Restaurant reviews have short shelf lives. Whether you agree or not with a movie critic or a book critic about a particular work, at least it’s the same movie or book months or years later.
But restaurants change over time, and often in no time. In the spirit of catching up with reality, here are revised judgments of some places I’ve written about in the past few years.
The happy news: three upgrades to 3 stars.
The bad? Well . . .
Tje neef at BLT Steak has improved with age. (J. Scott Wynn)
Michelin-starred chef Laurent Manrique could stand to spend more time at Millesime, a brasserie now overshadowed by a raucous neighboring lounge. (Getty Images)
The menu at Soulud Sud is stronger than ever, as is the service.
The gefelte fish at Kutcher’s — once made with halibut (above) — now contains bland cod. (Gabi Porter)
ABC Kitchen offers sweet service and farm-fresh ingredients. (Christian Johnston)
LA MAR CEBICHERIA PERUANA
OLD RATING: 2 1/2 stars, in October 2011.
NEW RATING: 0 stars
Chef/owner Gaston Acurio, whose fans call him the “Latin Mario Batali,” got off to a galloping start with his ceviche-driven South American empire’s US debut. I winked at bland décor and goofy and barely-there service for the pleasure of Peruvian-inspired dishes intensely assembled around aji chilies in myriad complexions.
But leap-of-faith reviews may prove unfaithful. Today, La Mar Cebicheria’s floor team is better staffed and trained. But shrill sauces seemingly made on the fly make it impossible to taste seafood. Once-sparkling quinoa salad lost the golden scallops that first adorned it; sludgy potato causa weighs down dish after dish.
Arroz criollo with “Peruvian” seafood combination evoked the greasiest Cantonese fried rice (which would cost half of La Mar’s $22), and sangria tasted like Hawaiian Punch.
Mario should sue for defamation.
11 Madison Ave.; 212-612-3388
BLT STEAK
OLD RATING: 2 1/2 stars, in April 2004. NEW RATING: 3 stars
Why bother blessing a place with half-a-star more than I did in a review nine years ago? Because — this happens more than critics like to admit — I was being too picky, as I’ve realized every time I’ve been there since.
It didn’t bode well when founding chef Laurent Tourondel left after his split with former partner Jimmy Haber a few years ago. But Haber understood the importance of his growing empire’s flagship, and BLT Steak has kept up its game — not only in the beef that’s the heart of the mix-and-match menu, but in everything from spicy,
soy-and-lime-dressed tuna tartare to the famous house popovers.
No wonder the place continues to thrive despite burial beneath a scaffold that seems to have been up since the Giuliani administration. May BLT Steak long outlive it. 106 E. 57th St.; 212-752-7470
MILLESIME
OLD RATING: 2 1/2 stars, in January 2011. NEW RATING: 2 stars.
The worst thing that can happen to a good restaurant is too few customers. Michelin-starred chef/owner Laurent Manrique’s pretty, red-trimmed brasserie on the Carlton Hotel’s second floor has suffered for it since Day 1.
Millesime is far from a disaster — you can still eat well here — but the energy deficit and a change of front-of-house staff last year took their toll. The seafood-intense French menu’s formerly assertive North African spices now often seem retiring, even in house-pride tuna tartare, while average main-course prices rose.
I hope San Francisco-based Manrique doesn’t give up — and lavishes on Millesime the attention he once did. 92 Madison Ave.; 212-889-7100
BOULUD SUD
OLD RATING: 2 1/2 stars, in May 2010. NEW RATING: 3 stars.
Much as I first enjoyed Daniel Boulud’s Mediterranean-inflected French brasserie near Lincoln Center, dishes were inconsistently executed and waiters often didn’t know where the beef and anchovies came from.
But Boulud’s new places typically get stronger after their first six months. It didn’t take long for executive chef Aaron Chambers to pull the kitchen together. Dishes on the menu since the start — like spicy harira soup with lamb meatballs — never sag, while ever-evolving entrees display mastery of styles from all over the map.
General manager Karim Guedouar’s team commands the floor with the grace of an army on the Metropolitan Opera stage — no easy feat in a house where the clientele hails from even more corners than the dishes. 20 W. 64th St.; 212-595-1313
scuozzo@nypost.com
KUTSHER’S TRIBECA
OLD RATING: 2 stars, in January 2012. NEW RATING: 1 star.
Kutsher’s at first delivered a spirited, “modern Jewish” take on Catskills resort “cuisine” — nonkosher, smartly seasoned variants on past generations’ often leaden, formulaic favorites. But the original chef left in January. My meals since then reflected neither extreme, but a plodding wallow in American-bistro mediocrity.
The other night, insipid gefilte fish made with cod — “very upscale,” the waiter claimed — was a bad Borscht Belt punch line after the original halibut version. Matzo balls I’d praised as “pillowy” begged for schmaltz, egg or any discernibly flavored substance. Rainbow cake boasted innumerable colors but scant taste of anything but freezer burn.
The gentle symmetry of birch plywood “fins” around the dining room has been shattered by a garish image of a woman in a swimsuit. At $28 for an entree, beauty is as beauty tastes — which now is less than memorable. 186 Franklin St.; 212-431-0606
ABC KITCHEN
OLD RATING: 2 1/2 stars, in May 2010. NEW RATING: 3 stars.
Although I wrote that Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s “farm-to-table” menu could “make a tyrannosaurus give up meat,” I was put off by noise, the “sustainable” shtick, which even applied to its furniture, and “simplicity” that wasn’t entirely honest.
But all’s forgiven. Executive chef Dan Kluger’s menu soon blew away quibbles. His great “market-table” offerings, the salads especially, have influenced new restaurants from Daniel Humm’s the NoMad to remote corners in Brooklyn. The room’s hard edges and high decibel level now seem positively pampering compared with discomforts at newer places.
While Vongerichten’s Spice Market and Nougatine both are better than when they opened, the food at his once-mighty Mercer Kitchen and now-closed Vong fell apart. ABC Kitchen took the higher road. 35 E. 18th St.; 212-475-5829