It's Saturday night, and a perfectly trimmed and tailored waiter, dressed in a crisply pressed white button-up shirt, three-button vest and black slacks floats around the room, gliding in the way carries himself, but mentally buzzing around the spacious dining room with resolve in his coordination and balancing act of the multiple tables he's tending to that night.
The silk-adorned light fixtures, the classic and refined beige and wooden interior design, and the perfectly composed and discerning, yet always obliging waiters dance among the perfectly composed and discerning crowd that come together on this Saturday night to partake in a production of simple and clean cuisine, dining, and service at its very best.
Outside the restaurant, on a fairly low-key stretch of 12th Street, between 5th and 6th Avenues, black town cars and the occasional yellow taxicab wait patiently for their passengers or new customers.
These affectations are considered by some to be pretentious, fastidious. I call it relics of a glorious bygone era. An era I read about in books, see in old movies from the 1940s and 1950s that star dapper men and their elegant female counterparts. Gotham Bar & Grill (12 E. 12th Street) houses the atmosphere you imagine Don Draper and Roger Sterling in, composedly talking new accounts, stodgy clients, and their buxom waitress, while luxuriating in Lucky Strikes and three-martini lunches.
Fast forward to 2009 and Gotham Bar & Grill, as proven to me on a recent visit, still has that elegant, luxurious, and hospitable way about it that has continuously helped it earn high scores for twenty five years (this year it's actually celebrating its 25th anniversary with a $25 prix fixe lunch). It's run by the famed chef Alfred Portale, who has been with Gotham since it opened its doors in Greenwich Village in 1984.
Most of the dishes are sophisticated adaptations of old classics. Since I was in a classic New York restaurant, I decided I had to try a classic: New York Strip. My grilled New York strip steak came with thick vidalia onion rings, marrow mustard, and a rich bordelaise sauce.
While the menu does not necessarily push boundaries in terms of ingredients, the precision and sharpness in how the dishes are prepared are like no other. New York steak is a classic, and Chef Portale and his chef de cuisine (the new entrant, Jason Hall, of Mia Dona fame) abide by the rules to the T (not the T-bone); but they took liberties in ensuring a fun presentation.
Here's a set of pictures of the yummy and beautifully-prepared desserts!:
Decadent and rich chocolate cake to the left, and a grown up version of a cinnamon roll (pastry chef Deborah Racicot's specialty!) to the right- it's getting my blood sugar levels up just looking at it!
Close-up of the cinnamon roll. See, it's the twists they put on something so ordinary and simple that puts this place high on the charts.
Be happy and Carpe Diem!
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