eighty one

Halibut with clams and parsley sauce

Photograph: Jeff Gurwin

Just east of Columbus Avenue, 81st Street quietly lays claim to one of the prettiest and most exclusive blocks in Manhattan, with a view overlooking the leafy American Museum of Natural History grounds and the glowing Rose Planetarium. For the past 14 years, eighty one chef-owner Ed Brown has been cooking at the Sea Grill, which has a similarly mesmerizing but far more touristy vista (the Rockefeller Center ice rink). Just as this toque knows good settings, he knows good food. His first marquee project proves to be a destination restaurant suitable for this destination block.

Brown, in fact, might be the best seafood chef you’ve never heard of. In the shallow world of perceptions, the Sea Grill has never quite gotten its due, thanks to its heavy proportion of out-of-town diners. Yet Brown consistently and quietly built a reputation to rival Le Bernardin’s Eric Ripert’s. At eighty one, though, Brown’s the star, glad-handing table to table, serving many of the greatest hits he’s been perfecting at Rock Center, plus new creations that reflect his maturing skill.

No expense was spared on the room, which is located off the lobby of the classic Excelsior Hotel. Beyond a dark and comfy bar area, eighty one’s dining room boasts a grand if clichéd combination of soaring white columns accented by red velvet curtains and banquettes, and giant orchid arrangements. Not my speed, but the older-skewing crowd (unsurprising given the neighborhood and the steep pricing) seemed to lap it up.

The staff clumsily tries to match the luxe decor, describing dishes past the point of their own comfort level, checking in on the table far more times than necessary during each course and, in my case, overselling, innocently but pointedly suggesting a dose of shaved truffles (without mentioning the $42 surcharge). The menu tries too hard as well, separating appetizers and entrées with a kind of no-man’s-land of dishes, “the tasting collection”: some of Brown’s staples imported from the Sea Grill, confusingly offered as either appetizers, entrées or sides (prices range from $15 to $39, with little correlation to size).

No matter—I found that if it swims, it wins. One of Brown’s transplants, a trio of tuna tartares, piled high and served in order from the simplest to most robust, dramatically improves on the fatty blob this dish has too often become. A magnificently tart “Sicilian” version was fused with blood-orange chunks and pistachio dust, and a soy-slathered Asian take was dotted with wasabi cream. Yet another Sea Grill rehash was a silken scallop and foie gras “ravioli,” two luscious delicacies united in a wonton skin, and coated in a foam of melted butter laced with musty white wine.

Brown’s new fish offerings, as with the Sea Grill standards, are both opulent and contemporary, and almost always beautifully plated. His tender calamari appetizer is bathed in a chili-spiked potato-and-mushroom cream sauce, and adorned with a jerkylike bacon—a combination that made the squid alternately rich, salty and spicy, yet ultimately balanced. A halibut entrée, sitting on a bed of sliced potato, is festively surrounded by clams—like a king and his court—and bathed in a vibrant parsely-tinged sauce.

Brown ran into pitfalls when he ventured beyond the sea. Somewhat overcooked (read: no pink at all) lamb medallions came over stewy white cranberry beans and a pasty lamb-jus gravy. Another item in Brown’s “tasting collection,” a runny pumpkin risotto, sported a bizarre topping of fried, boneless, bland chicken wings, which added nothing to what amounted to an $18 side dish.

As a whole, though, the meal excels. Sommelier Heather Branch came from Aureole, and the list is impressive and fairly priced, especially in the area of boutique California specialties. Pastry chef John Miele, also an Aureole alum, deftly mixes salty and sweet through combinations like peanut fritters over fresh ricotta, and a particularly noteworthy honey pot de crème, spiked with bay leaf, and accompanied by an innovative float consisting of melon soda over yuzu sorbet.

Perhaps the most compelling evidence of eighty one’s success was my cleaned plates, a “compliment to the chef” that my overbearing server thanked me for time and again (no need to remind me that I’m eating like a pig). Truth be told, the caloric binge was worth it. While this meal costs a lot (whether caviar or foie gras, Brown hits the gas on the ingredients), it proves a worthy splurge in a neighborhood that is slowly earning its fine-dining cred, one restaurant at a time.