5/28/2009

Excess

I think Michael White of new hype machine restaurant Marea ought to be a little embarrased to be selling four morels stuffed with shrimp for $21 as an antipasto. Come on.
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6 comments:

PG said...

We went to Marea on Saturday for dinner with my parents. The restaurant is running a 20% off deal because the menu is in "previews." It's a very nice space, and they certainly have lots of staff, the bartenders did a good job on the drinks (although as often happens I had to drop a hint about how to make a Godfather), and everyone liked their meal.

The current menu is different from the one shown on Eater and even on their own website. I know for certain that they had a vegetarian risotto option, because I stupidly went there on a day that my mother doesn't eat meat for religious reasons. And oops, the menu we got didn't say the eggplant item under fritti had shrimp in it (oh well, what Mom does't know won't hurt her).

However, there was some skepticism that it would survive this recession. T said it was good, but not good enough to justify the prices; he thought the grilled branzino he had the next night at Kefi was just as good as his fish entree at Marea, and at half the price. Then again, at Marea we could have a quiet conversation among the whole table, whereas at Kefi we were in the basement and had to shout be heard even by the person next to us.

May 29, 2009 at 8:08 AM
Raffi said...

Have you been to Le Benardin, PG? People are talking about Marea as as a possible Italian inflected version, but from the pics I've seen and the discussion around the blogs, I think it clearly falls short.

As for the prices, it appears that to be full, you need to spend $100 a person there. That's high flying territory in this recession, and you had better be offering value.

May 29, 2009 at 8:47 AM
PG said...

Hmm -- they do a good bread service (rosemary bread NOM NOM NOM), so we each got one fritti or crudo, and one composed dish (except Mom, who got a pasta plus asparagus side), which put the pre-tax and tip per person at more like $65 for food, even without the 20% discount. I think my parents and I were satisfied with that amount of food -- not waddling out the door full, but not needing to eat an additional meal. Although I did have a Buttercup red velvet just before bed, and also my family is under 5'4 and small framed. The Tall at the table got hungry later that night and had a burrito.

So maybe by NYC fine dining standards it'll be OK in the equation of price= service + food, but I wasn't particularly impressed. I got the chickpea fritter appetizer and it was tasty but like something my grandmother could make. (She's really good with chickpeas and a fryer.) Also the food frequently had too much sea salt -- salt on the rosemary bread, visible lines of salt on the asparagus. And it was an older crowd there, so really, should watch the blood pressure.

I've been to Le Benardin twice, once in 2004 with my parents for a pre-theater dinner, and then a couple years ago for a summer associate lunch. Le Bernardin is much fancier for dinner than Marea is; LB reminded me of going to Le Cinq in Paris, although at least no one brought out a footstool for my purse. When I went to LB with my parents, we'd gone to Grocery the night before and they really preferred Grocery. Also we may not have been fair, since we were in a hurry to make sure we got to the theater on time. I liked LB much better when I went for lunch as a summer. But yeah, Marea is not playing at the level of "I should be wearing a suit or a nice dress to eat here" of LB, and I don't remember LB having any obvious mistakes like over-salting in its food either time I went.

Then again, new restaurant and all that. If it survives to the next time I want a nice restaurant in easy walking distance, I might give it another try.

May 29, 2009 at 10:37 AM
Raffi said...

Thanks for the thoughts, PG. But what you ate was pretty darned minimal - you can almost spend that little in Per Se's salon if you're going to eat fairly frugally(almost). I did a quick back of the envelope of what I would eat for a big meal out (note - I eat out at very ambitious restaurants rarely but have blow-outs when I do) and it comes easily to 120 or so. That's not outrageous, but indicates to me that it's purporting to play in the Corton, EMP, Le Bernardin kind of world.

May 29, 2009 at 11:30 AM
Sarah said...

Oh, they have the purse-footstool at LB now. The only other place I've seen that is Taillevent, but then I rarely go to the most formal of restaurants.

May 29, 2009 at 8:12 PM
PG said...

I don't remember getting the purse footstool at Taillevent, but I think we went there for lunch, which may have been less formal. (My dinner at Le Cinq and lunch at Taillevent were in June 2004, so practices may have changed since then.) It was just particularly ludicrous to have a purse-footstool then because the only purse I'd brought on that trip was a $10 Old Navy bag that I'd already carried every day for two years and was pretty beat up.

June 1, 2009 at 9:18 AM

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