CMYK Nxxx,2015-8-26,D5,Bs-BW,E1

THE NEW YORK TIMES, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 26, 2015 N D5

RESTAURANTS PETE WELLS At the Top of the Stairs, a Promise Delivered A fabled location gets the Stephen Starr touch. THE CLOCKTOWER ★★ 5 MADISON AVENUE (EAST 24TH STREET), MIDTOWN SOUTH; 212-413-4300; THECLOCKTOWERNYC.COM IF YOU HOPE dinner at the Clocktower will get you a backstage view of the ticking cogs ...... at the top of the former Metropolitan Life Atmosphere A grand office built for insurance Tower, forget it. The restaurant is on the sec- executives, redone in the mode of a private ond floor of the New York Edition hotel, London club. which opened in the skyscraper at the foot Service Very good, though the servers are of Madison Avenue in May. Marriott and Ian asked to perform a distracting amount of table- Schrager, who run the place, brought in the side stage business. restaurateur Stephen Starr to operate the Clocktower. Sound level Moderately loud. To get there, you can take the elevator Recommended Lobster, and apple salad; from the lobby, or you can disappear up scallop and hamachi tartare with seaweed what looks like a big white cocoon into a pesto; pigeon pie; king salmon; Dover sole; tight spiral staircase. Upstairs, burning braised halibut; duck à l’orange; roasted candles in glass lanterns flank the floor of chicken for two; pistachio soufflé; tarte Tatin. the elevator bank. Somebody, maybe you, will notice this too late and kick one over. Drinks and wine The diverse wine list has many “Don’t worry, it happens all the time,” a affordable bottles; cocktails are a mixed bag. host says, not all that reassuringly. She Prices Appetizers and salads, $14 to $23; main leads you past the billiards table uphol- courses, $23 to $54. stered in felt the color of grape jelly and into Open Daily for breakfast, lunch and dinner. the bar, where you rescue a female friend who has been sent there to wait for the rest Reservations Accepted. of your party. She has been there just long Wheelchair access The dining room and acces- enough to stand uncomfortably while every sible restroom are reached by an elevator. man in the room checks her out. The Clocktower plays a familiar game, the private club that has accidentally let What the stars mean Ratings range from zero to four stars and reflect the reviewer’s reaction primarily to you in. There are three small, connected food, with ambience, service and price taken into dining rooms. Yours has a dark green mar- consideration. ble fireplace big enough to roast a goat. Above the wainscoting of book-matched burl and below the wedding-cake crown other stands off to one side holding a tray of moldings, original fixtures ordered up by . He stares into space, no doubt some long-dead insurance executive, hang wondering where on the small table he is framed photographs in black and white, one supposed to put all this stuff. A terrific piece above another, gallery style. They show ce- of smoked thigh that comes with chicken lebrities from the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, breast, nicely roasted with herb stuffing un- dozens and dozens of them. When you ask der the skin, is served in a drawer that about one, a server brings you an explana- slides out of a little box. tory booklet printed on heavy paper stock. Some of this hyperactivity may fall away Your waiter wants to talk about the menu. PHOTOGRAPHS BY DANNY GHITIS FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES as the restaurant matures. Perhaps some- Seafood is listed under Seafood and salads body will also toss out half the bottles at the under Salads. You nod. Orders placed, you bar; a lot of the cocktails have two or three get a small round loaf of bread, cut in quar- more ingredients than they need. ters, steaming. “I.P.A.-rye sourdough with You took a few sips of a cloying pineapple- buttermilk and butter.” The crust shatters rum concoction garnished with glow sticks on impact; the crumb has a prickle of tart- and a temporary tattoo, then ran for the ness. In five minutes, you want another loaf. sanity of the wine list. When the stock mar- When the seafood-under-Seafood ar- ket stops correcting itself, you may splurge rives, you know the bread was a preview of on a $400 Bordeaux; this week calls for a what’s in store. There’s citrus-marinated bottle in the $40 to $60 range. Clocktower shaved fennel, so bright that it tingles, over has scores of them. the chilled lobster salad served in its shell. A Now you want dessert. You want all the sweet king crab leg with cucumber-pickle desserts, in fact, so it’s a good thing you curls and dashi jelly rides high on chipped brought a crowd. The pastry chef, Sébastien ice spread out over a silver pedestal. Cubes Rouxel, has the same solid hold on classic of raw scallop and hamachi are spread over technique and proven flavors that Mr. a chunky pesto that’s surprisingly right. Atherton does. His pistachio soufflé, with a This chef can cook. Who is he, anyway? lump of chocolate-yogurt ice cream His name is Jason Atherton. You’ll read dropped through its roof at the last minute, later that he was raised in an English resort is virtually perfect. You wish he would get town on the North Sea, where his parents the ice crystals out of the ice cream ran a small hotel. That he spent five years that comes with a tarte Tatin, but the sticky where between a sauce and a vegetable. working for Gordon Ramsay. Like Mr. Ram- Lancashire hot pot, a traditional mutton Clockwise from top left: caramelized apples make you unreason- say, he now has restaurants in London and stew that Mr. Atherton makes with rabbit, the billiards room at the You’re even happier with the roasted king ably happy, and while it’s billed as a portion around the world. Unlike Mr. Ramsay, he is to excellent effect. It’s so good that you ig- Clocktower, with its salmon that gets along wonderfully with its for two, it’s easily enough for four. not a magnet for controversy, which may be nore the other, fancier half of the dish, a pas- photographs of celebrities from sauce of and chopped oysters. The table is still jammed, and here come why his landing in New York has been less try-wrapped bullet of spongy rabbit loin decades past; roasted king Of course, there is Dover sole, and you ap- some treats in a vintage McVitie’s biscuit bumpy than his former boss’s. and slightly overcooked foie gras. salmon; chilled lobster salad in preciate the time-honored treatment of tin. You make room because everything in Also, there is very little egotism in Mr. How to describe the rest? It’s festive and the shell; pigeon pie; the brown butter, lemon and capers. You ad- that tin is good, from the crumbly-tender Atherton’s cooking. He seems to have the generous, and it looks exciting. Classic narrow staircase that leads to mire the duck à l’orange, too, the chew of the shortbread to the toffee brittle coated with peculiar idea of cooking to make other peo- sauces and techniques are used, but they the dining rooms. breast pieces, the concentration of the con- dark chocolate and chopped peanuts. ple happy, not to reflect his own glory. don’t feel like old hat. Mr. Atherton’s cook- fit and the way the sauce conveys the fra- The check comes. You do the math, not You’ve heard that he serves contempo- ing is not pretentious, but it has the celebra- grance of oranges without the sweetness. just the tip, but the more subtle calculation rary English food at the Clocktower. It does- tory elegance that traditional hotel dining These sauces are spooned or poured of whether this is a fair deal. The Dover sole n’t taste much like England to you. There rooms promise to deliver and rarely do. when the dish is served, a formal gesture was more than $50, but it always is. Other are exceptions, like the suave and gentle A beurre blanc, taking its gentle heat and that the Clocktower pulls off without stuffi- main courses were in the $20s, which is rare berrylike flavor from pink peppercorns, is ness. Maybe the stage business ought to in this style of restaurant. And there were EMAIL: [email protected]. And follow genuinely exciting over gleaming braised stop there, you think. While one server great little surprises all through the meal. Pete Wells on Twitter: @pete_wells. halibut; so is the carrot purée that’s some- points out each variety of raw oyster, an- You sign your name. You’ll be back.

HUNGRY CITY LIGAYA MISHAN Takeout Georgian Food Worth Staying For At Toné-Café, the feast and the fun can spread quickly.

IN GEORGIAN, SUPRA is the word for both a feast and the tablecloth that vanishes under it, every inch colonized by dishes that only increase in number, hour after hour. (A proper supra may last three days.) At Toné-Café, which opened in April near Gramercy Park, there are no tablecloths, nor tables to put them on. Diners comman- deer a few stools at a counter barely deep enough to hold a single dish. Food comes quickly, on paper plates or encased in plas- tic tubs, originally destined for takeout. Nevertheless, it is a feast. In those tubs are chakapuli, knobs of veal long simmered in white wine under a lily-pad-like canopy of PHOTOGRAPHS BY EMON HASSAN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES , with a bittersweet tang from tke- mali (sour plums); chabostnili, a loose alli- you flip a shot glass: a show of strength. ance of eggplant, tomatoes and sweet pep- Mr. Harias studied breadmaking on Nep- pers, each fried separately to maintain its tune Avenue as well, under Lasha identity, with common threads of Janashvili, a baker from Dusheti in the and ; and chahohbili, chicken in a mountains north of Tbilisi. The tone (toe- tomato ragù dusky with khmeli-suneli, a NAY) from which the restaurant takes its blend that lends the warming con- TONÉ-CAFÉ name is an imposing circular clay oven akin tours of Indian curry without the chile sting. to an Indian tandoor, with loaves of flat- 134 EAST 17TH STREET (THIRD AVENUE), bread clinging to its curves. This is slow food recast as fast food. Toné- GRAMERCY PARK; 212-882-1199; TONE-CAFE.COM Café is primarily a takeout spot, an offshoot Sadly, the Manhattan branch must make of a restaurant of the same name on Nep- ...... Top left, Toné-Café opened in do with a convection oven (building code). tune Avenue in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, Recommended Adjaruli khachapuri; chabostnili April near Gramercy Park. Top Perhaps as a result, elongated apostrophes whose owners hope to make Georgian cui- (eggplant salad); bazhe (chicken in walnut right, diners at a counter. of shotiko have merely the charm of re- sine more accessible to those outside the sauce); chakapuli (veal with tarragon and sour Above, chakapuli, veal spectable baguettes. Khachapuri, however, neighborhood. plums); lamb khinkali (dumplings). simmered in white wine under is wonderfully rich, with milk and eggs in No dish exceeds $10. For sale by the regis- a canopy of tarragon, with a the dough and a livid magma of mozzarella Drinks and wine No alcohol; Borjomi mineral bittersweet tang from tkemali and feta inside, approximating stretchy ter are jars of pickled walnuts and tkemali; water and Natakhtari tarragon lemonade. the soda case is stocked with Natakhtari (sour plums). Left, pastries. Georgian sulguni cheese with its belated tarragon lemonade and Borjomi mineral Prices $3.50 to $7.80. smack of brine. Penovani khachapuri is and bazhe, a near soup of crushed walnuts flaky and shining, practically sweating water, with its tickle of , from springs in Open Daily for breakfast, lunch and dinner. and powdered marigold with pervad- central Georgia. There are pastries, too, in- cheese from its vellum-like leaves. Reservations Not accepted. ing every pore. The latter is meant to be eat- Greatest of all is adjaruli khachapuri, the filtrated by walnuts and so uniformly dry in en cold, but its chill went too deep, as if it Wheelchair access The entrance is the same ends drawn thin and the climax at the cen- texture that it would seem a preference. hadn’t had time to adjust to life outside the level as the sidewalk; the restroom is narrow ter: a bulge of farmers’ cheese and butter The chef, Fernando Harias, is an immi- refrigerator. Still, it was delicious. grant from Mexico who has spent the last and does not have a handrail. nearly frothing over. A just-cracked egg His khinkali, leviathans in the world of sinks into the mass, its yolk unmoored like a decade cooking at Georgian restaurants dumplings, are classically slouchy and fur- from Kings Highway, Brooklyn, to Green- fallen sun. recipes of Vakho Gojiashvili, the Caucasus- rowed like brows. Inside, the meat (pork or, “Baby adjaruli,” Mr. Samalaidze said af- wich Village. (“He speaks Georgian,” said better, lamb) is febrile, a hot gush of black Kakha Samalaidze, the general manager. “A born chef, across the river. fectionately. It is a scaled-down version of Mr. Harias acquits himself well with es- pepper, onions and fenugreek. Nip off a cor- its grandly sprawling Brooklyn counter- little.”) Mr. Harias spent time in the kitchen ner and drink the broth, then eat it up to the at the first Toné-Café and brought the sentials like adjika, a bright kindling of parts, but make no mistake. It looks as if you chiles for anointing mtsvadi (grilled meat), topknot. This you toss on the plate, the way could eat it all, and still it will defeat you.