Friday night “parties” with deejays at Le Cirque. Bare tabletops at Allegretti. What next — a splash in the pool at the Four Seasons?
The infantilization of dining in the name of “informality” has been going on for years. But the tablecloth-yanking at Allegretti on West 22nd Street was the last straw. Once, crisp white linen covered the tables and softened the noise. Their Web site still shows tablecloths.
But they sneaked them away like thieves in the night, and the soft
murmur that lent the pretty dining room magic has swelled to a racket. Alain Allegretti’s Provencal-inspired cooking is still special and the service is still gracious. But the place as a whole is less special and less gracious than it was.
What’s the big idea? Allegretti says he “personally” doesn’t like it: “From the bottom of my heart, I’m a tablecloth person. But I need to be a businessman.” He says bare tables signal diners that they “can have just pasta and a glass of wine” rather than ordering three courses, and the result has been a trade-off — smaller average checks but greater volume.
I’m glad it works for them. But, as my wife cheerfully put it: “When I spend $32 for an entree, I want a tablecloth.” And I don’t want an ambient din from a deejay even in a hamburger joint.
Creeping casualization has turned too many eateries into clublike zoos and dumbed down others with tacky “grazing” menus, overgrown lounges and unbearable noise.
A consultant recently tried convincing my friends who own a thriving East Village spot to dim the lights and pump in disco music. Fortunately, they didn’t buy into the blog-driven baloney that people don’t want “fine dining” anymore. Burn the tablecloths! Replace entrees with truckloads of small plates!
Le Cirque’s Mauro Maccioni told the Times the new, weekly “invitation-only” parties in the under-utilized lounge would “in no way compromise” the Le Cirque “brand.” Ooookay.
Too many owners swallowed the snake oil from Web sites that seem written by children. They should wake up to the fact that the hottest expensive, new or rejuvenated places — think Corton, Marea and Eleven Madison Park — drew firm lines in the sand against going too casual.
None has a rigid dress code or anachronistic nuisances like menus in French, snooty sommeliers or finger bowls. But they make no concessions to “grazing.” They offer poised and practiced service, a deejay-free environment — and tablecloths. All are full of jolly schmoozing and boozing without compromising on anything that matters.
It isn’t just illiterate bloggers who think grown-up restaurants are over. A Times reviewer dismissed marvelous SHO Shaun Hergatt as being aimed at “people who enjoy fine dining for its own sake,” whatever that meant.
In fact, most diners young and old have not lost their taste for great restaurants with ambience and service worthy of their cuisine. SHO is doing well, thank you, despite critics’ cranking over its unforgivable sin of being too pretty.
Corton was a hit from the moment it opened a year ago and Marea since its launch last spring. Long-popular Eleven Madison Park became even busier after a four-star Times review last summer.
None of the three has a sprawling lounge. But the myth that people want “casual” alternatives in adult eateries has resulted in an embarrassing phenomenon: empty lounges all over town at places that overestimated the demand for a more casual vibe.
Le Cirque has struggled to fill its lounge ever since it opened. That’s why it’s launched its “parties” with C-list celebrities. (I note sadly that a window blowup of a column of mine praising the “Wine Bar Lounge” menu last year failed to draw the masses.)
The dining room at relocated Oceana on West 50th Street has been full or near-full every time I’ve been there; not so the spacious bar/lounge in front of it. Similarly, SHO Shaun Hergatt’s dining rooms are a lot buzzier than the endless lounge customers must traverse to reach them.
The problem isn’t the way the lounges are run, but that they were built in the first place. Customers at Le Cirque, Oceana and Shaun Hergatt want the real deals — not the cheap seats or anything else that turns dining into slumming.
scuozzo@nypost.com