Forge

Hallibut with cherry-tomato broth and basil

Photograph: Jeff Gurwin

Maybe it’s eight years of George W. Bush, but color me skeptical when it comes to professional legacies. You can’t help but wonder if 29-year-old Marc Forgione, son of Larry Forgione—dubbed the “godfather of American cooking” for his pioneering An American Place—would have been able to open Forge on a sleepy Tribeca street had his name been Marc Jones.

Of course, the Forgione fils had no control over that. He’s just playing the favorable hand dealt to him, a hand that, after apprenticing with his dad at An American Place at age 16, was enhanced by an extended stint with Laurent Tourondel, most notably as chef de cuisine at BLT Prime. And while that pedigree has allowed him to launch Forge, a dark, wintry space framed by walls of brick and reclaimed cedar and accented by throwbacks like antique scales, horseshoes and candle-burning glass lanterns, no amount of meritocratic carping matters to diners. The only question: Can the kid cook?

The answer: Yes. Though the fare—American, of course—is inconsistent and subject to way too much preciousness. (How else to describe a menu that dubs appetizers “to start,” entrées “to follow,” cheese “to continue” and cordials “to satisfy”? My take: “to be rewritten.”) His subtle tip of his hat to Dad, who popularized free-range chicken, highlights both issues. Forgione’s free-range chicken “nuggets,” a meager three to a $12 order, pale even with McDonald’s: The pulverized confit thigh meat within the deep-fried, mealy gobstopper-size spheres tastes overpoweringly processed, rendering flecks of poblano chile and red peppers basically irrelevant on the palate.

The other starters I tried were more elegantly composed, though Forgione has a tendency to sauce to the point of (not always unpleasant) soupiness. The deconstructed lobster “ravioli” actually tasted more like a bisque with noodles: firm lobster pieces perched on folds of fennel-based pasta, with a frothy butter sauce commingling with leeks and vegetable jus. A brothy wild-kampachi tartare, meanwhile, chock-full of pine nuts and caviar eggs, featured a soy-based sauce sweetened with grapefruit and orange, which complemented the fat, buttery fish.

Unlike other rustic faux-farmhouse joints that emphasize purveyors and simple preparations, Forge’s entrées, as with appetizers, tend toward the complex. Diver scallops were immaculate, both in appearance—the crisscross pattern on the large seared mollusks could be in a food stylist’s portfolio—and taste, with Forgione concocting a sauce featuring every scallop’s best friend, bacon, with added Manila clams for brininess. A mild halibut, with a top layer of baked basil functioning as an aromatic crumble, was anointed with an emulsion of cherry-tomato broth and olive oil—think concentrated gazpacho—that was a liquid taste of summer.

As the meal progressed, I found myself rooting for Forgione to get out of his own way. His juicy marbled boneless rib eye with a pleasantly salty chimichurri sauce, marrow, and a mélange of fried onions and hash browns (recipe credited to Dad’s friend “Jim” Beard—again, a wee precious) was superb. So why then roll out the tired gimmick (see Kobe Club) of boutique salts—lava, smoked and rosemary-infused—for your sprinkling pleasure? Trying too hard, and unnecessary.

To their credit, the servers also tried hard. Though my waitress was from the “everything is a 10” school, and laughed that Forgione would be displeased if she played favorites, she did skillfully guide me to a red Sancerre that I never would have tried otherwise (the diversely sourced wine list has a lot of options in the $50 range). But by the end of the meal, she was also steering me to doughnut holes that bled plum jelly, but were no more innovative than a Munchkin. Most of the other desserts were similarly forgettable, merely nostalgic, patriotic sugar fixes: peach upside-down cake, soupy berry pie and an “American classics” trio, which includes butterscotch pudding (nothing you couldn’t buy in a store) and Boylan’s root beer over ginger ice cream (nothing you couldn’t make at home).

Such flag-waving fare doesn’t seem wise if Forgione is seeking to escape his father’s shadow. But Forge, a work-in-progress, instead indicates that he’s running toward it. For someone who by birthright is the godson of American cooking, perhaps Forgione is merely embracing his fate.