This just in: The ornate, baronial Villard Mansion wing of the New York Palace Hotel doesn’t need ornate, baronial cuisine. It took the owners 20 years to figure this out, with a nudge from French-born, all-American chef Michel Richard. Did I really have burgers and fish and chips in these gilded landmarked surroundings?
The Villard Wing previously chewed up Le Cirque and Gilt. Both were ultra-pricey and stuffy despite attempts to hip up the space’s Italian Renaissance-style, mahogany-and-gold-leaf bones with screaming colors. (Remember Le Cirque’s neon light rings?)
It took Brittany-born Richard to beat some sense into the joint, and guts for him to take the plunge. A jolly, white-bearded Santa Claus, he hasn’t worked in New York in 40 years, earning a trail of awards in LA, DC, Las Vegas and Atlantic City. At 65, he’s in no need of the nose-rearranging reception that Manhattan doles out to many long-absent chefs.
Yet he’s boldly launched two distinct restaurants in the hotel. The Gallery in the paneled Hunt Room is a prix-fixe affair with menus starting at $165, too new to review. But Villard Michel Richard is an a la carte “bistro” in the vaulted-ceiling bar and magisterial “drawing room” (once known as the Madison Room). It looks as if even a cup of coffee should cost a fortune, but most entrees are in the $20s.
Their affordability and down-to-earth style come as a happy shock amid the carpeted (but tablecloth-free) splendor. Designer Jeffrey Beers lightened the 19th-century mood with a wine “cellar” in the form of a giant, Apple Store-like glass cube. The crowd’s often 21st-century slob city — but there’s more life and laughter at a single meal than I remember from a half-dozen at the place’s predecessors.
The mood owes much to the cheery floor staff, who are less starchy than their pressed suits. The only pretentious note is bread presented in a table-hogging wood box reminiscent of the one in which old-time comic Mr. Wences kept a disembodied head.
The menu reflects Richard at idling speed — but what an idle! You’ve had beet, arugula and goat cheese a thousand times, but well-chosen elements and sparkling composition make the salad new ($17).
Corn-battered cod makes for marvelous fish and chips ($26). The burger ($26) — a grind of brisket, chuck eye roll and tri-tip — is deep-flavored and rich in mouth feel. So is flat-iron tuna burger ($27), a slightly unwieldy but dazzlingly fresh sauteed Ahi lilted with soy on an olive oil bun.
France peers through the tall windows via “faux gras” terrine and country pate ($18); the terrine is a crunchy meld of chicken liver mousse and pistachios, the pate a potful of oven-baked, herbed chicken liver. Richard’s Yankee Doodle side comes through loud and clear in country-breaded fried chicken without a trace of grease or oil ($28).
Not all’s as wonderful. The menu needs more and better fish entrees than uninspired salmon with lentils ($34). I expected better of cote de boeuf ($59), but it was snore-inducing. The house runs better at lunch than at dinner, when cleaned plates can sit forever on the table and the kitchen bogs down.
But Richard’s enormous French and American desserts — like an impossibly light-on-the-tongue napoleon and a caterpillar-like banana split — make for a happy ending.
One afternoon, Richard prowled the floor, greeting friends and strangers. Told by my female guest that she loved his now-closed Citrus in LA, he kissed her on the cheek.
When I echoed her sentiment, he kissed me less passionately. But the pleasure of dining in these intolerably gorgeous rooms at tolerable prices is love enough.