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I sampled five of these restaurants during Winter Restaurant Week (Jan. 31 to Feb. 4) -- Istana at the New York Palace (new and relatively unknown), the Gotham Bar and Grill (sort of new and famous), Aquavit (slightly newer and famous), the Russian Tea Room (old and famous) and Tavern on the Green (very old, and famous enough to secretly replace the fine coffee it normally serves with Folger's instant). The prix fixe menus offered three entrees (with the exception of Gotham, which offered only two) and at least two appetizers and two desserts. Without exception, all the meals offered crazy value.

You've had Prix Fixe Menus, Now try Prix Fixe Wine! - 3 for $21 Also Today Really, I don't hug trees Being a vegan doesn't make you a nut. But it does improve the world, a few animals at a time. By Molly A. Scoles

"Since the first Restaurant Week in 1992, there has been a phenomenal response," says Melanie Young, who has been involved in Restaurant Week since its inception. "People plan trips to the city around this event."

Aquavit's award-winning executive chef, Marcus Samuelsson, says that it's "fun to see people in the restaurant who wouldn't normally eat there." Despite his many awards and honors, Samuelsson's genuine enthusiasm for his diners is obvious. "Any time you can reach out to new people is worthwhile," he says. "It's very tough for people to experience what the restaurant is about when they just have an entree or an appetizer, but a prix fixe [meal] is a great way for diners to have that experience."

In some instances, I suspect that less care was taken with the prix fixe dishes than with the other meals served. Presumably, the Caesar salad at the Gotham Bar and Grill, the third most popular restaurant in the Zagat Survey, doesn't usually contain browning lettuce leaves. And both the seared salmon and the sautéed calf's liver entrees at Tavern on the Green were overdone. But for me, at least, and I suspect for many others, the Tavern experience was more about being there than about the food.

Still, most of the meals were striking in their creativity and in the love of food and color and experimentation they seemed to exemplify. Star-shaped Russian fries and ruby-red pomegranates lay like scattered jewels on the salad plate at the Russian Tea Room. At Istana, the lamb shanks were juicy and perfectly cooked; they contrasted deliciously with the sweet, curried Moroccan carrots. Even something so simple as a breadbasket seemed transformed here, with crisp herb and Parmesan toast and sourdough and olive breads.

At Aquavit, the appetizer, a pure-white, creamy cauliflower soup, featured a perfect grace note: fish roe bobbing atop a crisp fingerling chip in the center of the bowl; the combination was as pleasing to the eye as to the palate. The entree, steamed bass with vegetable confit dumplings and fried bok choy in an orange fennel broth, was a marvelous combination of contrasting tastes and textures.

And the desserts! I sampled all the chocolate offerings from each prix fixe menu. Gotham's chocolate cake was as restrained as its clientele. The fallen chocolate soufflé with cardamom at Istana and the chocolate mousse and fudge cake at Tavern on the Green were large, pretty and satisfying, but my most thrilling encounters were at the Russian Tea Room and Aquavit. In the first case, the chocolate mousse cake with ginger orange tuile hides other chocolate tastes and textures like an edible Russian doll. And in the second case, the chocolate ganache was so good it made me want to bang my head on the table; when you cut into it, a chocolate larva oozes out. It was delicious with the accompanying citrus sorbet. Also served with the ganache is a small bowl of "Manjari" chocolate soup, which consists of layers of dark chocolate and white chocolate and a light sesame froth. Other artful and delicious creations included a creamy fresh-fruit tart from Istana of blackberries, raspberries, mango, strawberries and kiwi in a raspberry and orange coulis and a standard (but tasty) New York cheesecake from Tavern on the Green.

The attentiveness and friendliness of most of the wait staff were exemplary, though our waiter at Tavern on the Green offered us coffee halfway through our entree and tried to remove my friend's plate even after he'd insisted twice that he really was still eating.

Apart from the warm glow of their own beneficence, the participating restaurants hope to win the loyalty of new customers who, having tasted the ambrosia, will now be willing to pay just about anything for more. "And if you can get a good deal," says Aquavit's Samuelsson, "why not?" Summer Restaurant Week 2000 is from June 19 to 23, and if you start drooling now, you might be able to clean up in time to secure reservations.
salon.com | March 30, 2000

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