All The Dish. - Ian Schrager's boutique hotels, Todd English's Olives restaurant, - Review - restaurant review

Interview, June, 2001 by Brad Goldfarb

WHEN EATING OUT MEANS EATING INN

Forget graffiti, potholes and the impossibility of ever finding a cab in New York City--Manhattan has re-created itself, replacing previous signatures with a new one: "boutique hotel." Who would have imagined that when Ian Schrager opened his Morgans Hotel in 1985 he'd be providing a blueprint for the sort of seductive, one-of-a-kind environments that 15 years later would blanket the city, something that felt 21st-century long before anything else? But Schrager's innovations didn't end with sleek, modern settings, black-clad studs manning the doors and the merging of a nightclub sensibility with a spa's eye on indulgence--he, like so many after him, understood that creating the perfect space might get them in the door, but creating a perfect scene was what would keep them there. And so the New York version of the boutique hotel restaurant was born, places that could be counted on for great drinks, food that isn't meant to be taken too seriously and the kind of crowd that looks just as good next to a red velve t rope as they do sprawled across an oversized restaurant booth. It's a recipe that's provided the city with some of its most popular canteens--places like 44 (in the Royalton Hotel) initially, then Asia de Cuba (at Morgans) and Mercer Kitchen (in the Mercer Hotel). With a slew of (night)clubby new hotel restaurants either just opened or about to, it's a list that's only getting longer. Advance buzz on the soon-to-open Thorn in 60 Thompson is strong--together with the four new arrivals reviewed below it promises to keep Manhattan's hotels anything but sleeping.

TODD ENGLISH'S OLIVES NY

W Union Square Hotel, 201 Park Ave. South; 212-353-8345

In its steady quest to overtake Manhattan, the W hotel chain's fourth and most impressive beachhead has brought out the heavy artillery: the first New York City outpost for Todd English's famed Olives restaurant (the original opened in Boston in 1989). English--with three cookbooks, two flourishing chains and business deals with golfer Greg Norman as well as the Long John Silver seafood chain to his name--is clearly someone who knows a thing or two about world domination. It's not surprising then that his cooking, typically described as "interpretive" Mediterranean, knows how to pack a punch. Whether it's bay scallops with bacon and brussels sprouts, a jumbo chicken wing stuffed with foie gras, a wood-grilled bass over horseradish mashed potatoes, or any of his exceptional pastas (don't miss the black olive dumplings stuffed with goat cheese), English's hearty, ingredient-driven cooking is the kind that comes on strong and makes a lasting impression. It's a style of food that's won him a devoted following, so be warned--scoring a table here requires patience, both with the reservationist and on the day or night in question, when happy diners are often unwilling to pull themselves away from their table, and hungry ones create a bottleneck at the hostess stand. Though less appealing, the restaurant's decor--a kind of urban garden created by the suddenly ubiquitous David Rockwell, and featuring topiaries, light fixtures in the shape of daisies and velvet curtains the color of moss--is somehow a fitting match for English's earthy, bountiful cooking. In short, a modern-day version of the Garden of Earthly Delights.

HUDSON CAFETERIA

Hudson Hotel, 356 West 58th Street; 212-554-6500

When a restaurant gets as many harsh reviews as Ian Schrager's Hudson Cafeteria did in the early weeks after opening, it stands to reason that business will suffer. Not, apparently, when the project combines the magic name Schrager with those of designer Philippe Starck and chef Jeffrey Chodorow--the dream team responsible for that ultimate success story Asia de Cuba. Though for a while no one had anything positive to say about the food at this latest venture, no one seems to have cared much either, or to have stayed away. Maybe it's due to Starck's ingenious post-modern-cum-Adirondack design for the Hudson Hotel, the restaurant's home, or to the undeniable appeal of its dining room, with its exposed brick walls, oversized wood cupboards revealing a well-stocked larder, long rectory tables at which diners sit communal-style and an open hearth in the center of the room--in short, a fantasy version of the prep school or university dining experience. In keeping with this setting, the menu presents a kind of inte rnational comfort-food greatest hits--there's macaroni and cheese (at Hudson Prep you can get it plain, or with add-ons ranging from foie gras to grilled shrimp), turkey meatloaf and beef stew, of course, but also (slightly more) worldly Sunday night specials such as Cuban roast pork or "classic chop suey." True, the food can be uneven, veering between over-seasoned (the fried oysters, the tuna tartare) and overcooked (the Cuban pork), but it's tasty and fun and can, at times, surprise as well (the exceptional grilled tuna). And with the recent tweaking of the restaurant's offerings and its management (at press time a spring menu along with a new executive chef were announced), the Hudson seems committed to restoring any fallen smiles, in the unlikely event that its end-of-term party atmosphere (or its banana cream pie) may have already failed to do so.