Good small things in a small package.
Squeezing such high quality into a small space showcases the greatest strength of the Lambs?their impeccable taste. The diminutive proportions force them to distill their savvy into one loaded statement.
The choices make evident their understanding of the finer things, but with tongue planted firmly in cheek. For instance, though you can order a $250 bottle of 1990 Dom Perignon, on the same wine list one finds dissonant touches like the Black Velvet ($8), an Irish workingman's drink of Guinness and champagne. Sophisticated takes on blue-collar refreshments continue to pepper the meal, starting with a complement of pickled quail egg served in a penny-copper eggcup, which, incidentally, goes perfectly with a Black Velvet.
This interplay between deluxe and declasse is what brings the menu to life. We start off with a consummate country-club dish: oysters Rockefeller ($16). Here, they are deconstructed: spinach and watercress, a lightly cooked oyster, a chip of crisp bacon and butter in ready-to-eat dollops, no shell. As mouthfuls, the flavors tended to cancel one another out. Apart, the watercress and spinach were spongy and mineral, the oyster luscious, tender and tasting of the sea.
In fashionable kitchens, the socioeconomic significance of food has been turned inside out, as is demonstrated so potently here. The only entree on Jack's menu, pigs cheeks and langoustine en cocotte in a chicken broth with cracklins and young turnips ($25), is a prime example of how peasant cuts are making their way into the most expensive kitchens, and how a dish with social cachet like the oysters Rockefeller must be reinterpreted in order to fit in.
The bonus at Jack's is that you can postulate while enjoying the food. Oysters six ways ($14) were superb, reason alone to return. Rich and briny Blue Points?and dainty, creamy, Kumamotos whose ponzu sauce, according to my guest, rivals Nobu's. Garnishes like creme fraiche with Mississippi paddlefish caviar, cured lemon supremed and sake, and the classic mignonette were the most memorable.
Other dishes left less of an impression, like the salad of shaved vegetables with pickled peach vinaigrette and pecan oil ($8); the paper-thin slices of carrot, fennel, radish, and other root vegetables seemed too raw and marrowy for the cooling weather. Noteworthy in presentation but less so on the palate was the celery root soup remoulade with Jonah crabmeat salad ($10), a froth of a soup with a spoonful of smoky crab salad at its center?a combination that didn't have much impact.
We downed our meals with flutes of delicious and decadent Nicolas Feuillatte champagne ($10), though the 2001 Napa Valley Chardonnay from Heitz Cellars ($12) would also be a fine choice. The cleansing sorbet was breathtaking, offering a flavor so basic yet so right, at once familiar and exciting: Lipton tea with lemon and sugar. Cuplets of kir royale were presented with Jack's sole dessert, baba bananas foster with rum ($8), which our waiter doused with a shot of New Orleans rum. If we weren't yet intoxicated, literally or figuratively, this alcohol-soaked sponge did the trick.