Geisha

[cabrales]

The October 2002 edition of Food Arts mentions that E Ripert is consulting for Geisha, a new restaurant that is currently expected to open this fall (!) in NYC.

The project involves "a fun and casual concept" and dishes "using French techniques with Asian ingredients". It sounds like Maguy Le Coze is less or not involved. "This involvement provides us the fun and the freedom to create dishes that we cannot necessarily offer at Le Bernardin. . . . (I've never been to Japan, so I studied all the best Japanese cookbooks I could find and tasted a lot in good Japanese restaurants. Then I started to experiment, to create my own interpretations in my own personal style)", Ripert notes.

Ripert's cookbook, "A Return to Cooking" is coming up as well.

[Bux]

Whatever Ripert undertakes is worthy of note and a restaurant in which he has a hand should merit a visit. The "fun and freedom" sound interesting, but "I've never been to Japan, so I studied all the best Japanese cookbooks I could find and tasted a lot in good Japanese restaurants. Then I started to experiment, to create my own interpretations in my own personal style," is not what I'd want to know. The name of the restaurant is also less than a positive choice in my mind. It appears as if he's a hired hand. I wonder why he wasn't sent to Japan for an extended stage, or why the owner would saddle his consultant with an unfamiliar theme.

[bunny]

has anyone heard anything new about this place.

[NY News Team]

Geisha, the long awaited Asian fusion restaurant from Eric Ripert, is finally open. The bi-level restaurant has a cozy informal lounge that reminisced of a 1960's Hong Kong bar where patrons can order cocktail food to go with their Sakeritas and Jasmine Martinis, and a more formal dining room with a sushi bar in the back. While I didn't have a chance to try the food at Geisha, a quick glance at the menu revealed fares like Slivers of Hamachi with Ruby Red Grapefruit, Grilled Beef Tataki Salad, Roasted Lobster with Udon Noodles, and Pork Tenderloin with Gingered Cabbage, Umeshu and Port Sauce. The wonderful kazuo Yoshida of Jewel Bako and Brasserie 360 fame serves up an inventive array of sashimi and nigiri at the sushi bar, and will put together sushi and sashimi platters for $50, $75 and $100 per platter. Although, it may take a brave soul with an incredible sense of humour to order something like the Last Samurai Roll. --Y. Yang

Geisha

33 East 61 Street

New York, NY

Tel: (212)813-1103

[anil]

The bi-level restaurant has a cozy informal lounge that reminisced of a 1960's Hong Kong bar where patrons can order cocktail food to go with their Sakeritas and Jasmine Martinis, and a more formal dining room

Never saw a 60's HKG Bar [too young to drink then]; but you could order apps in most bars in Queens Rd or infamous Lockhart whenever I was in HKG

[SobaAddict70]

The patchwork of hamachi and bluefin tuna was not only stunning and pristinely fresh, it was also delicious. As for the cod with warm pepper and snow pea salad with soy ginger butter, it had all the earmarks of the best of Le Bernardin....Udon noodles with mushrooms and asparagus were the best part of the roasted lobster dish, which, at $29, makes them sort of expensive for noodles.

Eric Ripert, who has added many Asian touches to his Bernardin menu, is consulting chef, and Michael Vernon, formerly his sous-chef at Le Bernardin, is in charge of the kitchen.

Geisha (Marian Burros) (from this weekend's DIGEST. You may have to scroll down for the appropriate link.)

OUCH! And yet, at the same time, I sort of see her point.

For a Diner's Journal special, I thought it was particularly telling that the food mentions were minimalist at best.

[juuceman]

kazuo's sushi is, in my opinion, well worth whatever you have to go through to get it.. kind of like jumping through the hoops to get a reservation at jewel bako back when he was there..

go on a tuesday or wednesday if you're willing to kick out the money..

[Pan]

Has Jewel Bako deteriorated since he left?

[bpearis]

Has Jewel Bako deteriorated since he left?

I went to Jewel Bako three weeks ago and I can say unequivocally it has not gone downhill one bit. (Had toro from the cheek that was so marbled it looked like proscuitto!)That said, Yoshida-san is missed there as his personality brought a lot to the dining experience.

[ewindels]

Dined @ Geisha Wednesday, 11 February. Great people watching -- lots and lots of people working very hard to look fabulous (far be it from me to judge whether or not they succeeded). The passion fruit martinis are a great way to start off. The food is pretty terrific -- flavors taken to an extremely subtle level, almost delicate, requiring slow and concentrated savoring to really appreciate them. The broths for both the mussels and the black tiger prawn dumplings were exquisite (the prawns a little more so). Salmon actually tasted like something for a change, and the lamb had a luscious sweet miso glaze. It's worth splurging on a really good bottle that won't overwhelm the food (there's not much on the list under $50). The dining room is on the cramped side, tables are hard on top of each other, next to no leg room (then again, I'm 6'2" so take that into account). Service friendly and efficient. A definite must-visit for fellow restaurant whores.

[bourdain]

Admin: the below merged in from a thread entitled "HESSER SWINGS THE AXE AGAIN"

Full disclosure: I'm good friends with Eric Ripert, the consulting chef at Geisha. I like and admire Geisha chef Michael Vernon. I consider sushi chef Kazuo Yoshida to be one of the city's best. So that's where I'm coming from...

I'm confused and dismayed by a couple of things about the dyspeptic Ms. Hesser's latest swipe.

First, this:

"The changes have injected great energy and humor into a restaurant space that was once fairly staid." Okay...great. The place was boring before. Now it's hopping. But apparently, it's hopping with the "wrong" people:

"..there is one thing the owners have not managed to change: the crowd. Geisha draws the same ambitiously dressed, heavily jeweled young men and women who packed the place when it was Gertrudes..."

Uh oh. Can't have that. All the good words about the food to follow seem insignificant after that damning judgement. Am I wrong? Or is this just snobbery? Sure. The place is packed--with people I probably wouldn't want to hang out with either. And yes. The service sucks. She's right. But the food! The food! Remember that stuff?

The sushi at Geisha--eaten alone in the quiet time during lunch--or in the middle of an overdressed horde of air-kissers deserves much much better than "prepared competently". That's simply wrong.Yoshida is a hotshot of high reputation serving excellent sushi from top flight products. This was a sloppy,gratuitous slap.

I generally agree with Hesser's assessment of the hot side. That the cooks are "very good" (particularly considering the crowds), that one can and usually will eat very well at Geisha. She seemed to like it. So how come one insulting star? In a city filled with gratuitous two stars?

This is a solidly two star restaurant.

As far as the "heavily jeweled" Sex In The City crowd? Aren't they exactly the target audience for the gruesome Mr. Latte chronicles? It's okay to write books for them I guess--as long as they don't linger nearby when you're eating.

I invite other eGulletteers to try Geisha. Once--as suggested by Hesser--during the early hours--and once during full mosh-pit mode. And be sure to try the sushi.

Then let me know if you agree or disagree. I think they deserved better than this.

[Mayhaw Man]

Alleged Axe Grinding Here

I don't know what happened to her in this place, but apparently the lounge is a bit "lusty".

[newyorkomnivore]

I had an awful time at Geisha. I hated the "scene" downstairs, where we had to wait 1/2 hour for our table to be ready. Service was lousy, both downstairs and upstairs. Our table was far from an "oasis" - the room was loud, unpleasant, open garbage cans nearby, confused server and busboys, food arriving at funny intervals, so much at one time we actually had to tell them to take it back to the kitchen because there was no room on the table for it...

The cooked dishes were fine, nothing great, and the sushi was very good indeed. Wine list is fair at best.

But there are other places where I would much prefer to go for excellent sushi which are much more pleasant.

I was itching to get out of there the whole time I was in there.

[aaustin]

What I find most interesting is that this is the second review of Geisha in what? 6 months? When the NY Times does just one major review each week, I find it very hard to justify going to Geisha to re-review within a year, let alone a half-year. I would guess that Ripert's good reputation is the reason for such benefit of the doubt re-reviewing.

[tanabutler]

Alleged Axe Grinding Here

I don't know what happened to her in this place, but apparently the lounge is a bit "lusty".

She actually uses the word "lusty" twice, which I think is very weak writing.

I didn't know what "in full cry" meant (her headline), so Googled. It's a term associated with a fox hunt, and a picture says a thousand words: "In Full Cry"

[Lesley C]

I read that review on the net and didn't see the star rating until the end. I practically fell off my chair when I saw one star. That review just didn't merit a one-star rating. She seemed to love the food. I just don't get it.

[bpearis]

I must admit, the scene sounds annoying. But you're right about the sushi, or at least Yoshida-san. He was the only reason to go to Brasserie 360. I miss him at Jewel Bako even though I think Masato Shimizu is just as amazing with the knife. But Yoshida has a great sense of humor that made eating before him really fun. And his signiture sushi -- chopped jack mackerel with miso and ginger -- is a classic. He's the bomb.

[Jinmyo]

Sayeth Mandy Hesser,

By 7:30 p.m., a clamorous din swallows the downstairs, and by 8:30, a mugginess from the lusty air in the bar drifts into the dining rooms. Waiters weave dangerously among clusters of bar patrons. Music thumps, and on your way through the bar to your table, you hear things you haven't heard since college, like, "Did you see that babe?"

[slkinsey]

What I find most interesting is that this is the second review of Geisha in what? 6 months? When the NY Times does just one major review each week, I find it very hard to justify going to Geisha to re-review within a year, let alone a half-year.

I think you're slightly mistaken about the Times coverage. The first mention was by Marian Burros in a "Diners Journal" on February 6th. It was just a 400 word entry describing the recently-opened restaurant, not a full review.

[aaustin]

You're right--I just re-read the original Diner's Journal. It's always surprising to see how the Times decides to use that column from week to week, sometimes as a semi-review or "review light" if you will, of a place they'll not revisit (as I believe Sifton's been doing since Grimes left), other times as as a sort of "first look" at a place they will be revisiting.

[marcus]

This is a solidly two star restaurant.

The NYT star ratings have always been impenetrable, because they include not just food, but service, decor, I assume ambience, with price taken into consideration. The Times has never provided any guidance as to how these factors are combined to produce a rating, and I suspect that none exists and it is just gut feel.

Given that, if the service is truly dreadful, and the environment is really unpleasant during normal dining hours, and there seems to be a consensus on this, not just Hesser but all over the various food boards, then one can make a legitimate case for a one star rating, regardless of the food. Especially, since no one is actually claiming that this is 4 star food, probably not even 3 star.

[alacarte]

I had dinner at Geisha last night. Boy, I wish I had read this thread first. I booked a table on whim -- we wanted sushi but was looking for someplace we hadn't been before.

I concur with most of what has already been said on this thread: the sushi is very good, but in order to get to it, you need to weave through a cocktail lounge that makes you want to bolt for the exit.

Every table was filled, but apparently that's because the Regency Hotel down the block sends all their patrons there. When we sat down, I had the oddest feeling that we were the only natives in the joint. On a Friday evening, most New Yorkers dining out in Midtown have come straight from the office, and are dressed accordingly. Instead, the women at each table were dressed extra-fancy, like they were going a wedding (velvet shawls, sparkly jewelry, and in the case of the table next to us, copious amounts of perfume) while the men wore khakis.

My suspicions were confirmed at the end of the meal when the waitress brought us two flutes of champagne, "from your concierge." Although mr. alacarte replied, "we live here, this must be for another table," the waitress insisted we keep the champagne on the house, a classy move. And it was very nice champagne.

I'll just add that whoever manages the downstairs lounge should be shot. The maitre'd couldn't find one patron's reservation, and refused to acknowledge the five parties piling up behind him until they settled the situation. The hostesses couldn't figure out where any of the tables were to seat anyone. They charge for the coat check, which is their prerogative but still is mildly insulting. There's only one bartender on a Friday night, when the bar is packed three people deep with a "hey-baby" crowd. (UGH.)

Luckily, the upstairs space is indeed quiet and serene, so it's shame that you have to brave the downstairs nuisance to arrive at your table frazzled. The sushi is good quality and artfully served, but you shouldn't arrive at your table thinking "is this worth it?" I ordered the Ume Momo Martini (peach brandy & plum wine -- a surprisingly weak drink) and the yellowtail appetizer, which featured four kinds of yellowtail. The fish is very fresh and served in small, squarish pieces, just as they do in Japan.

I ordered the chirashi (chef's choice), which is served in an unusual configuration. Typically, chirashi is served in a deep bowl: A layer of sushi rice is topped with nori, sliced fish, and sometimes pickled or fresh vegetables, egg, or other extras. At Geisha, the chirashi is deconstructed and served on a shallow platter: a scoop of rice covered with salmon roe, sliced fish served on the side, and a portion of mesculun salad on the plate. Mr. alacarte ordered the $50 chef's omakase, and they were accommodating about his no-shellfish request. The fish was again very fresh, and a wide variety of fish was given on both plates, including perhaps the tenderest white tuna I've ever had.

The final bill came to about $175, includng drinks and tip. We didn't order dessert, but it does appear to be one of the more creative dessert menus I've seen in some time.

My final assessment: The sushi was excellent, though I've had as good or better elsewhere in NY. I'm unlikely to go back because the unpleasant experience downstairs and high price tag (not Masa-high, but still an investment to me) almost outweighs the pleasant experience of a good meal.