David Burke is one of those high-visibility chefs spread too thin: Besides Fishtail and David Burke Townhouse in the East 60s, he’s all over the map with “branding” deals. Surely the low point was the short-lived Hawaiian Tropic Zone near Times Square, where the menu was more naked than the scantily clad waitresses.
His talent, though, remains a bright light. His first downtown foray embraces his signature modern-American style, which plays with composition while respecting raw materials. Anyone who enjoys his uptown menus will feel at home at Kitchen.
The promoters have tried too hard to hype its “focus on locally sourced ingredients” and “country barn” look. In fact, the menu’s a direct transplant of his well-established uptown ones, and the dining room looks and feels like the hotel basement it is.
Yet the food’s mostly fine — erratic, but often enough splendid. There’s Burke’s famous pretzel crab cake. There’s the cavatelli with short ribs and truffle cream I loved at davidburke & donatella.
I missed his signature “angry lobster,” but less gimmicky dishes such as salmon, tuna loin and black bass emerged in top form from executive chef Jedd Adair’s open kitchen. The pristine bass arrived in aromatic herb butter amid a veritable garden of early spring vegetables.
Skip the dining room for the outdoor deck elevated over the surrounding streets. The weathered facades all around, the distant traffic din, bring joy to lovers of urban grit; despite the plank wood floor and umbrellas, this is no trip to the beach.
‘Surf-style cuisine” sounds laughable on the Upper West Side. But Marc Murphy’s much larger incarnation of his West Village Ditch Plains, named for a Montauk beach, has a twinkle in its eye. There’s no clambake, but French-style mussels and spicy pork meatballs.
Like Murphy’s thriving Landmarc pair (in TriBeCa and at Time Warner Center), unpretentious Ditch Plains is not about a fancy concept, but about value for money.
Choices mostly below $20 arrive in a space as raw as the oysters; the main room is near-barren of décor, while the back room features video monitors with surfing images.
I enjoyed a wonderful spring salad built around gleaming, spineless white anchovies; pan-seared salmon with Israeli couscous and parsley pesto; and mussels in milky wine-and-bacon broth scented with rosemary sprigs.
Fish and chips were way off one night: ineptly battered cod adhered to what the waiter called a “dusting of breadcrumbs.” But crisp fries almost made up for it.
Ditch Plains offers a strong list of moderately priced wines — perfectly chosen for a neighborhood that turns in early. But customers arrive as late as 10 p.m. Who knows? Look closely and you might even see a face you know from below 14th Street.
scuozzo@nypost.com