Sheridan Square

Pork chop with wilted spinach grits

Photograph: Talia Simhi

How much reinvention can a failing restaurant take? Sheridan Square, bleeding money since the moment it opened, has struggled through three chefs and a name change in less than a year. The sprawling West Village spot recently took a desperate measure to help stanch the flow: handing out promotional postcards promising diners $50 off the next $100 they spend. Though I’m not sure coupons can bring this place from the brink.

As Central Kitchen, the restaurant’s first incarnation under the same owners, it barely made it past previews. Last spring, after a long gestation period behind newspapered windows, the airy space reemerged, looking like a heartland facsimile of a sleek New York restaurant—Gotham Bar & Grill knocked off in Omaha—with clubby brown leather banquettes, crimson lamps, framed black-and-white landscapes and gruff waiters clad head to toe in black. But the most bankable aspect of Sheridan Square’s new face was the new man in the kitchen, eminently talented and famously mercurial Gary Robins, best known for his fine work at the Biltmore Room. He introduced an ambitious—if disjointed—menu, covering vast ground, from refined foie gras ravioli to hearty seafood cioppino. Despite the culinary star power, the place struggled to fill its prime sidewalk tables. Barely a month in, Robins packed up his knives and walked out the door.

The restaurant’s third act began not long ago when Franklin Becker (Brasserie, Capitale) swooped in, setting a new speed record for revolving-door chefs. He quickly delivered a triage collection of dishes, intended, he said at the time, to make the place more “approachable.” Full of bravado, he also announced his intention to take over the shuttered space next door (it reopens soon as a new tapas and wine bar). The restaurant began to garner some buzz, and to post favorable media coverage up on the door. Nonetheless, by the time I checked in on Becker a month into his run, the dining room felt like it was hosting a wake—sad and poorly attended but with plenty to eat and drink.

The restaurant’s ongoing problems may have as much to do with its founding conceit—or lack thereof—as who’s actually running the kitchen. The space has little personality, and Becker’s eclectic menu doesn’t offer much help in deciphering what this place is about—all-American comfort food here, complex globe-trotting stuff there, with a signature burger thrown in for good measure.

That burger, the “Juicy Lucy,” is a gimmicky riff on a junk-food classic from Minneapolis, with oozing cheese stuffed into a two-inch-thick patty before cooking. Like the restaurant it’s served in, this messy monster—stacked taller than a Dagwood on a mealy bun—is too big, too expensive (at $17) and, worst of all, not particularly good.

Becker, giving it his best shot, seems stymied by his surroundings, not quite sure whether to let loose or rein himself in. And so it is that simple, beautifully silky gazpacho floating dollops of cantaloupe sorbet shares a menu with very odd out-of-the-shell escargot, slicked with a sickly-sweet mix of butterscotch, soy sauce and rosemary and roasted in a wood-burning oven.

The 650-degree oven, visibly blazing at the back of the dining room, suggests simple, earthy pleasures. The menu tells another story, veering from overwrought starters like ricotta ravioli with too much salt, too much pepper and too many herbs to bland Greenmarket entrées like flaccid skinless brook trout fillets with baby zucchini and basil puree. Though a thick pink pork chop, served with wilted spinach and cheese-topped grits, is well cooked and well seasoned, it’s far too run-of-the-mill to be much worth coming back for, particularly at $28.

Desserts share a more cohesive, homey sensibility, but are as sadly inconsistent as the rest of the food. While a deconstructed s’more—with creamy graham cracker gelato and homemade caramelized marshmallows on a dense fudge pedestal—is rich and delicious, a pain perdu breakfast dessert—featuring Ovaltine ice cream, dry French toast and sliced bananas brûléed bitter black—is a straight-up flop.

The whole enterprise reminds me of the mediocre days of West Village dining, when a place could get by on location alone. It’s a testament to the neighborhood’s new culinary sophistication that a restaurant so well situated, on a high-traffic stretch of lower Seventh Avenue, could be so systematically ignored.