Monkey Bar

Photographs: Donna Alberico/The New York Times/Redux

Photographs: Donna Alberico/The New York Times/Redux734.eo.monkeybar.01.jpg528731
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Photographs: Donna Alberico/The New York Times/Redux

When Graydon Carter took over the Monkey Bar this past spring, the implication was that few mortals could manage to talk their way in. Lately, the Vanity Fair editor has abandoned the pretense that their restaurant is even open to the general public—prime-time reservations are only offered to “friends” of the house.

Nonetheless, when I first visited last spring, as the boldfaced clientele began to stake out its regular tables, it was heartening to discover that the landmark restaurant’s new incarnation wasn’t even a place where I’d want to dine. Without any inside connections, I managed to snag only a 6:30pm slot, pushed into a corner next to the kitchen. The opening menu—resuscitating the bland ’50s home cooking still found these days on Food Network programs hosted by Sandra Lee—was kitschy without being clever. The food, by Elliot Ketley (Soho House), was downright abysmal, even by the modest standards of midtown power spots. Soaking up the scene at the end of the meal was a saving grace.What a difference several months, and a chef change, can make. I returned to the Monkey Bar recently with a friend whose name carried some clout. We were seated at a prime table and found that the place was still buzzy with A-listers. And the food fueling this new clubhouse was actually stuff I’d pay good money to eat.

The turnaround began when Carter canned Ketley and brought in a star to wrangle the kitchen, pillar of New American cuisine Larry Forgione (An American Place), who agreed to consult. Though the chef has unveiled some tasty new dishes and upgraded old ones, the cooking remains as nostalgic as the decor. Carter’s vision for the Monkey Bar evokes a bygone Manhattan, when workdays were still fueled by martinis and gentlemen wore ties on even the most casual nights out. The dining room—imagine the Stork Club minus the big bands—features zebra-print carpeting, potted palms and smarmy waiters in white captain’s coats. Cartoonist Edward Sorel’s scene-setting mural includes—among other iconic images—Duke Ellington playing the Cotton Club and King Kong scaling the Empire State Building.

Although the food under Forgione is much improved, the restaurant plays it safe—the coddled clientele doesn’t come here for a dining adventure. The place attracts a more geriatric brand of celebrity than you’ll find downtown at Carter’s Waverly Inn—Hudson River hero Captain Chelsey “Sully” Sullenberger on one evening; a character actor, sitting next to a Newhouse and directly across from a literary lion, on another. Respect for their caloric and cardiac restrictions explains the crudités—raw veggies on ice—offered gratis to every table, and the many dishes devised with diets in mind, including a doctor-approved salmon tartare, folded with mirin, soy and avocado and brightened with pineapple juice.

But Forgione didn’t build his career as a spa-cuisine chef. The bold and opulent flavors that defined him when he was a big player in the ’80s and ’90s are well represented on the new Monkey Bar menu. Oysters Rockefeller, a straight-up classic, features plump, silky bivalves and top-notch creamed spinach. Steak and eggs, a splurge at $38 (if the reservation policy doesn’t keep you away, the prices certainly might), is a regal indulgence featuring a tender fillet mignon topped with a poached runny egg, surrounded by a cream-soaked hash of potatoes and cipolline onions. Even more impressive among the meaty mains is the peppery pink bone-in veal chop, as thick as a pre-recession Conde Nast magazine, served steakhouse-style with a tangle of cress. Lobster Thermidor, another big-ticket entrée at $48, features a pound-and-a-half bug doused in Cognac-enriched sauce—a stellar replacement for the insipid Newburg that had been on the menu this summer.

The desserts are as old-fashioned as the three-piece suitwe saw Gay Talese wear to dinner one night—classic sweets, like well-cut men’s clothes, rarely go out of style. “Mrs. Carter’s butter tart,” a riff on a beloved Canadian confection, is like pecan pie minus the nuts in a fine shortbread crust. Eton Mess, an old English treat named for the elite boarding school, features meringue, whipped cream and berries tossed like a free-form pavlova. It tastes like a reward for good grades but indeed looks like slop.While the food is vastly improved, service remains cold and aloof. Just because we’d scored a good table didn’t mean we ranked high on the Monkey Bar social ladder. Even if you’ve made it inside, the staff seems to know who’s genuinely worth fawning over and who, in the end, is not.

Cheat sheet

Drink this: A light, chilled Brouilly ($45) is one of the better food-friendly red values on the pricey wine list.

Eat this: Oysters Rockefeller, steak and eggs, veal chop, lobster Thermidor, Eton Mess

Sit here: The best tables—located on the rise beneath the Edward Sorel mural—are reserved for the most insidery of insiders if Gay Talese’s spot (the same one once occupied by the late Dominick Dunne) is any indication.

Conversation piece: The original Monkey Bar, which opened during the Great Depression, was a favorite of Ava Gardner, Joe DiMaggio and Tennessee Williams (who died upstairs in the Hotel Elysée).

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