Cafe Gray: All That Wait for This?

The build-up to the opening of Cafe Gray was the grandest I have yet to witness in my years of living in NYC (Jonathan Waxman's comeback to ill-fated Washington Park was the second.)  Front page previews in the Times and New York, pictures of the kitchen being built on eGullet, rumors of opening dates via Chowhound were all encompassing.

From the first moment I heard about the Cafe concept, I immediately thought about the time I ran for treasurer in middle school.  It was safe.  I thought I couldn't win a popularity contest with the coolest kid in the school, so I didn't compete.  I watered myself down and didn't shoot for a top spot.  I aimed for two stars, and so did Gray Kunz.

Kunz wasn't going to give us a taste of the innovative, polished and refined cuisine of his 4 star days at Lespinasse.   He was going to take his painstaking, four year process of finding a restaurant and play it safe.  Why take all of his investment in time and money to come up with a second ran to Thomas Keller at Per Se? Could he live up to the hype and expectation of his reputation and absence from the food world? Rather than taking those question on, he avoided comparisons to Keller upstairs in the food mall or Jean Georges across the street by aiming for 'cafe' food, unfussy bistro fare of global proportions.

And that's exactly what we got on a recent visit to Cafe Gray.  A four star restaurant in camoflage, serving 'bistro' food deliberately crafted to not be four star worthy...

Take for example a few of the courses we ordered.

For starters, a seafood/lobster bisque.  No doubt, it was satisfying.  Nice deep lobster and cream flavors, a few unshelled mussels and a few pieces of crab meat rounded out the dish.  While it was a fine soup, it could have been served at comparable levels at any of 100 restaurants in the city.  Four years for this?

An open faced ravoili appetizer was literally drowned in a roasted tomato sauce  - it broke every oversauced pasta rule I have come to learn.  As you may know, roasted tomatoes take on an accidic and dominant role in a dish.  Unfortunately, that was the only flavor to taste here.

Sauteed lamb chops with a carrot emulsion and eggplant timabal was all show, no go.  The lamb was overcooked, the carrot emulsion was very loose (like a jus) and therefore not a presence on the plate. The eggplant could have been done, again, by 100 other restaurants in the city.

A puffed rice crusted fluke was a great concept and worked very well.  The fish was very overcooked and therefore extremely dry.  Again, very disappointing. 

All in all, I think I will head back to Cafe Gray and give it another try.  I know that Gray Kunz is a master worthy of the hype that he's generated, but I also think he should embrace the innovative talent he has and shoot for the top. 

At least falling short of four stars is better than aiming for and getting two.