[Pigging by Wilfrid: September 11, 2013]
Juni is Shaun Hergatt's second New York restaurant. It arrives with more fanfare than his first--SHO Shaun Hergatt, in the Financial District--but represents a retrenchment rather than an elaboration of his careful, studied, almost unfashionable cuisine.
Let's be quite clear. Anyone interested in the high end of New York gastronomy should feel obliged to eat here. There are pleasures, but there's also a lot of food for thought.
After all, chef Shaun has some history with us now.
And the history must be briefly reviewed--if all you care about is Juni, scroll down to "And so..."
As briefly as I can: SHO Shaun Hergatt opened in the FiDi, in the New York Setai, on a narrow street surrounded by concrete security blocks and swathed in scaffolding, in June 2009, while the stock market was crashing about our ears.
The restaurant was big and showy--no pun intended. Corridors lined with walls of wine; high ceilings; Asian gewgaws; random Setai-style orientalisms. The food was tweezered, exotic, very good, and--for at least a year after SHO opened--very reasonably priced. Well, there was a meltdown happening all around it.
For better or worse, it struck exactly the wrong note at the wrong time: lush self-indulgence and remotely-sourced ingredients in days of back-to-the-land economic retreat, localism, and self-denial. And my word, did Pete Wells (then editor of the Times dining section) let us know, in an aggressive Dining Brief: "While other chefs litter their menus with call-outs to regional farmers, Mr. Hergatt’s favorite purveyor seems to be Federal Express."
Enough. The simple reason SHO Shaun Hergatt was not to be dismissed was that it was, almost unarguably, "one of the most accomplished openings" in a year when nothing was going down other than financial institutions.
It took almost a year of relentlessly positive buzz from blogs and from ordinary diners to twist the Times's arm into publishing a review by Sam Sifton ("occasionally terrific"--two stars). When his departure from the Setai was announced last summer, some of us were keen to see what chef Shaun would do next. By the way, if Juni doesn't get reviewed by the Times on a normal schedule, I will eat several hats.
And so...
Shaun Hergatt is back in a hotel, and this time not an especially swanky one. There are many hotels in the dark East and West 30's, and I managed to confuse East and West 31st, walking into the Hotel Wolcott, where the desk clerk scratched his head, went online, and directed me to the other side of Fifth Avenue.
There's none of the Travel+Leisure grandeur of the Setai at the Hotel Chandler. The entrance to the restaurant seems to be on one side of the hotel lobby (that's where I was greeted), and the restaurant on the other. Juni itself straddles two, soberly decorated, grey-white rooms. They were quiet rooms when I dined there, but it was just after Labor Day; even so, it's hard to imagine them raucous. Waitstaff are uniformed, correct, almost too courteous ("You're very welcome, sir" wears after an hour or so of repetition--Risk spontaneity).
The vast stone slab which will anchor your meal reflects the restaurant's mood. Monochrome, earnest, occasionally ponderous. If The Elm, that wonderful Williamsburg folie, expresses the personality of chef Paul Liebrandt--fractious, romantic, brilliant--Juni reflects Hergatt's persona no less. Upright, correct, clipped, diligent. Hergatt patrols the dining room in his whites, smiling and checking; Liebrandt looms, mysteriously.
There was a velvety green olive tapenade with bread service, along with good butter. The amuses were within the comfort zone of a good hotel restaurant: a corn "cappuccino" (okay, they call it a custard and foam) which did taste of fresh corn; a carrot tuile with a tiny nugget of goat cheese; and some palate-provoking pickled shimejis.
A glance at the cocktails and wines by the glass is dispiriting. The former are predictably expensive, the latter start in the mid-teens and climb. Although the list offered gives only glass prices, a look inside the full wine list shows glass prices alongside bottle prices. A sparkling wine price of over $30 a flute looks greedy when the bottle is $75--although I suspect the bottle was underpriced. Anyway, it's a place to look for inexpensive bottles, and there are some regional wines in the $40-$50 bracket.
The menu suggests--insists--that Juni is a seasonal, market-driven restaurant. Each description of a savory dish begins with a vegetable, rather than with fish or meat. This is smoke and mirrors; protein is at the center of Hergatt's classical vision. The foie gras is an exception: there's no concealing its central role, surrounded by tart and sweet supplicants, and backed by a little pile of peach tartare. Sadly, the foie gras had only recently been released from the fridge, and was ice-cold.
Thanks goodness for the warm, fluffy, luxurious brioche. I tamed the foie by poking pieces inside to encourage melting.
I was embarked on the 6 course menu option, which permits you to choose from anywhere on the carte ($120), but not from the separate 10 course tasting ($180). This explains some of my selections. Langoustine followed by lobster may be crass, but I didn't want soup or artichoke ravioli at these prices, and I always fear the rectangle of bland, white fish.
The langoustines--sorry, summer squash with incidental langoustines--were not the finest; not as earthily sweet as they can be. But they were good, and the orange reduction supported them neatly. One of my Mouthfuls colleagues--not a fan--accuses Hergatt of serving "pre-cooked, cold, dry, lifeless" food, a result of a career in hotel dining rooms. Harsh, but there are glimmers of truth: in the over-chilled foie gras, and also here, in neatly cut curls of cucumber (courgette?), doubtless prepped in advance, and dry before hitting the plate.
Yes, those would be marigold petals.
The lobster was a worthy representative of its species, but to my taste it was underdone. And I emphasize this is a personal thing: I like lobster either raw--sashimi--or cooked through. I am also scared of green sauces (argh, wheatgrass!), but this was actually a fine one, and the scallop in a soft won ton wrapper was borderline sexy. Cute baby leeks nestled alongside the lobster tail.
I saw no reason not to select two meat dishes. Actually listed as anise hyssop and quinoa dishes, but anyway. The quinoa lurked shyly, as a small slurry, next to several slices of grimaud duck with a rich honey and chai glaze. Yes chai; never mind tea-smoked duck, this works beautifully. Beets were candied and strewn harmlessly about; the jus was scented with hibiscus. The anise hyssop didn't seem such a big deal.
The quinoa was pretty much invisible as a component of the veal dish (there was some, and it was tasty). Two slices of pink tenderloin, and a tumble of unpickled shimejis, and some pickled burdock, garnished with a mizuna leaf or two, formed the canvas on which the kitchen painted a luscious, buttery, foamy truffle sauce which was the highlight of the evening. The aroma fills the room, and the flavor coats the meat lustily. It needed to because the veal tenderloin can be very, very dull.
I'd like to see chef Shaun let his short back-and-sides down and serve that sauce over a rolled, braised veal breast, or a veal cheek (there's a pig's cheek on the 10 course menu).
Strictly interpreted, the 6 course menu might allow you to pick three seafood and three meat courses, but servers are quite insistent at the outset that you really should choose a dessert, so I did. Corn and cheese, to meet my not-so-sweet palate's needs. The corn was caramelized over ice cream, the cheddar arrived as big, crisp chips.
But you're not done, of course, and the kitchen is not done candying beet.
This is a polished, ambitious project, trying earnestly to match old school classicism with the contemporary crush on vegetables, edible flowers, and the four seasons. It's good. It's also expensive: the minumum entry price for food is three courses from the carte for $75, but realistically it's a $200 pp check, with drinks, tax and tip. For which you'll be stuffed.
For the price, you just wish the kitchen could hug the food a little more closely, the service be a little less clinical. To be fair, it's only three weeks in, but as I said--I think this product does express the chef's vision.
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