Russian Tea Room to close

[Fat Guy]

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/28/nyregion...d9e5468f4c6975d

[Steve Plotnicki]

It really was the Russian Luchow's with a better location. There is no need for a Russian restaurant to exist anymore because after all, what is interesting about classical Russian food? The previous owner Faith Stuart Gordon used to do a good job of keeping the tradition alive. She took advantage of it's location near Carnegie Hall to make it be a destination of choice for people going to hear music or attend the theater. Plus it used to be the hot ticket for lunch meetings in the entertainment industry and certain industry publicists would have their regular tables every day. I think after Leroy bought it it lost its panache and graduated from touristy to too touristy.

I used to go there when I was younger for exactly the type of occassion I described. And it used to be open late too so you could go after the theater. I remember how beautiful the place used to look at x-mas time. As to the food, well I don't think there was ever much to it and these days, who eats Chicken Kiev anymore? But the warm blinis with sour cream. melted butter and caviar were, and always will be a delight. How can one screw that up? Yet it seems that they managed.

[Fat Guy]

Russian food is plenty interesting to me. Here's a paragraph I wrote about it a year or so ago:

Back in the day the Russians taught the French a thing or two about cooking. Russian cuisine gets no respect, thanks in part to nearly a century of Communism that wiped out all privately owned restaurants in the Empire (which used to span a sixth of the globe), but it is one of the great Western culinary traditions -- and the most diverse. Over the past several hundred years, Russian cuisine has assimilated noodles, dumplings and sturgeon from the Mongols and Tatars in the east, Polish and Ukranian dishes such as borscht from the west, smoked fish from Scandinavia to the north, and spices from the Byzantine Empire to the south. If you were an 18th or 19th-century Russian aristocrat, you probably had a French chef (the great Antonin Carême himself served in the court of Alexander I). And if you've visited any restaurants in the past hundred or so years, you've experienced Service à la Russe: individual dishes plated for each diner. Traditional French service, Service à la Française, was strictly banquet-style.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Fat Guy - As if it weren't obvious from my use of the word "today" in the first sentence, I wasn't commenting about discussing the history of Russian food, but how uninteresting it is to eat today. Especially here in NYC. There are lots of historical aspects we dicuss about food that have lost their contemporary application. We don't even have to go back to Russian cultural dominance. We can pick something French like Gigot en Croute that until 30 years ago was considered a state of the art lamb dish. Open a restaurant todasy and serve that dish, Beef Wellington, Steak Diane etc. and you'd likely go out of business too.

[LaNiña]

Speaking of Steak Diane and Beef Wellington, Ali and Mustafa are doing a menu of those kinds of things in August at Mombar. You should hear the list of planned dishes - hilarious. I can't wait.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Gee, why is the thought of all those heavy dishes prepared in the summertime at an Egyptian restaurant not doing it for me? Maybe you can suggest to Ali and Mostafa that they wait until November and then we can descend on them with mulitple bottles of heavy red wine.

[Fat Guy]

Fat Guy - As if it weren't obvious from my use of the word "today" in the first sentence . . .

Gee let's have a look at that first sentence:

"It really was the Russian Luchow's with a better location."

Which one of those words is "today"?

Maybe it's somewhere else in the post? Nope. Don't see the word today anywhere in there. Just to be sure I searched the whole page for "today" and found only two uses of the word, in jhlurie's post and rozrapp's post -- but not in yours.

But I'm not sure I see your point anyway. Surely you're not suggesting that restaurants go out of business when they serve bad food. And you're not suggesting that Russian food isn't a viable business concept, are you? I mean, go to Brighton Beach and there are plenty of Russian restaurants thriving. Firebird seems to be doing okay and there aren't even any Russians eating there. Moreover, there are plenty of Americans who like that kind of food -- maybe even more than like French food.

[=Mark]

Good or bad, the Russian Tea Room was a New York "institution" in a way that few things are anymore--it was just always there...

Actually wasn't it closed for a good chunk of the mid 90s?

[LaNiña]

Ali's having a hernia repaired soon. So when he gets ready to work again, he's going to keep Kabab Cafe closed for a month but cook with Mustafa at Mombar. It's their fantasy to do this menu together, and it's their opportunity to do so. Mombar is bigger, the A/C actually works well, etc.

Speaking of Ali, his baba ganouj last night was bland, chewy, yucky.

[tommy]

That is correct. It received a "satisfactory," which I believe is the ranking below one star and above poor. The following week or soon after the Tea Room placed a large advertisement in the Times taunting Grimes. An ugly episode all around.

actually i found it quite entertaining.

[Deacon]

Fat Guy - As if it weren't obvious from my use of the word "today" in the first sentence . . .

Gee let's have a look at that first sentence:

"It really was the Russian Luchow's with a better location."

Which one of those words is "today"?

Maybe it's somewhere else in the post? Nope. Don't see the word today anywhere in there.

Will you two knock it off, I'm trying to drive! I'll turn this car around right now! I mean it! All right, that's it, no more meals at Daniel for EITHER of you!

Seriously (?) if there's room for a Russian restaurant in ATLANTA, of all places (Nikolai's Roof), there's room for one in NYC. Sorry to hear RTR is closing.

[Bux]

I had some fondness for the old RTR, even if it wasn't all that much for the food. When it reopened, I felt it had lost its charm. The earlier glitz of the original was at least a period piece for me. The new over the top glitz was just too corny and too much for me. We went shortly after it had reopened and it seemed clear it wasn't and wouldn't be about the food. The original chef departed not so long after it opened as I recall. Is that correct? Did it take a turn for the better? If so, that's a surprise because people who knew him, told me they were surprised and disappointed by what they ate there.

The point is that it didn't open with Bouley at the helm and that was probably a match made in hell.

[Fat Guy]

Did it take a turn for the better?

In my opinion, yes. You've got to remember that mega-restaurants like RTR, Tavern, et al., are not necessarily served well by having the good chefs by the standards we here might typically use to evaluate chefs. Especially when a menu is classic and unchanging, and the staff is unionized, what restaurants like that need are chefs who can manage effectively and execute competently on a grand scale. The food at RTR as of a year ago was the best it had ever been, at least since the late 1970s, which would be my first data point -- but I think it's safe to extrapolate. That doesn't mean it was great -- greatness is not part of the plan when you open a gazillion-seat restaurant on four levels -- but it was more than competent. As for the kitsch factor, I found it pleasant enough and thought it might age well.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Actually I didn't use the word today, I said the following,

"There is no need for a Russian restaurant to exist ANYMORE because after all, what is interesting about classical Russian food?"

Anymore should suffice for the present tense don't you think? Well I think so even if you don't.

My point is that the RTR was a museum quality restaurant like Luchows. Unique decor and all. The price they paid for the place almost guaranteed it was doomed from the getgo. Had Faith Stewert Gordon kept the place I doubt they would be closing. Keeping a place open in a building without a mortgage is a completely different thing than paying notes. And I didn't realize they had changed the decor until I read Bux's response. Why would anybody change the decor? That's stupid. Luchow's died when they moved from 14th Street to 7th Avenue in Midtown. Who would want to eat in a German restaurant that wasn't an antique? Same with RTR. But I have to say I hadn't been there since about 1975 and that was for a reason.

[rozrapp]

Fat Guy posted on Jul 28 2002, 02:03 PM

And you're not suggesting that Russian food isn't a viable business concept, are you? I mean, go to Brighton Beach and there are plenty of Russian restaurants thriving. Firebird seems to be doing okay and there aren't even any Russians eating there. Moreover, there are plenty of Americans who like that kind of food -- maybe even more than like French food.

Several years ago in my NJ town, a restaurant serving Russian cuisine opened. The owners called it The Russian Tea Room. I suppose they did not consider the legalities inherent in selecting that name because, after a while, they were served notice that they could not continue using it. So they changed the name to Russian Dream. (Maybe now they can change it back?) Anyway, the majority of the patrons are not Russian, and the restaurant is doing very nicely, thank you. While it is thriving, we do not have even one French restaurant in the immediate vicinity.

[Suzanne F]

Steve P:

Who would want to eat in a German restaurant that wasn't an antique?

Ask the folks who eat at Rolf's, Silver Swan, Zum Stammtisch, Hallo Berlin, and ... Zum Schneider. Does that include anyone you know?

There is no need for a Russian restaurant to exist ANYMORE because after all, what is interesting about classical Russian food?

How about the taste, the texture, the look, the way it goes with beverages ... ?

Why do you assume that because YOU are not interested in a cuisine, it is not worthy of interest? Just curious.

[Steve Plotnicki]

"Ask the folks who eat at Rolf's, Silver Swan, Zum Stammtisch, Hallo Berlin, and ... Zum Schneider. Does that include anyone you know"

Gee I was speaking about the old decor of Luchow's as opposed to the new sterile decor of the uptown restaurant. But Rolf's is sort of an antique, so is Zum Stammtisch a place I've been to too many times to count but it's not a "restaurant" the same way Luchow's was. Haven't been to the others except for takeout knowckwurst at Hallo Berlin (bland.)

But Luchow's was really different than the other restaurants you raised. It was like the RTR, Peter Luger and Gage & Tollner and maybe a few others I'm forgetting. The original Delmonico's? 21 Club? People went for the environment as much as the food. Once they changed environments they went out of business. Same thing happened to the RTR no?

As to your last question, I didn't say there couldn't be or shouldn't be a Russian restaurant in the city either did I? I said what is so interesting about classical Russian cuisine? The recipes haven't been updated in 100 years. And this is in the context of a formal setting like the RTR or Luchows and not Russian as an ethnic food like you would get in Brighton Beach.

[Fat Guy]

Well which is it, Plotnicki? The new decor? The debt? The outdated cuisine? You've got a lot of theories.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Well let's see. If you put in new decor when people like the old one then less people come. And if the new decor is garish instead of it being classy like the old one, then of the people who do come, the quality of the customers is diminished. And if you have added debt to pay for the worse decorations which attract less desirable customers, it makes it harder to pay your notes. And if you combine all of those things with an outdated cuisine that people aren't really interested in on a stand alone basis, as well as the quality being somewhat institutionalized as in, could be something you would get in a hotel restaurant, you are as they say in yiddish, upgerf*cked.

[Fat Guy]

Upgerf*******sshole!

[LaNiña]

Did anyone ever go to a restaurant called The Red Tulip back in the day...?

[Jason Perlow]

Actually I didn't use the word today, I said the following,

"There is no need for a Russian restaurant to exist ANYMORE because after all, what is interesting about classical Russian food?"

Just because you say so Steve, does not make it true.

While Russian Tea Room was unsuccesful in its most recent incarnation, that does not invalidate the genre. I happen to think Firebird and Petrossian are fine restaurants and are successful because people do generally like this type of cuisine, myself included.

If anything else, these Czarist type restaurants are as haute cuisine in some of their preparations as French food is.

[LaNiña]

Russian Samovar on W. 52nd is pretty decent, too. And sometimes they have great live gypsy music.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Jason - I didn't invalidate the genre. I just said it doesn't *need* to exist (in the current NYC restaurant environment.) If they closed every Russian restaurant in Manhattan I doubt anyone would notice. But that doesn't mean there shouldn't be one, or that people wouldn't go to one if they do a good job. Petrossian is a French restaurant, not a Russian restaurant. The original Petrossian is on Avenue Latour Maubourg in Paris. I believe the owners are of Iranian descent. Aside from caviar (of which they sell some sublime specimens) their menu is all French food. In fact Philippe Contincini one of the most cutting edge pastry chefs in the world was the chef their last year. How about Caviateria? Is that Russian because they serve Caviar? Of course not.

Outdated cuisine is outdated cuisine and it is subject to the vagueries of the market regardless of country of origination. Things like Duck l'Orange and Gigot en Croute aren't really served anymore, and it is not surprising (to me) that Chicken Kiev could fall by the same wayside. But of course that shouldn't stop someone from eating it if they like it.

[LaNiña]

That is, until Ali and Mustafa create that menu...cannot wait.

And wait a second, lots of people would notice. Why wouldn't they notice? The Russian places are good, and fun, and popular...