LEVER HOUSE
½ (two and one half stars)
390 PARK AVE. AT 53RD STREET (212) 888-2700
LEVER House is a good new modern-American restaurant where the winning dishes outnumber clinkers by 3-to-1 – the same batting average as at scores of places around town.
But Lever House is not just another place with an “ingredient-driven” American menu. It burst on the scene with so much buzz, it’s hard to focus on what you’re actually eating.
One owner flaunts fashion-world credentials; two others run Page Six-ish downtown places like Canteen and Joe’s Pub. At buttoned-down Lever House, it’s as if Paris Hilton crashed a board meeting and danced on the desk tops.
Adding to the mystique, the iconic, green-glass Lever House building never had a restaurant since it opened in 1952, a missing link across from the Seagram Building with its fabled Four Seasons.
Lever House Restaurant is no Four Seasons, but its design by Marc Newson is a talker. “I feel like I’m getting on a plane,” my friend observed as she waltzed down the entrance ramp to a dining room that suggests the lounge of a luxurious submarine.
Bare walls are mellowed by beige trim, blond wood and rounded corners. Hexagons honeycomb carpet, ceiling, entrances to cozy booths and a mirrored wall. A glassed-in mezzanine takes in the show – including a striking glass-wall bar whose square stool tops do not fit round human bottoms.
Heads turn as bejeweled Barbara Walters, Oscar de la Renta and Sid and Mercedes Bass are ushered to a table. Executive chef Dan Silverman knows how to make an entrance, too. His menu highlights herbally-attuned main elements crisply turned out.
One appetizer is a must: Maya shrimp ($14) wrapped in pancetta and skewered with rosemary sprigs. Smoky and sweet, they’re so good I was tempted more than once to skip everything else.
That would be a mistake. Chilled lobster and corn chowder ($14), garnished with chopped lobster and chives, possessed revelatory purity. Greenmarket freshness pervades sparkling salads, like tempura-fried okra ($12) with crisp haricot vert, yellow wax beans and green and yellow romano beans.
Wild Alaska roast salmon ($26) is lavished in butter sauce fragrant with watercress, tarragon, chives, chervil, parsley and shallots, while luxurious filet mignon ($34) is poached in red wine with thyme, peppercorns and wild mushrooms.
When the kitchen backfires, it’s loud enough to rattle Park Avenue. Overcooked halibut ($28) arrived near-cold. Shrimp and lobster risotto ($26) wasted good shellfish on lumpy rice overloaded with red peppers.
Except for a yummy cookie plate, pastry chef Deborah Snyder’s desserts ($10) were not my cup of tea. Weird strawberry-sangria ice cream soda has been dropped, but lemon meringue pie survives with a payload of cloying cream cheese.
A few weeks’ buzz does not a success make. But for now, it’s enough that Lever House brings a smart sense of style to a stretch of town that needed to lighten up.
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