New York Minute

From the outside, Bar Americain looks like the storefront of an abandoned Sibley's department store, and from the inside, like every winner of the Miss America pageant over the past twenty years: pretty, but only generically and broadly so, calculated to be satisfying to the largest possible swath of the population without being particularly memorable at all. As a restaurant, it is both more and less offensive than other Bobby Flay products. It's certainly less offensive than any of his TV shows, because you don't actually have to see him being Bobby-Flay-the-character or watch him do terrible things to otherwise harmless ingredients or even hear his voice.  It's less offensive than his cookbooks, because the food described on the menu bears some final resemblance to the food that arrives at the table. And though, over the years, I've given Señor Flay a dump truck's worth of shit for his soi-disant and occasionally just plain scary take on American barbecue and Southwestern cuisine, I've backed off that stance recently because the more famous he's gotten, the better he's gotten — as a chef, anyway.

Weird, I know. But because of this, I'd been excited to see what he — by which I mean his cooks — was capable of doing with what was supposed to be a menu of straight American regional/comfort cuisine. In particular, I was interested in one cook: Rebecca Weitzman, who last fall left her post as exec at Denver's Cafe Star (where she won every praise and award I could reasonably give her) to go back to New York and to Bobby, who gave her her start many years ago.

Did I go to New York just to check on Weitzman? No. I wish I had the budget for that kind of thing. But I was in Manhattan on business first, to see my buddy East Coast Dave second, and to snoop on Weitzman third. In the interest of efficiency, I combined all of that into one meal at Americain. I wish I could say it was one great meal, but it wasn't. And here's why.

First, the staff at the hostess stand seemed completely flummoxed by the necessary interaction among host, guest, computer, menus and seating chart. I don't know what kind of brain-lock they got stuck in, but Laura and I were left standing at the door, being repeatedly pestered to give up our coats, while three women and one man consulted this, debated that, poked impotently at a computer touchscreen and generally looked like a bunch of monkeys trying to work a vending machine. It's something I could've forgiven in a new restaurant, but Bar Americain ain't exactly spanking. Once that complication worked itself out, we were shown to our table — a nice banquette against the wall — were dealt menus and wine lists, and had our drink orders taken. I'd forgotten how rare a bottle of Corona is in New York, so I ended up drinking IPA, which I hate. Fortunately, East Coast Dave soon arrived, and we got down to the serious business of eating.

Bar Americain's menu includes an artisanal-ham tasting appetizer that I, as a devotee of the pork, immediately ordered — expecting, at the very least, a nice fanned spread of prosciutto, maybe a little lomo, some serrano. What I expected was something similar to the butcher's plates at Osteria Marco (see review, page 37). But as it turned out, I should've ordered six of the tasting plates, because what came from the kitchen was this tiny embarrassment of an amuse: three twists of pig, each mounted on something, topped with something, sauced with something else, every one of them forgettable even though the waiter mumbled some kind of description for each. I remember that cilantro was involved somehow, maybe basil oil. The plate was gone in less time than it took to listen to it described.

There was a smoked chicken pot pie that, in both concept and composition, reminded me of the lobster pot pie Weitzman used to cook at Cafe Star: smooth and rich, elegant and rustic at the same time. There was a butterfish, glazed in sour orange and sided by Brussels sprouts, hazelnuts and pomegranate, that was lovely in its simplicity and the purity of its flavors. And then there was the plate of shrimp and grits, one of my favorite things in the world when done well — and here it was done extraordinarily well. The grits were creamy, with just a touch of stiffness, the shrimp poached deliciously and redolent of garlic, the whole dish speckled with lardons so perfectly cooked they were almost candied.

This Americain menu has a decidedly American regional slant — a reaching toward the gentrification of soul food and roadhouse food that could come off as admirable in the hands of a good chef or horrifying if twisted by the brain of a bad one. Credit to Flay for pulling off the former (provided you ignore the high prices and raw-bar menu) and credit to Weitzman for bringing all of the soul and passion to 52nd Street that she once displayed on Colfax Avenue. And ultimately, the best thing I can say about our meal at Bar Americain is that it reminded me of the meals I can no longer get at Cafe Star.