PrintUWS restaurants - which?
list of restaurants on the UWS that go to regularly - pros & cons:
part of steve hansen's empire: isabella's, ruby foo's, ocean - cookie cutter, but reliable (?);
dock's - decent; shun lee - 1 of nyc's best chinese!
french: café du soleil - can't make up my mind whether like or not;
café des artistes - overpriced, but still enjoyable;
alouette??; metisse - have to try?
by all means, not a complete list, but for me, the UWS is STILL a wasteland, seems like all the good fun restaurants are below 14th, or the "hated" e. side :) :
café luxembourg - overpriced, bad service, mediocre food, owner just uses as cash cow - just WHY do people still go????????? & go, they do!!!!???
nice matin - ridiculous layout, another faux-french, just what the UWS needs; same with
bistro cassis/citron: another brazilian-owned, faux-french themed. owner lives in great neck & has multiple-themed restaurants, ex. mexican, italian, etc.... just open - "they will come" theory!
left off many others due to another posting, ex. celeste, etc ... as well as the huge number of places that all seem as "1 & the same", i.e., those on amsterdam bet 78th - 88th......
look forward to additions, subtractions, observations, criticisms, critiques, etc....
also, still looking for COQ AU VIN recs - since this site does NOT "jump" topics to the top when receive more recent comments, they are left to die a slow death, forgotten & lost within the postings - reminding those that are reading this of that earlier topic - maybe someone at "serious eats" is reading????????????
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10 Comments:
Hi Baruch: I'm not on the UWS, so won't go into the restaurant discussion. Just wanted to let you know that we're working on the way talk appears and are addressing your concern! Thanks for bringing it to our attention.
Adam Kuban at 5:43PM on 12/09/06
UWS a wasteland??
Telepan - probably the best addition to the UWS ver
Picholine - the recent incarnation has garnered good reveiws.
What about 'Cesca? I've had very good meals here and think they have a very good wine list.
And I think Aix can be exceptional at times.
Not to mention those restaurants hiding out in that shopping mall on Columbus Circle!
Livetotravel at 1:50PM on 12/10/06
was not impressed with the 3 meals at Telepan - mediocre wine list with many off-yrs, but the presentation fools many not as familiar.
picholine - somewhat good reviews, but on a quality:price ratio, i'll pass, in favor of jean georges.
'cesca - if u like overpriced Italian wines... food not memorable.
aix! - surprise - chef/owner(??) has moved on - food tastes as if it also has.
col circle - well, if u eat regularly at per se, masa, café gray - more power to u!
yes, "virginia", the uws IS a food wasteland :)
baruch at 3:07PM on 12/10/06
Downtowners love to make fun of restaurants on the UWS. But there are plenty of good places to eat. Some were mentioned above but the list should also include Gennaro for extremely good unpretentious Italian, Ouest and lots of cheap ethnic places. I don't think it is fair to include the Lincoln Center area restaurants which are bastions of mediocrity as most of the diners there are just on their way to see an opera and are not locals. For a range of reasons (mostly due to the cost of real estate), there are not as many high end restaurants on the Upper West Side as there are downtown. But the percentage of good restaurants out of the population is not embarassing and not a wasteland.
Nymarkus at 12:27PM on 12/11/06
actually, i live on the UWS!! don't "IF" u live on the UWS, generally described as being bound by: 96th north, 59thish to the south, cpw to the river. GENNARO'S receives very mixed opinions & since the expansion, the food is not considered as good as it was originally, i guess that is open to interpretation by the diner. OUEST, also seems to garner mixed opinion; therefore, also falls under personal interpretation. i, for one, am UNDERwhelmed. agree with u re: Linc. Ctr, but this area also includes PICHOLINE & FIORELLA'S...........
odd u use the cost of real estate as a reason???!!! would that not apply to every other neighborhood that does have "good" high-end restaurants??
that is clearly NOT the reason. while "maybe" NOT embaressing, it certainly still qualifies the UWS as a WASTELAND :)
baruch at 1:35PM on 12/11/06
Baruch: Are there any good coffee/espresso bars on the UWS?
djacobs at 6:04PM on 12/11/06
basically, NO
baruch at 9:39PM on 12/11/06
addendum: not sure if café mozart qualifies as an "expresso bar"
baruch at 2:35PM on 12/12/06
baruch, Have you been to Compass since Chef John Fraser took over the kitchen? While it's become known for the succession of chefs it has had since it opened, we've had very good meals there during just about every tenure, and Chef Fraser's cuisine is, in my view, some of the best yet. (We missed the extremely short-lived "steakhouse" stage, and I was somewhat disappointed with Katy Sparks, but she was there and gone so quickly that I don't think her heart was really in it.)
RGR at 11:05PM on 12/13/06
I have found very few restaurants in NYC that I can go to and find consistently good food and good service. The restaurants you guys are mentioning are all quite expensive in my opinion, so let me throw out some restaurants that I love and am never disappointed by, and they are all on the upper westside, however, not limited to 96th street I live at 121st so I include up to 125th on the upper westside. With that being said, how about "A" which is french carribean at 106th and Columbus some of the finest food I've ever tasted, sure the atmosphere is way down there, but that adds to the charm, as does the byob policy. How about Silk Road Palace chinese food at 82nd and Amsterdam, it offers unlimited White (trashy, but good enough) wine to customers. Then there's Dinosaur BBQ at 130th, some of the best bbq I've ever had. Pisticci is excellent Italian at La Salle (123rd) and Broadway. Cafe Lalo is excellent for coffee and desserts at 84th between Broadway and Amsterdam. If you have to do high end, has anyone here ever gone to Terrace In The Sky? Sorry, but the upper westside is not a Wasteland, maybe if you constrict it to your strict set of parameters.
ctb10 at 5:02PM on 12/16/06