Headliner
Four Twenty Five
Jean-Georges Vongerichten considers his latest restaurant, a richly appointed installation on two floors in a Park Avenue office tower, as a homecoming of sorts. In 1986, across the avenue at Lafayette in the Drake Hotel, was where New York first noticed him; Bryan Miller awarded Lafayette four stars in The New York Times two years later. Scores of restaurants and decades later, at Four Twenty Five, Mr. Vongerichten is relying on a seasoned veteran, Jonathan Benno, who was the chef de cuisine at Thomas Keller’s Per Se and the executive chef at Lincoln Ristorante before having his own place in NoMad. The menu in the new restaurant is à la carte and seasonal. January, not July, comes to mind with Nantucket bay scallop tartare; tricolor cauliflower; chicory salad with walnuts and pears; winter squash agnolotti with brown butter vinaigrette; a main dish of celery root done francese-style; pan-roasted steelhead trout with pumpkin seed gremolata and roasted squash; chicken breast cloaked in black truffle crumbs and served with black truffle butter; and charred duck breast with roasted cabbage. There’s also a seven-course tasting. Some dishes, notably the pastas and crudos, announce Mr. Benno, while others, like steamed black sea bass with winter mushrooms, are clearly from Mr. Vongerichten’s portfolio. “Black sea bass is the best fish in America,” he said. The 84-seat restaurant, designed by Norman Foster (like the building that houses it), is on the second floor, softly done in tones of gray and burgundy, with a gleaming kitchen behind a wall of glass, and a soaring ceiling. There’s a bar on the ground floor, with a vibrant Larry Poons painting above it, where small plates like sliders and chicken samosas will be served. Through the end of the year it will be dinner only, with lunch to follow next month, and eventually breakfast. (Opens Wednesday)
425 Park Avenue (56th Street), 212-751-6921, 425parkrestaurant.com.
Opening
Park Ave Kitchen by David Burke
Over his decades-long career, the chef and restaurateur David Burke has developed several signatures. Backlit walls of glowing pink bricks of Himalayan salt, and strips of bacon hanging from wire clotheslines are two of them, and they’re both on display at his latest venture. The space, in a renovated office tower, is shared by a generous grab-and-go area with an open kitchen and table seating, and a more formal dining room with leather banquettes and azure velvet upholstery serving American fare. “I like the idea of creating one restaurant that has two concepts,” Mr. Burke said. He’s planning a reasonably priced cafeteria-style dinner option in the takeout area and expects to place more emphasis than usual on steaks in the dining room. Some of his inventive touches, like serving a tomato soup au gratin, are on display. (Thursday)
514 Lexington Avenue (48th Street), 646-847-4166, parkavekitchenbydb.com.
Yingtao
Adding luster to the growing list of Chinese restaurants opening in Hell’s Kitchen is this ambitious newcomer by Bolun Yao, a fledgling restaurateur who named this spot after his grandmother. Dazzled by dining in Michelin-starred restaurants but nostalgic for the Chinese home cooking of his childhood, he decided to link the two approaches. He felt it was a way to elevate Chinese cooking in New York, not that there’s a shortage of fancy Chinese here. But reworking homestyle Chinese dishes with global techniques, in the hands of the executive chef Jakub Baster, who worked at Astrid & Gaston in Lima, Peru, and Daniel in New York, is the notable approach here. The eight-course tasting menu ($165) features foie gras with Sichuan peppercorns, Pipa duck combining magret with a pumpkin steamed bun, and monkfish with bergamot and crisp Chinese preserved vegetable. The 50-seat dining room is sleek, done in black with red accents, an open kitchen and decorative Asian artifacts.
805 Ninth Avenue (53rd Street), 845-236-6577, yingtaonyc.com.
Naks
This new spot from Unapologetic Foods, best known for Indian cooking, is delving into Filipino. Eric Valdez, one of the company’s chefs, presents foods of his heritage. Choices are à la carte (no reservations) for dishes like igat with eel, young ginger and lemon soda; and dinakdakan with pork liver, snout, ear and brain. Otherwise there’s a nine-course tasting menu called kamayan, $135. The tasting, which includes sea urchin, sea cucumber, chicken skin, shrimp, grouper and bitter gourd salad, is served without utensils, on banana leaves, with seatings for 20 in the rear patio area at 5:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m.
201 First Avenue (12th Street), no phone, naks.nyc.
