[Pigging by Wilfrid: May 2, 2011]
It's not often nowadays that we get a little injection of modern French into the New York dining scene. Yes, there's always a new standard-issue bistro with an oyster happy hour and poulet frites.
But a sleekly designed, moderately ambitious French restaurant? In Hell's kitchen? Mais ou sont les culottes d'Antan?!
Out of the spring rain, into the narrow, dimly lit dining room on a downbeat block of 53rd Street. The decor is almost old-fashioned modern, not quite Jetsons, but trying hard to avoid Gallic kitsch. Yellow banquettes are cruelly narrow - do designers not try to sit in furniture before selling it? - but the chairs looked comfortable and there were table cloths. Suits on the servers too.
La Silhouette seems bent on offering a sort of edited version of an upscale dining experience. Thus an amuse is offered, a little gift from the chef, but it's Boursin ® with bagel chips. Boursin can be a gift from a chef only if he has been out shopping and bought too much and wants to give you some. What's so difficult about chopping some herbs into some cream cheese in house?
Paul Goerg is not my favorite champagne, but at least it was correctly priced, so I sipped that while nibbling the cheese, and reflected on Liebling's wonderful image of an experience eater mopping the sauce from the hollows on one of those specialist snail plates with pieces of bread "fitted to the bore of the crock as precisely as a bullet to a rifle barrel."
But of course, this isn't that kind of snail dish. It was a risotto with several layers of flavor, offered both as an appetizer and entrée.
Fine beaks who insist risottos cannot be made in restaurants, requiring constant attention and long stirring, will not be converted by the rice in this dish. There is nothing bad about it at all, but I am not going to pretend that every grain is poised in that beatific state between al dente and gloopy. It's a restaurant risotto. But it's very nicely garnished.
The first thing you get is a distinct aroma of grilled cheese. Welsh rarebit, I thought, leaning over the plate. A firm, nutty cheese is sliced thinly, not grated, and laid over the rice, just beginning to melt into it. Hen of the Woods decorates the dish, which is lapped too by a fresh and foamy spring garlic sauce. Green sauces make me nervous, but this was a good one.
The snails? Imported from Burgundy implies the menu, and I sought and received confirmation. They are not of the quality of the fat, black gastropods which decorated the fabulous snail 'n' eggs dish I've raved about at Craft. But they are chubby, sweet, earthy and entirely adequate to the occasion. I don't care how soon I eat this again, but I'll choose a minerally red next time and not the over-sweet Petit Syrah which is offered by the glass.
The menu is brief, six starters, seven mains, a soup and a pasta. I thought a spot of duck was called for, what with duck being all the rage these days (i.e. on the menu at Momofuku Ssäm Bar).
I accepted the recommendation of medium rare, but the slices of breast were cooked slightly beyond that. To be honest, I prefer duck quite well cooked; the meat is more tender. Carrots were cumin scented, black kale made a dramatic garnish (until I messed the dish around, as in the photo), and a little braised gizzard finished it off.
All pretty good. Service tries terribly hard, in fact a bit too hard: I don't need solicitous enquiries not only from my server and the manager, but from another over-achieving server too (and by the way, you don't address a single male as "Gentleman"). The wine list has the predictable upper reaches, but also plenty of French country bottles in the $30 to $50 region, well suited to the cuisine.
No pudding, but another nice little gift from the chef with my coffee.
The website doesn't entirely work, but it will give you menu and wine list information.
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