81 lines
4.2 KiB
Text
81 lines
4.2 KiB
Text
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The upscale food court in the Time Warner Center can be derided for
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many reasons, but a lack of clear marking is not among them. From the
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moment you walk into the center, no matter which entrance you use, you
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encounter signs pointing the way to the preciously termed "restaurant
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and bar collection" a few stories up.
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But during a lunchtime visit to one of the restaurants last fall I
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encountered a well-dressed gentleman, perhaps in his early 60's, who
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paced before the elevators on the ground level. In a confused voice he
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asked me the location of the restaurant Per Se, where he had a coveted
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reservation.
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"The fourth floor," I said. He stared at me quizzically. I gestured to
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one of those signs. I repeated my answer. Finally he climbed aboard an
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elevator with me. But I could tell that he still had doubts. He seemed
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unable to believe that one of Manhattan's most ambitious new
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restaurants was high above the street in a corner of a shopping mall.
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In fact four of Manhattan's most ambitious new restaurants are in this
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"vertical retail environment," as its promoters prefer to call
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it. Their eagerness to euphemize underscores the boldness of their
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experiment: asking New York diners to consider elevators, escalators
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and bright indoor lighting appropriate visual preludes to extremely
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expensive dinners.
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Nearly a year since the center opened it is still too soon to tell
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whether that experiment will literally pay off. But those restaurants
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- Per Se, Masa and V Steakhouse on the fourth floor and Caf<61> Gray on
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the third - have been operating long enough for answers to other
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questions. How crucially is fine dining affected by an unusual
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physical context? What is it like to cross yards of gleaming marble
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and brave the glaring seductions of Samsung and Sephora on the way to
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and from an appointment with foie gras?
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It is usually disconcerting. It is sometimes disorienting. Alongside
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the restaurants on the fourth floor is a bar, the Stone Rose, whose
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music echoes up and down the hall, trapped under the same roof. I left
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Masa one night and felt my post-toro tranquility shatter under the
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oppressive beat and incongruous lyrics of "Hungry Like the Wolf." I
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was irritated like the coyote.
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But an hour and then a day later I did not remember Masa less fondly
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or long to return less ardently. The layout and gestalt of the Time
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Warner Center were annoyances, but they were ignorable. The center
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proves that restaurants transcend their trappings, a truth that was
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often overlooked as culinary connoisseurs fretted about celebrated
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chefs like Thomas Keller and Jean-Georges Vongerichten setting up
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kitchens in the kind of structure that often bestrides a highway
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access road.
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For New Yorkers the center is a jarring development but also a
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positive one. Without it Mr. Keller, the head chef of Per Se, might
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not have set up a kitchen here at all. Because the center is a
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mixed-use development in which the restaurants lend cachet to the
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residences and office space, Mr. Keller could be offered an economic
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safety net, a deal that insulated him from financial failure.
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Mr. Vongerichten, the supervising chef of V Steakhouse, benefited from
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a similar arrangement, and the aggregate glitter of these two helped
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to lure Masayoshi Takayama, the chef at Masa, and Gray Kunz of Caf<61>
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Gray. The four restaurants that they guide - plus a fifth, under the
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stewardship of the chef Charlie Trotter, to come sometime over the
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next year - probably wouldn't exist without their atypical commercial
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cradle.
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Would they be more appealing at street level, with sidewalks in front
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and portals that admitted natural light? In most ways, yes. Their odd
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situations yield unsettling effects. After hours in the dimly lighted
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fantasy of Per Se, a diner is thrust not into moonbeams and fresh air
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but into the harshly illuminated, stale reality of the rest of the
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center. A cold slap punctuates a warm hug.
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Or sometimes the rest of the center is thrust upon a diner. One night
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I watched a woman and her two teenage daughters, all three dressed in
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white Capri pants and brightly colored T-shirts, march straight into
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Masa and then into Per Se, just to have a look. Understandably they
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treated the exclusive restaurants on the fourth floor the way they had
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treated stores on the lower three, as crannies of a mall that invited
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exploration.
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