty and Julie Christie -- all came to Maxwell's, whose name, too, seemed a typical flight of 1960's fancy. The restaurant was set up like a three-ring circus, with a main dining room raised so that diners could view the singles' action at the substantial and elegant mahogany bar. The bar, in turn, was above a casual cafe.

The menu ranged from hamburgers and chili to snails and stuffed squab. The restaurant also housed his staggering collection of Tiffany glass and Art Deco and Art Nouveau furnishings and objects.

''It is one of the true paradoxes of the city's night life,'' Peter Benchley wrote of Maxwell's in 1970 in an article in The New York Times Magazine on chic spots. ''By being consciously -- almost self-consciously -- democratic, by avoiding all pretense to exclusivity, it has become one of the most smashingly successful places in the city, attracting everyone from movie stars to restaurateurs to -- yes, even the fabled Brooklyn secretary. And contrary to the social imperative, they all seem to coexist in relative bliss.''

If you're ever at Tavern, there's a long hallway leading to the bathrooms near the main entrance. Along that hallway are many photographs of the LeRoy family over time. Stop and take a look. Read the captions. The guy had quite a life.

LeRoy's last great project was the renovation and relaunch of the Russian Tea Room, which he had purchased from Faith Stewart-Gordon in 1995. It opened in 1999 after many false starts, and captured the imagination of many (myself included) for a few moments before LeRoy died.

Jennifer LeRoy, Warner's daughter, sold the Russian Tea Room (Maxwell's Plum had closed long before) in order to focus entirely on Tavern, which she now runs.

In part because I grew up three blocks from Tavern, and in part because in the past decade I've become good friends with Shelley Clark, Tavern's long-time publicist, I've long had an interest in the place. Tavern is misunderstood by almost everybody in the educated foodie community. To be sure, it has many flaws. But Tavern is more than a restaurant. It's one of the most prominent squares of the cultural quilt of New York City -- something many tourists and non-foodies seem to understand better than many locals and foodies.

I passed through Tavern a few times as a young child, but my first clear memories of it were when I was 13 and the bar mitzvah season arrived. At the time, I went to Columbia Grammar and Prep, a private school on the Upper West Side, and Tavern was the place to have a bar mitzvah party -- if you could afford it. Mine was at my parents' house, but I was invited to a few at Tavern, always in the Crystal Room. (Tavern is a labyrinth of rooms and gardens, each with a different theme and name.) The events were always so memorable, and without any frame of reference the Crystal Room seemed the most elegant, sophisticated, adult place on the planet. With a little more age and perspective, I still love the crystal room, though now I recognize the intentionally ironic, over-the-top kitsch factor that Warner LeRoy was famous for.

I have so many memories that involve Tavern, and that's not particularly unusual for someone who grew up in the neighborhood. Even when I moved across town after college, though, Tavern's mass kept me in its orbit. There was the occasional meal there with visiting relatives, but the most significant visits were for the events. For example, my wife, Ellen, has been in several New York City Marathons, and Tavern always hosts various meals surrounding the Marathon (which ends right near Tavern). There are pancake breakfasts, pasta dinners, etc. -- she has been to them all. At Easter, there's a hat competition -- we've been many times but never been serious competitors.

When I was working at Cravath, Swaine & Moore, a law firm in Midtown, we used to include Tavern on the summer lunch circuit. Not because it was so great. But because it has perhaps the most enjoyable outdoor garden dining area in town. And they made a good chicken Caesar salad. It wasn't something we did a lot -- we all preferred modern, adventurous cuisine -- but it was a great Friday activity, a way to stay grounded.

My relationship with Shelley Clark came in handy when I was working on my first book, "Turning the Tables." She arranged for me to spend time in the kitchen at Tavern, and I was just amazed at the size and scope of the operation. (You might like to read Ellen's account of the brunch service we witnessed.) In terms of scale, the only thing like it I'd ever seen was the food-service operation on an aircraft carrier. But I also saw a high level of integrity -- much higher than a lot of people give Tavern credit for. The top-level cooks who run the various departments are hardened veterans with serious skills. And the quality of product is, across the board, quite high.

That's the first thing you need to know about Tavern: the restaurant buys really good ingredients. This has always been and remains the key to a successful meal at Tavern. If you focus on product, you'll generally do well. You can always be sure that your shrimp cocktail will be made with really good shrimp, that your crabcakes will be made with top-quality jumbo lump, that your beef will be from near the top of the market. Tavern buys tons and tons of product. Every vendor wants that account. Tavern demands the best, is willing to pay for it, and is ultimately able to get it at an excellent price on account of sheer volume.

Perhaps the most magical Tavern moment in my life occurred when my book was published, on 16 August 2005. Jennifer LeRoy offered to host the launch party. She would provide the facility, and we'd invite several of the chefs whose restaurants had been featured in the book to come up with small-plate dishes to be served at the party. Alain Ducasse, Gray Kunz and several others accepted the invitation (I told Kunz that Ducasse was doing it, and told Ducasse that Kunz was doing it -- the gambit worked) and sent their people over with some wonderful stuff. Blue Smoke was there, and Starwich, and Le Perigord. The team from Hank's Seafood in Charleston, SC, flew up on the owner's jet and brought clams from the clam farmer I'd profiled in the book. It was some party. I may never have another book-launch party, because anything else I do will surely pale by comparison.

The party was in the Chestnut Room, which looks like, as Shelley put it to me, "a ski chalet on acid," and also spilled into the adjacent garden. At the time, Ellen was almost at full term -- the party was on the 16th and her due date was the 31st. Friends had flown up from down south to attend the party, so afterwards we went out with them to the Bar Room at the Modern. We stumbled into bed at about 1am. At 5:30am, Ellen said to me, "I think my water broke." We walked over to Mount Sinai Hospital (we live just a few blocks away). On the way, we realized it was the 17th of August -- the same date on which, exactly ten years prior, my father, Peter Shaw, had passed away. That afternoon Ellen gave birth to Peter Shaw. He goes by PJ (the J is for Julius).

Last Easter, we brought PJ to Tavern for the hat contest. That's not all they have going on. There's a petting zoo, pony rides and all manner of entertainment for kids. The weather was crisp. We decided to let PJ try his first pony ride. The pony's name was Toby. When we put PJ on Toby, PJ became alarmed. We thought it was going to be a disaster. But as soon as Toby started walking, PJ's eyes lit up and he smiled the hugest smile of his life. To this day, PJ often spontaneously says, "Go see Toby?"

I'll stop with the Tavern reminiscences now. But are you starting to see what I mean about Tavern being more than just a restaurant?

After the loss of Patrick Clark, the ambitiousness of his regime quickly fell away. Tavern regressed, foodwise, into a fancy chophouse. That's not to say it was bad. A couple of years ago, we had dinner there and the steaks were excellent, as were plenty of other things we ate. But there was nothing remarkable about the experience, except for the beautiful garden setting (it was warm enough to eat outside that night) -- and the service, even for a VIP table, was just okay.

That's the second thing you need to know about Tavern: service, not food, is the weak link in the operation. Even on its worst day, you're not likely to get actual bad food at Tavern (and if there is a problem with a dish -- a kitchen this size inevitably makes mistakes -- just send it back). The kitchen operation is always professional. But you're not likely to get great service even if you're the Queen of England. The union waitstaff as a whole is just not interested in doing more than the bare minimum. Even if you get one of the better waiters, he'll be backed up by a mediocre team. And while I've always done relatively well service-wise, several of the stories I've heard from friends have been pretty disappointing.

There's also one nexus between the service and the food, which is that the size of the place means slow service leads to cold food -- your plate goes from the pass in the kitchen down any number of long hallways and eventually makes it to your table. Even with the benefit of heat-retaining domes over the plates, there's a lot of thermal degradation unless service is quick. Probably the best thing you can do to improve your chances of getting decent service is to avoid Tavern in November and December, as well as on all holidays, as well as weekend nights. Much better to go in January or August on a Tuesday when there won't likely be a lot of events going on and you'll have the run of the place.

Last year, Tavern hired a new chef: Brian Young. He's a Chinese-Canadian from Vancouver who has serious credentials. He did his externship at Alain Chapel. He worked at the Quilted Giraffe and on other projects with Barry Wine (one of the few restaurateurs in New York who operated on Warner LeRoy's level). He was at Le Bernardin and rose to the rank of chef de cuisine. Most recently, he was the chef and a partner at Mainland, the ambitious Chinese-restaurant project on the Upper East Side that got good media attention but collapsed due to partnership conflicts and was repurposed as an Ollie's (the space is now Accademia di Vino).

Shelley took us to dinner at Tavern last night so we could see what Brian Young was up to. The restaurant was hopping. There was a Montel Williams-hosted charity event occupying several of the rooms, and the public dining areas were tightly packed. We dined, appropriately, in the Chestnut Room. The service was mediocre as usual: our waiter was very nice but getting things like water was a challenge. The food, however, was quite good.

Brian Young has elevated Tavern back to a level of ambition that parallels what Patrick Clark was trying to do, albeit in a different style. You're not going to find cutting-edge cookery at Tavern. The guests won't accept it and the kitchen is too big to pull it off. But Young has modernized and spiffed up the menu to a significant degree. The plates look good and most of the dishes are successful.

We started with a few cocktails. The third thing you should know about Tavern is that they make really stiff drinks.

The fourth thing you should know is that the wine list is a gem. You can look at it here. You'll find that many of the bottles are priced lower than the New York norm, and that the selection, while not the best in town, is well chosen. We had a Chassagne-Montrachet from Louis Latour that was terrific, and served at proper temperature in good stemware.

Things like shrimp cocktail and prime rib are still on the menu, and I'm sure they're good, however I wanted to focus on dishes that had Brian Young's stamp on them. We compared the current menu to one from a couple of years ago and ordered new dishes. My appetizer was beef tenderloin carpaccio with unfiltered extra-virgin olive oil, shaved Parmigiano Reggiano, slivered red onion and arugula. I can't imagine anybody not thinking this was a pretty damn good dish. All the ingredients were excellent, so how could the dish not be? The portion was a little small (the appetizers at Tavern tend to be small, the entrees huge) and there was more arugula in the ratio than I'd have done, but it was good.

Seared tuna with soy truffle jus, lotus crisps and black seaweed salad was also a successful appetizer -- perhaps the generic truffle flavor was unnecessary, but I admire the fact that the tuna was robustly spiced on its exterior. Again, good product. Ditto for lobster salad with endive, avocado and celeriac. We also tried one of the traditional appetizers: the crab cakes with coleslaw and tartar sauce. These are very good crabcakes -- not as good as what you'd get at the Baltimore specialists, but much better than what most New York places are doing.

For my entree I had a massive lamb shank braised in Cotes-du-Rhone, which on its own was a great piece of meat. It was overcrowded with other stuff on the plate, though: Yukon gold mashed potatoes, broccolini, tomato gratin, apricot . . . it was a bit much. Better was the pasta. Tavern makes pasta in-house, and we tried one of the three pasta dishes: goat-cheese ravioli with whipped goat-cheese fondue, sopressata-onion broth, and peas. Excellent. Properly al dente pasta, a very strong goat cheese filling, and good balance throughout the dish. I was surprised how good this dish was. Also very good: blue-cheese-crusted filet mignon -- a really good piece of filet -- with crispy onions, potato gratin, asparagus and a pinot-noir sauce.

There was a special of short ribs with sticky rice, and it could have been great but the quality control was not up to snuff -- the ribs were overly fatty and cartilaginous and were not particularly moist or tender. The dish was accompanied by a delicious leaf-bound package of sticky rice.

Desserts were mostly workmanlike. The one standout was a pumpkin cheesecake -- the texture was velvety and not at all leaden. Great flavor.

I'm certainly not here to tell you to make it a priority to run out and have dinner at Tavern. It's an expensive restaurant and for the money you can get better food at any number of smaller-scale restaurants. Then again, it would be a shame for anyone to go through life without having dined there once. So if somebody you know wants to go there for dinner -- inevitably, someone will -- then just go. There's no need to go into foodie hysterics. You can eat quite well at Tavern. Brian Young is doing an impressive job given the scale of the operation. Get into the mindset; live Warner LeRoy's fantasy. For better or for worse -- and yes, the Oz reference is intentional -- there's no place like Tavern on the Green.

[Kim Shook]

Steven, thanks so much for posting this! What a thoughtful, affectionate, but also honest essay! I would never have thought to try Tavern on the Green. I just figured any place so famous couldn't be good (dumb me, huh?). I don't get to NYC very often, but when I do one of the things that I want is at least one 'event'. I don't know why it never occurred to me that this could be my 'event'. I am printing out your post and putting it in my NYC file. Thanks again!

Kim

[ulterior epicure]

I hear that Tavern on the Green will be opening a San Francisco bureau. Will that be "Tavern on the Bay?"

[Fat Guy]

The city recently chose not to renew Tavern't lease, and shortly thereafter Tavern filed for bankruptcy. The New York Times reports:

In a statement, the current license holder, Jennifer Oz LeRoy, chief executive of Tavern, said that the filing was “our only alternative given the current situation,” adding that the decision was the result of “two factors – the extreme financial distress brought on by the current financial crisis and the City of New York’s decision not to renew our license.”