Sho Shaun Hergatt is dead — long live Shaun Hergatt. The impossibly talented chef who ran the best restaurant in Wall Street-area history is on his own, looking for a new “Sho”-place.
At SHO Shaun Hergatt, I praised his “modern French with Asian accents” menu for a “deceptively simple clarity of presentation and lightness of bearing” reminiscent of Thomas Keller’s.
Dishes that sounded intimidating or pretentious — “sous vide amadai [tilefish] with Blue Moon Acres turnips, cockles, mollusk clarification” — proved accessible and gorgeous on the plate.
He doesn’t likely want my two cents on what he should do next. But the finest chefs are the most gullible believers in their own majesties. Wow! At SHO Shaun Hergatt, we had two Michelin stars!
Yet it lasted barely three years (it will limp along without Hergatt).
It’s easy to blame that on a second-floor location in a scaffold-
tangled building on a barricaded, war-zone block. The dining rooms were buried behind an interminable “Zen” lounge drenched in mahogany, walnut, bronze and terrazzo. You half-expected a live elephant.
But SHO didn’t do as well as it should have, even with the liabilities. It would be a mistake to try replicating it. Here, we generously offer a lucky seven pointers on what he should do — and not do — next.
1) Don’t call your next place “Shaun Hergatt.” Unless you’re really famous, it annoys people. It didn’t work for Terrance Brennan, Dennis Foy, Alain Allegretti — or for Shaun Hergatt at 40 Broad St.
2) Don’t open under a sidewalk bridge. Your real estate broker can find out when one will go up. If it’s within a year of your opening, go elsewhere — even if the landlord offers you the space for free.
Scaffolds kill new restaurants. They were the death knell for Ed Brown’s 81 — and for SHO Shaun Hergatt. Don’t make the same mistake twice.
3) Stay away from the Upper East Side and Upper West Side. The problem isn’t that the locals don’t understand great food. The problem is that people who live downtown won’t go there, no matter who you are and what you serve. And without them, you’re DOA.
4) Do without an open kitchen. We dine out to enjoy ourselves, not to worship at the chef’s altar. There was no magic peering into the Olympian mist at SHO.
5) Have an à la carte menu. Dinner at SHO Shaun Hergatt was prix-fixe only — last winter, five courses for $85, with $10 and $15 supplements for some dishes.
But new customers will want to test the waters more gently. Make it easy for them.
You can ramp up a menu’s prices and complexity once it catches on. But you can’t ramp it down if it doesn’t. As soon as a place offers “cheaper” options, it’s Eater.com Death Watch-bound. And usually for good reason.
6) Simplify dishes. Or at least their descriptions. I was thrilled by SHO’s Griggstown Quail Farm coxcomb with veal tongue ribbons, chicken skin and autumn mushroom pave.
My notes said, “Testing outer limits. Extraordinary flavor constellations. Like at Akelarre [in San Sebastian, Spain].” But not everyone in these steak- and pork-bun-saturated times will be in the mood.
7) Don’t just talk about it — do it.
Some chefs wait for a magic formula that never comes: the perfect location, the perfect partner, etc. We’re still waiting for wonderful Laurent Gras to get back into the game.
Don’t be like them. Make the best deal you can, and run with it — and nowhere else but in New York.
scuozzo@nypost.com