Adour

As I write this, car horns are blaring outside celebrating the Giants Superbowl upset of the Patriot's bid for a perfect year right where it really counted. While the Giants were working their magic, I was experiencing magic of the culinary kind, dining at Alain Ducasse's new restaurant, Adour.

Adour finally returns life to the sad emptiness left by the closing of one my all time favorite restaurants, Lespinasse, in April of 2003. One can hardly believe that it has been almost four years since the landmarked space inside the opulent St. Regis hotel was vacated, and one of the most venerable old guard French restaurants in New York disappeared forever.

Ducasse's new restaurant is the third outing for the famous chef in New York City, having first created Alain Ducasse at the Essex house, which was crucified by the critcs at the time, and then created the short lived Mix in the space next to the Paris cinema near Bergdorf's. The Essex house restaurant was criticized deeply, but many critically acclaimed restaurants sprung up in New York in its wake quietly adopting many of the standards that the Essex House established, from the obsessive service, to what was at the time called an astronomic pricing structure. Although I enjoyed several meals at Ducasse's Essex House outpost (and even paid for at least one), I can say that the experience at Adour outshines the others.

Perhaps the greatest issue with the Essex House incarnation of Ducasse's restaurant that its detractors had, was that it brought a bit of France to America, largely without interpretation. Having traveled to France and enjoyed many meals in various haute cuisine restaurants, Essex House was just as good in both service and food. However, it seems that all of the refinements enjoyed (and expected) by Europeans at fine dining establishments felt stuffy and unnatural for Americans who were confused by the plethora of cutlery, and felt the excellent service to be overbearing and stuffy.

This time around, Alain Ducasse has a very different tact, and it is noticeable even before you get to the restaurant. Open less than a week, the highly anticipated restaurant was, not surprisingly, "fully booked" when we asked earlier today as we passed by the restaurant. I called again later in the afternoon, and also not surprisingly, they had an opening at 5.30 (as most restaurants in New York do, despite being "fully booked"). Inquiring about whether a jacket and tie was required, I was informed "elegant casual" was all that was required, which would have been shocking at Essex House. I went to the restaurant dressed in Earnest Sewn baby corduroy jeans and a casual shirt, and no one even blinked. Admittedly, as more people came, it was apparent that we were the most casual couple dining there, the rest undoubtedly assuming the dress code was still formal given that this was an Alain Ducasse adventure.

As I mentioned, the space that Adour occupies is an interior landmark. Rather than take the approach that Adam Tihany took with Le Cirque 2000 at the Palace Hotel, where very modern pieces added to the space, David Rockwell's approach to the landmark is to install dark woood that is spaced away from the walls, and then have glass panels that reach up above for the top quarter of the room. The panels have texture to them and are printed with a floral pattern. Behind the glass, the beautiful space that was Lespinasse can be clearly seen. The effect is that of a clean and modern space that ties in the past without disrespecting it or clashing with it. It is at once elegant, and modern while reinterpreting the space and adding to it. The open central dining space encourages a relaxed feeling that is inline with the elegant casual stance that the restaurant takes.

The menu itself is also more casual. The tasting menu is a reasonable $110, and in speaking with our server, they expect patrons to be spending about $150 per person at the restaurant. Since my mother did not want to have a full tasting menu, which is available only to the whole table, we ordered a la carte. With a glass of wine shared between us, each having an appetizer, a main course, sharing a cheese plate, and having a single dessert, we spent about $145 per person including tea, coffee and tip. All in all, reasonable for this kind of restaurant.

The appetizers ranged from $17 to $29, with most in the above $20 range. This does not, of course account for such things as a $22 black truffle supplement for one appetizer, or the market priced of caviar. Main courses ranged from $32 to $49, with a slight majority of dishes below the $40 mark. The cheese plate was $22 and desserts were $16 each.

Our meal started with a bottle of San Pellegrino, and an amuse bouche from the chef that was a small puff pastry filled with Bechamel and comte cheese that was delightful. A server came by and offered us a selection of breads: a small baguette, an olive bread, and a whole wheat sourdough. This was served with an olive butter, and was changed to a regular butter after the first course.

The restaurant is very focused on wine: The menu starts with a declaration that its food to be enjoyed with wine, and many of the bottles are on display in integrated wine cabinets that are part of the main decor of the restaurant. We later learned from the sommelier that there are over 600 wines offered. I told the sommelier that I would like a glass of wine, whereupon he began to describe the wine program at Adour in a speech that took a few good minutes, and was a little over much for my tastes. His quick speech pattern, combined with a heavy French also did not help my ability to concentrate on what he was saying. I really just wanted to get my hands on the wine list and explore on my own but that was not to be.

Among the things that the sommelier said that I did catch was that there was a decanter program at Adour, which they wanted people to try. The rationale was that half bottles do not age as well as wine in full bottles, and imperials. So, the restaurant decants quality wines from imperials and full bottles and offers patrons the chance to taste wines that would otherwise be too much for them to finish, or simply too expensive at full bottle size. During our meal, one of the other tables in the restaurant inquired what was an imperial, and a diminutive waitress brought over a bottle that was about three quarters as tall as she was, almost struggling with both her hands on the bottom of the bottle.

When I did get was also a rather generous by the glass selection that was organized by variety (sparkling, red, white, sweet and dessert) and then into sections labeled Explore, American, Classic, and Treat The Explore section consisted of wines from regions that are lesser known in America, such as Spain and South America. The Classic section, consisted mostly of French wines, and the Treat section offered one or two exceptional wines. I ordered a glass of white wine from the Treat section (the 2006 Lys de Volan from Condrieu), despite a main course of venison, knowing that I would be sharing with my mother, and that the majority of our meal would go well with it.

My mother had the Foie Gras and Tapioca Ravioli in a sunchoke broth, bypassing the $22 black truffle supplement. The dish came in a deep bowl, with plump ravioli whose skin was thin enough to hint at the contents inside. There was an foamy emulsion on half the plate, and it was completed with a pour of the sunchoke broth. The taste and texture of the ravioli was good, but there did not seem to be that much gained from the addition of the tapioca. In fact, I was surprised that the taste of the dish was somewhat on the bland side.

That was definitely not the case with my appetizer, the sweetbreads. The sliced sweetbreads lay on a plate along with vegetables cut into perfect triangles, black trumpet mushrooms, shiitake mushrooms and a purse-like poached egg in the center. The dish was completed with the pour of a mouth watering, glossy sauce. The egg was perfectly poached, I dare say one of the most perfectly poached eggs that I have ever experienced. The consistency of the yolk was beyond compare -- creamy, yet neither liquid or even close to solid it was an exemplar of the kitchen's skill. Perhaps the best description is that it had the consistency of a Cadbury Cream Egg's consistency, and the beautiful golden flavor of yolk that paired so well with the rest of the dish. The sweetbreads were cooked to perfection, their gently crisp exteriors giving way to a flavorful interior whose texture and taste were only heightened by the sauce. Each mouthful was a joy of taste, and texture.

Having a lighter appetite, my mother opted for the diver scallops with salsify as a main course, which came with pressed tomatoes. The dish was rich in flavor and not at all heavy with large scallops that tasted wonderfully fresh. For myself, I had the venison loin. In a witty twist, on of the medallions was made to look like a chop with a perfectly cleaned, almost bleached bone sticking out of it. The dish was accompanied with some rutabaga, radish and turnips, each obsessively crafted to be a small universe of flavor.

At $22, the cheese plate was expensive, but it was also quite generous. Adour opts for simplicity here in that they have done away with the cheese cart, and provides the patron with a plate of four cheeses. I assume that this choice was made because American diners find choosing which cheese to have to be daunting, and the large selection of cheese at Essex House was probably overwhelming. The cheese plate, served with a half of a fig that has been marinated in wine, some microgreens, and some wonderfully crispy toasted country bread, consisted of a creamy goats milk from Piedmont called Brunet, a English clothbound style cheddar cheese from Vermont called Cabot Cheddar, a from Provence and a Piedmontese blue cheese called Blue del Moncesio. I found all of them to be excellent.

The Brunet was a wonderful start -- creamy and mild. The award winning Cabot Cheddar, of which, the diner is carefully educated, only three wheels are made every 12 months, was complex and nutty and really changed my view of cheddar. The Tomme de Berger was creamy, strong tasting and bold with a rind that was wonderfully sandy textured. The finish was the Blue del Moncesio which was a milder blue than I expected and was also excellent. I found out that the cheeses are all supplied by Murray's Cheese shop in the village, a fine purveyor that is on my regular resource list.

The dessert, an interesting interpretation of a vacherin, was a tropical fruit flavored delight. The bowl was layered with a lime gelatin on the bottom, then a layer of mango marmalade, a scoop of passion fruit ice cream, a scoop of coconut ice cream, all topped with a passion fruit emulsion and three crispy coconut meringues.

The very generous petit fours consisted of 10 macaroons (strawberry and chocolate), and three chocolate confections each: a passion fruit center with a white, dark and milk chocolate shell, a triangle with a hazelnut filling, and a dark chocolate.

We were offered tea, or coffee in French press. I opted for a plain cappuccino. There was a good selection of tea, from which my mother had the Gyokuro Asahi Green tea. There was also Jasmine Pearl from China and Osmanthus Oolong from Taiwan. My mother's tea was incredibly fragrant, finishing off a spectacular meal with a relaxing scent. I will assuredly be back to this wonderful experience!