After a secret New Year’s Eve party intended for friends of the famed Upper East Side four-star French restaurateur and chef Daniel Boulud, Bar Boulud opened to the public last Tuesday and offered its first visitors dinner, wine and a few kinks. With just 13 wines available by the glass, the wine list has yet to be fleshed out, some customers grumbled about slow table service, New York Times critic Frank Bruni complained on his blog about the backed-up reservations line and lunch won’t be served regularly until Jan. 23rd.
That didn’t stop foodies from packing the place this past Friday night. The bar officially seats 100, but seemingly dozens more waited in the wings. Reservations were totally booked, and walk-ins had to wait up to 45 minutes just to land a seat at the bar or the round back-of-the-room wine tasting table.
“I had a reservation!” a diner insists to one of the waiters at the new restaurant on Broadway at West 63rd Street, across from Lincoln Center, after being seated at the wine tasting table, which felt to me a bit like the kids’ table at Thanksgiving.
Insulted, well-heeled diners insisting that their reservations be honored may be a relatively new phenomenon on the Upper West Side, considering the area’s dearth of upscale restaurants and its predilection for mediocrity in places like Carmine’s near Columbia and Popover’s. But at Bar Boulud, the area gets its first celebrity chef-created hotspot since the opening in 1997 of Jean Georges. (No one considers the glistening Time Warner Center as part of the shabby chic Upper West Side, do they?)
Boulud’s eponymous flagship on the Upper East Side opened in 1993 to considerable acclaim and anticipation, earning a 4-star review from The New York Times within a year-and-a-half of opening. And the now 52-year-old Boulud commands a minor empire of French cuisine, with four restaurants in New York alone.
“Anything that Daniel Boulud does has star power,” says Tim Zagat, co-founder of the ubiquitous Zagat Survey. “The fact that Daniel came to the West Side is newsworthy in itself.” The Upper West Side has seen a minor revival of sorts in high-end dining recently, though none with the celebrity of Boulud. Tom Valenti’s ‘Cesca and Ouest, both opened in 2001, as well as Bill Telepan’s Telepan, opened in 2006, are prime reasons.
“[The Upper West Side] is changing, and Bar Boulud is one of the factors,” Zagat says. “It used to be the West Side was a culinary desert … at this point, you don’t have to be embarrassed.” But Zagat thinks the hype over Bar Boulud may be overrated. “There’s a tendency to say this is a big deal,” he said. “If it’s successful, it may start a trend of charcuterie in the rest of New York.” But, he adds, “it’s too early to say that.”
Failure seemed doubtful back in the bustling interior of Bar Boulud on Friday. Meant to evoke something like a wine cellar, the space instead resembles the interior of the nearby A train, a long cylindrical space with track lighting across the ceiling.
The walls are a rear-lit stone grate. Freestanding tables are up front, the bar to the left, and a series of booths stretching to the back of the room on the right. Boulud advertises his wine bar as his most “laid-back space,” but the men still wear jackets and the women cocktail dresses, their conversations as demure as their outfits. Most appear to be on dates; some are probably cheating on their spouses; others are just there taking in the scene with a friend. You could convince yourself Boulud’s wine bar in this way resembles any other watering hole in the city, just with high-priced Burgundies and a high-priced interior designer, Thomas Schlesser of Design Bureaux. But a laid-back rich-person’s dive this is not; because of its popularity, you only feel a rush. Indeed, if slow-going plutocrat hedonism is your ticket, Bar Boulud doesn’t stand a chance next to the Upper East Side’s P.J. Clarke’s, the bar that provided the basis for Billy Wilder’s alcohol-soaked classic, The Lost Weekend.
As Bar Boulud settles in, the collar may be loosened, but for now it’s a mostly tasteful, if still anxious, marriage of well-made charcuterie and Burgundy- and Rhone-fermented booze.
Most diners Saturday night, though, were pleased. “Once I could see the damn menu,” Maxine, a 55-year-old former real estate agent said after a Saturday dinner, “everything else was just fabulous.” Her husband, Peter, 62, agreed. “We called two days ago to get reservations for today’s dinner and somehow got a table,” he said. “We were thrilled.”
After some pâté grand-pére, steak frites and a $75 red, the couple was out the door $150 poorer, tax and tip included.
“That was just marvelous,” another woman, a 45-year-old who gave her name only as Cheryl, said. “The first wine I had, a chardonnay, was so-so, but the sparkling Beaujolais was great.” Others saw Bar Boulud as having a different potential. Jason Prince, 32, in loafers, wool pants, polo shirt and bedhead said he likes its chances of becoming an oenophile’s pick-up bar.
They were working their way through a glass of cotes du Rhone and dégustation, a sampler of charcuterie after just getting off work as investment consultants in Midtown. “The crowd tonight is older, probably mostly retired,” he said, “but the music”—sort of a jazzy Norah Jones remix—“is for younger people, and it’s loud enough. A pick up bar? I can see it, but I won’t be doing any picking up tonight.” John Schott, a friend and also 32, agreed. “We’ll be back,” he said.
The wine list will eventually offer more than 500 bottles, in addition to a full lunch menu and Saturday and Sunday brunch. I am an Ohio-bred whiskey drinker by upbringing, so, ignorance established, I’ll go on record to say the $60 bottle of 2006 Grosjean Pinot Noir (lowest price I found online: $32) tasted pedestrian and not-so-slyly over-priced. The charcuterie, on the other hand, was a revelation. The pâté grand-mére was complicated and attacking. And after one taste of Bar Boulud’s foie gras, *you won’t be up for a nuanced discussion of animal rights[ok?]; its flavor is similarly robust and memorable. Tax and tip included, my bill came to $120.
Forgetting it was closed, I went back Sunday to check out the brunch crowd. Even closed, Bar Boulud managed to attract gawkers. “We’re movin’ on up,” a middle-aged Upper West Sider said as she peered in to the darkened restaurant Sunday night and studied the menu.
“And why are they closed on Sunday nights?” a companion wondered. “It must be some kind of traditional French thing.”
Others walking by Sunday cupped their hands on the glass to have a look in. “Is this restaurant, like, here?” one older woman said to her husband. Her stare suggested nothing more than bewilderment.
That didn’t stop foodies from packing the place this past Friday night. The bar officially seats 100, but seemingly dozens more waited in the wings. Reservations were totally booked, and walk-ins had to wait up to 45 minutes just to land a seat at the bar or the round back-of-the-room wine tasting table.
“I had a reservation!” a diner insists to one of the waiters at the new restaurant on Broadway at West 63rd Street, across from Lincoln Center, after being seated at the wine tasting table, which felt to me a bit like the kids’ table at Thanksgiving.
Insulted, well-heeled diners insisting that their reservations be honored may be a relatively new phenomenon on the Upper West Side, considering the area’s dearth of upscale restaurants and its predilection for mediocrity in places like Carmine’s near Columbia and Popover’s. But at Bar Boulud, the area gets its first celebrity chef-created hotspot since the opening in 1997 of Jean Georges. (No one considers the glistening Time Warner Center as part of the shabby chic Upper West Side, do they?)
Boulud’s eponymous flagship on the Upper East Side opened in 1993 to considerable acclaim and anticipation, earning a 4-star review from The New York Times within a year-and-a-half of opening. And the now 52-year-old Boulud commands a minor empire of French cuisine, with four restaurants in New York alone.
“Anything that Daniel Boulud does has star power,” says Tim Zagat, co-founder of the ubiquitous Zagat Survey. “The fact that Daniel came to the West Side is newsworthy in itself.” The Upper West Side has seen a minor revival of sorts in high-end dining recently, though none with the celebrity of Boulud. Tom Valenti’s ‘Cesca and Ouest, both opened in 2001, as well as Bill Telepan’s Telepan, opened in 2006, are prime reasons.
“[The Upper West Side] is changing, and Bar Boulud is one of the factors,” Zagat says. “It used to be the West Side was a culinary desert … at this point, you don’t have to be embarrassed.” But Zagat thinks the hype over Bar Boulud may be overrated. “There’s a tendency to say this is a big deal,” he said. “If it’s successful, it may start a trend of charcuterie in the rest of New York.” But, he adds, “it’s too early to say that.”
Failure seemed doubtful back in the bustling interior of Bar Boulud on Friday. Meant to evoke something like a wine cellar, the space instead resembles the interior of the nearby A train, a long cylindrical space with track lighting across the ceiling.
The walls are a rear-lit stone grate. Freestanding tables are up front, the bar to the left, and a series of booths stretching to the back of the room on the right. Boulud advertises his wine bar as his most “laid-back space,” but the men still wear jackets and the women cocktail dresses, their conversations as demure as their outfits. Most appear to be on dates; some are probably cheating on their spouses; others are just there taking in the scene with a friend. You could convince yourself Boulud’s wine bar in this way resembles any other watering hole in the city, just with high-priced Burgundies and a high-priced interior designer, Thomas Schlesser of Design Bureaux. But a laid-back rich-person’s dive this is not; because of its popularity, you only feel a rush. Indeed, if slow-going plutocrat hedonism is your ticket, Bar Boulud doesn’t stand a chance next to the Upper East Side’s P.J. Clarke’s, the bar that provided the basis for Billy Wilder’s alcohol-soaked classic, The Lost Weekend.
As Bar Boulud settles in, the collar may be loosened, but for now it’s a mostly tasteful, if still anxious, marriage of well-made charcuterie and Burgundy- and Rhone-fermented booze.
Most diners Saturday night, though, were pleased. “Once I could see the damn menu,” Maxine, a 55-year-old former real estate agent said after a Saturday dinner, “everything else was just fabulous.” Her husband, Peter, 62, agreed. “We called two days ago to get reservations for today’s dinner and somehow got a table,” he said. “We were thrilled.”
After some pâté grand-pére, steak frites and a $75 red, the couple was out the door $150 poorer, tax and tip included.
“That was just marvelous,” another woman, a 45-year-old who gave her name only as Cheryl, said. “The first wine I had, a chardonnay, was so-so, but the sparkling Beaujolais was great.” Others saw Bar Boulud as having a different potential. Jason Prince, 32, in loafers, wool pants, polo shirt and bedhead said he likes its chances of becoming an oenophile’s pick-up bar.
They were working their way through a glass of cotes du Rhone and dégustation, a sampler of charcuterie after just getting off work as investment consultants in Midtown. “The crowd tonight is older, probably mostly retired,” he said, “but the music”—sort of a jazzy Norah Jones remix—“is for younger people, and it’s loud enough. A pick up bar? I can see it, but I won’t be doing any picking up tonight.” John Schott, a friend and also 32, agreed. “We’ll be back,” he said.
The wine list will eventually offer more than 500 bottles, in addition to a full lunch menu and Saturday and Sunday brunch. I am an Ohio-bred whiskey drinker by upbringing, so, ignorance established, I’ll go on record to say the $60 bottle of 2006 Grosjean Pinot Noir (lowest price I found online: $32) tasted pedestrian and not-so-slyly over-priced. The charcuterie, on the other hand, was a revelation. The pâté grand-mére was complicated and attacking. And after one taste of Bar Boulud’s foie gras, *you won’t be up for a nuanced discussion of animal rights[ok?]; its flavor is similarly robust and memorable. Tax and tip included, my bill came to $120.
Forgetting it was closed, I went back Sunday to check out the brunch crowd. Even closed, Bar Boulud managed to attract gawkers. “We’re movin’ on up,” a middle-aged Upper West Sider said as she peered in to the darkened restaurant Sunday night and studied the menu.
“And why are they closed on Sunday nights?” a companion wondered. “It must be some kind of traditional French thing.”
Others walking by Sunday cupped their hands on the glass to have a look in. “Is this restaurant, like, here?” one older woman said to her husband. Her stare suggested nothing more than bewilderment.
