V Steakhouse

[oakapple]

Though he never gets specific about the restaurant where he tries for his res, it's clear to me that it's V.

I think Wolfgang's and BLT are more likely candidates than V.

[tommy]

my vote is BLT, since, you know, that's kinda like "ABC".

and it's private-clubby. wolfgangs not so much. V i'm not sure about but guessing not as much as BLT

Edited July 28, 2004 by tommy (log)

[picaman]

my vote is BLT, since, you know, that's kinda like "ABC".

Odds are it's some letter or combination thereof. Forgot about BLT though--you might be right there.

I emailed him...we'll see if he answers.

Jamie

Edited July 28, 2004 by picaman (log)

[Sethro]

But the berry soup ($8), a masterpiece, was pure Vongerichten: a bowl of perfect strawberries, pitted cherries, blackberries, and razzberries with a dollop of creme fraiche on top, to which is added, with a servile flourish, a bracing elixir of lemon juice, lemongrass, basil, mint, and a little Tahitian vanilla bean.

Who is the Pastry Chef? I heard it wasn't going to be Pichet Ong before V opened, but that dessert sounds distinctively his.

Edited July 28, 2004 by Sethro (log)

[picaman]

Or maybe BLT?

It's confirmed: BLT.

Jamie

[Artichoke]

"Superchefs like Jean-Georges Vongerichten generally expand their far-flung superchef empires for two reasons. One is love, and the other, more common, is money...V Steakhouse doesn’t feel like a labor of love. It feels like a money job, which is disappointing, considering the chef’s considerable talents...

Steak, Not Well Done

[oakapple]

I had a business dinner at V Steakhouse last night. The décor has been much written about. You love it or you hate it. I found it charming, and so did my companions, who are from Boston. It reminded me of the interior of the Metropolitan Opera House, with its plush velvet reds and shimmering chandeliers.

They pamper you at V. Jean-Georges may not know how to do three-star steak, but he certainly knows how to deliver three-star service. It is a large dining room, but the tables are generously spaced. By the end of our evening, it was about 90% full, but not at all noisy. Most of the tables had parties of four or more. There are hardly any two-seaters at V.

One of my companions had a foie gras appetizer, which he loved, while two of us shared steak tartare, which was wonderful. However, a steakhouse must be judged mainly on the quality of its steaks, and V fails to deliver the goods. My porterhouse was unevenly charred, had an unacceptably high fat and gristle content, and offered a flimsy and under-sized filet on the smaller side of the cut. It was done correctly to the medium-rare temperature I had ordered, but it was otherwise a porterhouse no restaurant of this purported calibre should serve. The other porterhouse at our table was a bit better, but we quickly agreed: this was not a $66 steak. At half that price, I would have considered myself over-charged.

I went to the men's room, and a couple of guys asked me about my steak. I shared my experience. "Mine sucked," one fellow said. "So did mine," said another. To be fair, I should report that my other table companion ordered the Waygu, which he said was the best steak he'd ever had in his life. Undoubtedly V has the equipment to put out great steak on occasion, but they must be accepting whatever wildly inconsistent inventory appears on their loading dock every morning.

V has an ample selection of side dishes. I ordered the "fripps," which are like large potato chips prepared in a tempura batter. These are superb, but it's a problem when they utterly out-class the steak. A selection of complimentary sauces came with our meal. These added a little spice to an otherwise humdrum steak, but in my view the best steaks shouldn't need them.

For dessert, I ordered the berry cheesecake. Like so many of the V desserts, the kitchen hasn't assembled the pieces. You have a small slice of cheesecake, and a berry goo in an accompanying glass, which you're encouraged to sip through a straw. How this is supposed to be superior to a traditional cheesecake utterly eludes me. Try the assorted cheese platter instead.

The NY Times doesn't give separate ratings for service, décor, and food. But if it did, I'd say that three stars is appropriate for the first two categories, but that one star is awfully generous for the third. The kitchen desperately needs a wake-up call.

[docsconz]

I'd rather go to a restaurant with poor service and lousy decor, but great food than a restaurant with great service, beautiful decor and lousy food. My order of importance: Food, Service, Decor. Of course it is nice to have all three.

Thanks for the report.

[rich]

I'd rather go to a restaurant with poor service and lousy decor, but great food than a restaurant with great service, beautiful decor and lousy food. My order of importance: Food, Service, Decor. Of course it is nice to have all three.

Thanks for the report.

Agreed, but I take it a step further. Bring me the good food, I'll serve myself if needed and I'll bring my own cloth napkin.

[Dryden]

I'd rather go to a restaurant with poor service and lousy decor, but great food than a restaurant with great service, beautiful decor and lousy food. My order of importance: Food, Service, Decor. Of course it is nice to have all three.

Thanks for the report.

For instance, Peter Luger's.

[Phatlouie07]

from reading the newyork magazine article..V steakhouse is JG's first one star restaurant in eighteen years...whoa. exactly how long does he spend in each of his restaurant, like he's actually there...before handing authority etc. to his other people?...i don't really think that he's putting enough time and effort to move V steakhouse to at least maybe two stars from the ny times. i read one time that JG said that he opens new restaurants etc. because he doesn't want his cooks to be leaving. one more thing...who are the chefs in charge at V while JG's not there??

[oakapple]

from reading the newyork magazine article..V steakhouse is JG's first one star restaurant in eighteen years...whoa. exactly how long does he spend in each of his restaurant, like he's actually there...before handing authority etc. to his other people?...i don't really think that he's putting enough time and effort to move V steakhouse to at least maybe two stars from the ny times. i read one time that JG said that he opens new restaurants etc. because he doesn't want his cooks to be leaving. one more thing...who are the chefs in charge at V while JG's not there??

As each new Jean-Georges property opens, the amount of time he devotes to any one of them goes down. He has opened two new restaurants in New York this year alone, bringing his New York total to seven — eight if you count Nougatine as a separate restaurant. He also has at least six restaurants outside New York, and the JGV website lists two more on the way.

I think V Steakhouse's problems are fixable, and I don't think Jean-Georges is the only man capable of fixing them. But anyone who keeps putting his name on restaurants is going to make a mistake eventually. If I were JGV, I'd forget about the NYTimes for now, because it takes a long time to get re-reviewed. Just fix the place, and let word-of-mouth take care of the rest.

[Phatlouie07]

so by say next year..JG will have at least fifteen or sixteen restaurants in his empire? is true about what JG says that V Steakhouse the biggest grossing restaurant in the time warner building??

[oakapple]

[is it] true about what JG says that V Steakhouse the biggest grossing restaurant in the time warner building??

We have only his word for it, but it's not unlikely. Masa is a tiny restaurant, and often not full. Per Se is always full, but it has far fewer tables, averaging 1.5 turns a night. V Steakhouse is by far the largest of the three, and if they average 2 turns they could be outgrossing Per Se easily.

Per Se also has very high costs, given its server-to-customer ratio and courses that are manually intensive to prepare. I would guess that at least 75% of V Steakhouse patrons order steak, which is comparatively straightforward to make.

[CFO999]

V would be the highest revenue grossing restaurant at this present time....but given the problems are they profitable? Revenue alone does not make it successful

They are not serving lunch yet

And the scene at Stone Rose seems to be getting all the beverage sales

Edited August 23, 2004 by CFO999 (log)

[Fat Guy]

Finally made it to V last night, after rescheduling about a million times. The joint was packed on a Thursday night in August, the energy in the room felt great because it was palpable yet didn't lead to noise (good acoustic design) or crowding (well-spaced tables). Like oakapple I enjoyed the room, which wasn't to my taste as such but was attractive and very comfortable. The service was superb, aside from a couple of newbie backwaiter mistakes -- none of that bothered me, both on account of the newness of the place and, more importantly, because of the positive attitude of everyone we dealt with on the waitstaff.

On the much-maligned deconstructed dishes, I thought some worked and others didn't. The deconstructed onion soup accomplished what I think such an exercise should accomplish: it improves the experience of the dish and provides a degree of amusement and intrigue. It is essentially a first-rate cheese-and-caramelized-onion fondue served with croutons and crisps and a wonderful beef broth on the side. What could possibly be objectionable about that? It's delicious, it's fun, it's attractive . . . it is in my opinion better than onion soup done the traditional way because the bread isn't soggy. I also thought the shrimp cocktail construction was very special -- to answer Frank Bruni's question, "Are the idea and effect of shrimp cocktail enhanced by making the shrimp warm and setting them adrift in a horseradish consommé?" Absolutely, after tasting the dish I think the answer is yes. Later on, I thought the lemon meringue composition was less successful -- again to answer Bruni's question, "Does a lemon meringue "composition" that comes in a half-dozen unhinged pieces represent a bold culinary advance or merely a brash intellectual diversion?" I think the answer is the latter, though it's not the intellectual diversion that bothers me but, rather, the feeling that there was less satisfaction in lemon meringue pie broken into components than in a nice piece of lemon meringue pie. The problem, for me, was that the pastry department, in attempting to mimic the successful deconstructed appetizers, missed the point: unlike the appetizers, which presented interesting contrasts of texture and temperature, and which were presented in whimsical and engaging ways, the lemon meringue composition was a series of soft-textured (even the parts that were supposed to be crustlike were quite soft) room-temperature lumps of goo and mush artlessly spooned around a bowl. It doesn't inspire any hostility in me; it just wasn't a good dish.

On the steaks, I thought they were fantastic. We had the Niman Ranch ribeye for two and the 12-ounce filet. The ribeye was right up there with the best ribeyes I've had, and the filet was thankfully un-filet-like in that it had actual deep beef flavor and wasn't just all about soft mushy tenderness. I especially liked the balance between the flavor contributed by a little char on the exterior and the need to treat these delicately flavored steaks gently. These specially designed brick ovens that V is using are very successful at preserving the integrity of the steak while enhancing it with just the right amount of moderate char. Both steaks were cooked exactly to order.

Side dishes, condiments, and a few other savory items we tried were uniformly first-rate. The pastry situation was not as successful. Though the molten-center chocolate cake with salted caramel ice cream was as good as can be, the other two desserts we tried were, I felt, very weak. In addition to the lemon meringue composition being, I think, a dud, the almond cake with figs was almost worthy of being sent back -- the figs weren't even ripe.

Red wine is gloriously kept at 58 degrees; this was such a relief because the past half dozen times I've dined at restaurants at this level I've had to ask for the red wine, which was certainly into the 70s, to be chilled down for 15 or so minutes. In all, a very impressive upscale creative variant of a steakhouse meal.

In terms of the star rating, of course the steak has to form the core of the food component of such a rating. Certainly, the reports here indicate that there is inconsistency in the quality of the steak. But to be entirely clear, this was never cited by Frank Bruni as justification for his one-star rating. To the contrary, he had nothing but praise for the steaks, and based his low rating (low for an establishment of this level of ambition, both culinary and otherwise) on his clueless critique of the style of the deconstructed appetizers and such:

V Steakhouse is rife with such shenanigans, and somewhere in the middle of them — that stretch of the meal that involves main courses, to be exact — is an appealing, even robustly satisfying restaurant. There are big, thick, high-quality hunks of meat to be had, and there is a kitchen sufficiently skilled at preparing them.

But they are bracketed, literally and metaphorically, by an ample measure of self-conscious silliness, and the whole enterprise is trailed by a series of question marks.

Again on the steak:

The beef for most of the steaks comes from Niman Ranch, a justly celebrated source. During my visits, many of those steaks were expertly charred.

I believe the above represents the entire universe of what Frank Bruni said about the steaks at V. So when looking at oakapple's contention that "a steakhouse must be judged mainly on the quality of its steaks, and V fails to deliver the goods," it appears that Frank Bruni disagrees with both clauses: he believes V steakhouse does deliver on its promise with regard to the steaks, but his review amply demonstrates that he doesn't believe a steakhouse should be judged on its steaks.

[rich]

On the steaks, I thought they were fantastic. We had the Niman Ranch ribeye for two and the 12-ounce filet. The ribeye was right up there with the best ribeyes I've had, and the filet was thankfully un-filet-like in that it had actual deep beef flavor and wasn't just all about soft mushy tenderness. I especially liked the balance between the flavor contributed by a little char on the exterior and the need to treat these delicately flavored steaks gently.

Steve, let me put you on the spot (just a little). If you had to choose between PL, Sparks, Wolfgangs (maybe S&W) or V, where would you go? You already know I would choose Bern's.

I'm very impressed by the red wine temperature. I wish more places would take the time to research "castle temperature."

As an aside, I was at Sparks Wednesday evening and had a dish I never thought to try - their "Cheese Steak" - sirloin strip topped with melted Blue cheese. It was okay, but I thought the cheese overwhelmed the taste of the beef and the beef was spectacular.

[Fat Guy]

For porterhouse I'd choose Luger's or Wolfgang's depending on how much travel and discomfort I'm willing to endure. Not that I had the porterhouse at V, but given the reports it may be months before I even try one and what are the odds it's going to be comparable to what Luger's has? For a ribeye or filet based on my experience last night I'd choose V. The only reason I'd go to S&W would be for a double-cut strip, although they do have a nice ribeye there as well (not as good as the one I had at V, though). Sparks, although it serves a good boneless strip, just doesn't make my short list most of the time.

But I'm not always the only person who needs to be accommodated in a steakhouse destination decision. Most people in the dining public care a lot more than I do about things like decor and service. The decor and service at V are so far and away superior to those at the other places you've mentioned, there's just no non-ridiculous argument for considering them to be in the same category. It's not just a nicer place than any steakhouse; it's one of the nicest restaurants out there. It's fabulously spacious and comfortable and has an incredible panoramic view of Central Park and Columbus Circle. I mean, maybe Victoria Falls would be a better view, but for an urban restaurant in America this is about as good as it gets.

In addition, there is actual cuisine being served at V, you know, like real restaurant dishes that would be designed by a chef like Jean-Georges Vongerichten. We're not talking about just good examples of steakhouse sides and appetizers. We're talking serious modern haute cuisine, plus Niman Ranch steaks cooked in brick ovens.

[Stone]

On the steaks, I You already know I would choose Bern's.

Having only had one steak at Berns, it was a great cut, not expertly cooked.

Why is it that steakhouses can be so good at one cut, but not the other? Isn't S&W cutting its double-cut strip from the same side of beef that it cuts a filet, etc.?

[rich]

On the steaks, I You already know I would choose Bern's.

Having only had one steak at Berns, it was a great cut, not expertly cooked.

I guess that happens everywhere now and again. But over the last 25 years, it hasn't happed to me once. Granted, I only fly down twice a year, but that's about 50 visits.

In my mind it's the steakhouse that all others should be measured against. I'm thankful I don't live in Tampa - I would just give my paycheck to Bern's.

[Fat Guy]

Isn't S&W cutting its double-cut strip from the same side of beef that it cuts a filet, etc.?

I've never studied S&W's aging facilities so I wouldn't want to make factual assumptions specific to that establishment, but speaking generally about the top-level steakhouses the answer to that question is almost always no. The double-cut strip is typically cut from the same shell as the single-cut strip, but that's about as far as it goes. Steakhouses do not typically traffic in sides of beef, or even quarters, and in many cases not even sub-primal cuts. As far as I know the filet is rarely aged at all and is usually purchased as tenderloins. A typical restaurant delivery covering strip, filet, and rib would consist of just that: whole shells, whole tenderloins, and whole rib sections. These could easily vary in quality within a given steakhouse: the demand for the short loin cuts (strip, filet, porterhouse) is significantly more than the demand for rib cuts. This is so predictable, in fact, that as you go lower in the pecking order of steakhouses you should almost always order the rib because the second- and third-tier places just have a much better chance of getting good ribs than of getting anything good from the short loin. Also, from the short loin, you will find very few USDA Prime filets because of the demand for porterhouses -- so the filet, to the extent you'd even consider ordering one, is only likely to be really good at the very best steakhouses.

[Fat Guy]

Had another terrific meal, even better than the last, at V yesterday. Was totally charmed at the outset by our lovely server and another bottle of properly chilled Spanish red. This time around we had two New York strips and a double-cut pork chop. I thought the strip was first rate and, again, thought the technology used to cook it was very flattering. The 1/4 of it that I didn't eat made one of history's greatest cold steak sandwiches today, on multigrain bread with horseradish mustard.

Tried the "ribbons of tuna" appetizer, which continues Vongerichten's tradition of having a great tuna app at most every one of his restaurants. This wasn't his best, but was very pleasant in its fake-Asian marinade. The Caesar salad comes with the romain hearts tightly bundled and the dressing packs a great punch. The seafood platter for one person at $25 is a bit of a splurge (especially when you figure that the New York strip is $43 on top of that) but the seafood is excellent: it contained kumamoto oysters, clams, raw scallops, crab claws, shrimp, and maybe something else, all a major cut above standard steakhouse fare, and served with four dipping sauces. Also had the onion soup deconstruction again, and am thinking it might be one of my favorite new dishes of the year.

Desserts are still a weak link. The carrot cake composition was just okay -- nice try, but ultimately unfulfilling as its components just don't come together. The carrot sorbet (more like a granite, really) was the only part I'd want to eat again. The carrot foam is gratuitous, and of the two species of actual carrot cake on the plate (a brown and a white variant) neither is good. The molten-center chocolate cake was excellent again, but tired in that similar desserts are so widely available, except for the remarkably good salted caramel ice cream that accompanies it.

[gmi3804]

Had another terrific meal, even better than the last, at V yesterday. Was totally charmed at the outset by our lovely server and another bottle of properly chilled Spanish red. This time around we had two New York strips and a double-cut pork chop. I thought the strip was first rate and, again, thought the technology used to cook it was very flattering. The 1/4 of it that I didn't eat made one of history's greatest cold steak sandwiches today, on multigrain bread with horseradish mustard.

How was the pork chop? I'm always looking for a place that makes a good one because, when properly cooked, pork chops rank among my favorite dishes. Did they ask how you wanted it cooked?

[oakapple]

Bob Lape awards 2 1/2 stars to V Steakhouse in today's Crain's New York Business:

V's ensemble waitstaff smilingly takes good care of customers from portal to portal.

The menu is deceptively simple on its face, but "crispy pork roll, mustard dip" means grease-free, wonton-wrapped bundles of tangy pulled pork and Napa cabbage...

Other appetizers and salads ($9 to $25) are as straightforward and appealing as a seafood platter for one, or a colorful combination of heirloom tomatoes and shaved onion rings. Trying too hard for originality, a Caesar salad with its condiments dumped into a clunky chunk of romaine perched atop sea salt founders.

(snip)

Desserts ($8 to $10) can be as gaudy as the surroundings at V. Edible gold leaf crowns a 14-layer chocolate cake, and the explosive ingredient in crackling cherry pie is Pop Rocks baked into its top. Cheesecake gets a liquid center of graham crackers, instead of graham cracker crust. I love lemon meringue pie and carrot cake so much that the deconstruction of both leaves me less than thrilled. It's cute, but unsatisfying.

There is much to enjoy and admire at V, but the creative imp needs restraint.

Lape also praises the steaks and the ranches (mostly Niman) from which they come: "The results of all this top-end sourcing are front and center in juicy, flavorful meats presented with your choice of a dozen sauces."

Edited September 27, 2004 by oakapple (log)

[tan319]

The latest Food Arts mag features pastry chef Joseph Murphy, who is JGV's "corporate" PC, and who came up with the dessrt menu for V.

I found the ideas pretty interesting, especially the oft criticized lemon meringue deconstruction, even though the lemon juice soaked shortbread sounds not only kind of weird, but seems to contradict the chefs reason for the deconstruct ("everyone knows the crust gets soggy").

According to the article, the 14 layer cake is gone, as well as the red wine/pistachio ice cream sundae.

It pains me to read that these desserts aren't happening by people like Fatguy,etc.