I’ve lunched and dined at Brasserie Ruhlmann often enough to wonder: Am I liking it too much for a place so filled with tourists? Should I feel guilty about it?
Or am I dreaming that the food really is this good in a Rockefeller Center eatery once trashed by New York Magazine as a “tourist trap”?
Brasserie Ruhlmann has grown and flourished since its chaotic launch five years ago, when its original chef was gone after two months. And not all customers are tourists, thanks to regulars from NBC and Bank of America.
Locals who pass it up for overpriced steakhouses nearby are missing a smartly turned-out American-French bistro menu worthy of its landmark setting. None of the dishes strays far from the familiar Manhattan playbook. But it’s a playbook built around the fine raw materials and seasonally attuned composition New Yorkers expect. No time is better to enjoy it than summer. The place to sit is the outdoor terrace, under giant umbrellas.
Brasserie Ruhlmann has never been reviewed by a New York newspaper — baffling, since co-owner Jean Denoyer enjoys a following from defunct La Goulue, and executive chef Laurent Tourondel is one of the town’s favorite French-born toques. Although he’s hardly there all the time, his menu and its consistency under chef de cuisine Jaime Loja reflect his way of adapting French kitchen discipline to Yankee taste.
Attention to detail elevates ordinary-sounding dishes. Red and gold beets with ricotta ($14) sprung to life at the touch of orange, mustard and thyme. Alaskan bread-crusted halibut ($30), pan-seared, ranked with the best, in broth brimming with olives, fagioli beans and sun-dried tomatoes. Veal schnitzel on the bone was big, buttery and wonderful enough to justify its $38 price.
Tuna tartare ($16) resembled the shimmering cubes at BLT Steak, formerly Tourondel’s, but soy and olive oil lacked the wasabi spark. Desserts are too few and too conventional for a guaranteed happy ending.
But those are quibbles. “They all laughed at Rockefeller Center,” went the song. No more cackling over Brasserie Ruhlmann, too good to leave to those seeing the sights for the first time.
scuozzo@nypost.com