Jesse S.'s Profile

This restaurant exists for one purpose and one purpose only: to catch hapless tourists who find themselves at the tail end of the Grimaldi's line halfway down the block on a 90 degree Saturday evening during the summer.  Because no self-respecting New Yorker would ever set foot into this petri dish of garish excess and untastefulness.  Not when you could just walk 5 minutes up to Noodle Pudding if you wanted Italian food.

Unfortunately, however, tourists probably don't read Yelp before they go out for their "Let's Go"-Approved Brooklyn Heights Day Trip, which suggests (1) loading up on designer apparel at Century 21, (2) schlepping bags of it across the Brooklyn Bridge on foot, (3) standing on line at Grimaldi's for 3 hours, and (4) finishing off with ice cream at the Fulton Ferry Landing.  Given that captive audience who find themselves in Brooklyn without any idea of what to do with themselves once they discover that they'll have to wait so long for pizza, this place will, notwithstanding its mediocrity, probably do well, at least during tourist season.

That said, if you are reading Yelp to try to decide whether to try this place for the first time, let me just say that it will be right up your alley ONLY if you appreciate the following qualities in a restaurant:

(1) The authenticity of an Italian restaurant run by people who hail from Eastern Europe.

(2) The old-world charm of an Italian eatery that looks like it was decorated to fit in with the other businesses in the strip mall at the Ronkonkoma LIRR station.

(3) The warmth and attention of a staff who *really care* to ensure that you have a pleasant experience, viz. the creepiest dude you've probably ever seen, who eerily resembles Killer BOB from Twin Peaks, and who lingers around the place staring and no doubt musing to himself "Night falls, morning calls, I'll catch you with my death bag. You may think I've gone insane, but I promise, I will kill again!"

(4) The undeniable draw of having so many plants, faux artifacts, and tchotchkes crowding the sidewalk in front of the restaurant that the sidewalk becomes nearly impassible, so you have little choice but to go inside.

If these things pique your interest, then by all means, enjoy!

In all seriousness, though, I do feel a little bad panning this place, because it's clearly a mom-and-pop shop run by folks from Brooklyn.  Unfortunately, however, the reality is that they've sunk way too much cash into putting together what is really just a bad little restaurant.  There was just no thought whatsoever put into creating something that would contribute to the neighborhood (as opposed to just making a grab for some of those tourist bucks).  Did they really think the neighborhood needed an Italian restaurant RIGHT NEXT DOOR to another Italian restaurant, and 50 feet away from two pizza restaurants?  Come on, now.

Critical Eye Review:

I write somewhat conflicted, because this place has real potential to be a great bar, but it seems like whenever people find out about something, it becomes a "thing," which effectively destroys the appeal it had in the first place.  So, I'm reserving the right to alter my opinion of the Empire Room based on how it fares in the first few months of its existence.  

As others have said, there are some serious execution issues with the cocktail menu, but I expect those may be kinks that get ironed out over time. The real question is whether this place succumbs to the after-work bar crowd.  As it is located right in lower midtown, it is beset by faux Irish pubs that are jammed to the walls with after-work drinkers.  

And I realize that I'm the pot calling the kettle black here, as I myself work in the neighborhood and am hoping to have a nice place to meet people for drinks AFTER WORK, but the success or failure of this place, as I see things, really rests on whether they manage to avoid being the kind of place where dudes who would normally be hanging out over at the Gallway Hooker (or wherever) hang out.  Because that crowd is rowdy, loud, obnoxious, and, more importantly, populous.  

Really, it will all depend on crowd control.  They have a nice space, but if they let people stand around the bar, it gets crowded and loud.  We arrived at 7pm and had a taste of that.  By 8pm it was more manageable, and by 9pm the place had cleared out quite a bit.  The key will be for them to resist the financial pressure to let anybody and everybody in the door to start spending money.

Positives:

1.) Decor.  That's really the main draw here.  It's a comfortable, well-curated space, and it goes perfectly in the Empire State Building.  

2.) The staff are also very nice and willing to accommodate.

Negatives:

1.) The cocktails are not executed as well as $13.50 cocktails should be executed.  The menu looks interesting, but they're somewhat lost in the woods if you try to go off-menu.  After ordering a somewhat odd-tasting and overly cloying drink called the Mezcal Martinez, I decided to have an actual Martinez, which I figured wouldn't be a problem, given that they're paying homage to it on their menu.  I expected a little trouble because there are several Martinez recipe variations, but I expected they would at least know what it (roughly) was.  Not so.  I had to be that guy on his iPhone looking up a cocktail recipe for the bartender to make.

2.) Also, service is very slow, but this is a problem that seems to plague all cocktail bars, and I really don't get it.  If you know what you're doing, it should take no more than one minute to mix a cocktail (unless you're using eggs).

3.) They need to bring the price-points of things like whiskey in line with that of the cocktails.  So, if your bourbon-based cocktail costs $13.50, bourbon by itself shouldn't be $15.

4.) Their food menu is a joke, with the most serious offender being the oft-ordered truffle-oil popcorn.  I'd like to think people are smarter than to fall for the trick of "if we drip a few drops of truffle oil on popcorn, we can charge $10 for a small bowl of it," but apparently not.

5.) As I said above, better crowd control.  If you have to have a line outside, a reservations line, or a secret handshake, you need to find a way to keep your bar from overflowing with people.  A basic proviso is that if there isn't room for more than, say, 10% of your clientele to sit down, you shouldn't be admitting anybody else until there is.  That's the reason we're here (paying $13.50 for drinks), and not down the street (elbowing our way to the bar).

6.) Pick a music style and stick with it.  And, please, something not so incongruous with the ambiance as top-40 hits and random, freestyle iPod-shuffle-style playlists.  Basic rule: If you're going for the 1930s art deco motif, I shouldn't be hearing Madonna or Lady Gaga.

All in all, like I said, this place has enormous potential.  I really hope they live up to it, because this would be a great option to have in the neighborhood.

The only way Vinegar Hill House could have been worse is if it had been more crowded.  But even at 9:30pm on a rainy Sunday night, the place was still brimming with pork pie hats, plaid 'n skinny jeans, horn rimmed glasses, and ill-advised tattoos.  I shudder at how obnoxious it must be on Fridays around 9pm.  

The Bad:

1. It's loud and filled with hipsters from god knows where.  Because they don't live around here.  I need to open a restaurant consulting business devoted to dispensing the single piece of advice that places need more soft surfaces to muffle sound.  It's pretty basic.  But nobody gets it.

2. The drink menu is boring, and the drinks watered down.  And they took longer to serve our cocktails than it took to make our appetizer.

3. The food, well, sucks.  The Scallop tart (replete, of course, with de rigeur bacon) tastes like scallops dressed with canned soup.  And it's probably the least appealing-looking dish I've ever seen; imagine scallops covered with greens over a bed of macerated, overcooked vegetables in a snot sauce.  The pea ravioli is an utter joke, unless you're looking for food that can be eaten by infants or elderly people who left their dentures at home.  And the rabbit pappardelle, by far the highlight of the meal, tasted like chef boyardee.  Oh, and they apparently think so highly of their food that they don't put salt and pepper at the table.  Let me just disabuse you of that little notion right now.

4. The menu ranges from either completely unappealing to boring and unimaginative.  So my choices are whole trout or chicken?  Wood-roasted octopus or garden salad?  And, sure, the prices look okay, but the portions are small.  So, if you want something to go along with your chicken, you have to spring for an $8 side, bringing a chicken dinner up to $25.  As it turned out, we decided not to spend $16 on sides, and put that money to better use instead: getting a takeout Grimaldi's pizza on the way home, because we were still hungry.

The Good:

I guess if I had to come up with a "good" side, it's that they don't have a cash-only policy.  Oh, and it was nice that they replaced our silverware between courses.  It always bugs me when I've set my dirtied knife and fork on my appetizer plate to be removed, and the server tries to put them back on the table.  But that's about all I can come up with as far as good things about VHH.  

In sum, avoid at all costs unless wasting money and time is something you're into.  On the other hand, though, I'm sure Vice Magazine loves this place.  So I guess if that means something to you, you'll probably love it too.

*Critical Eye Review*

The only excuse you could have for being in this place is if you happen to be a lazy person who lives in Long Island City and can't be bothered to take a train into the City.

Dutch Kills had to really wow me, because (as I've opined herein before) the speakeasy trend needs to wind down.  Moreover, after hearing buzz about this place for months, the fawning, overly-excited pronouncement on the foodie blogs that this place had finally opened really got my eyes 'a-rollin'.  (As if you couldn't wait a week to wait on line for yet another Manhattan-variation served in an antique cocktail saucer?)

Unfortunately, Dutch Kills disappointed.  The drinks menu was small and uncreative.  One of the "originals" is actually just a Martinez cocktail, re-named.  And, from what we found, the bartender(s) are simply not capable of the same level of improvisation as the more competent staff at M&H.  Furthermore, Milk & Honey classics, such as the Penicillin, were botched.  Not really forgivable when you cannot even execute your own drinks properly.

In addition, it's actually surprisingly unpleasant inside.  Long, hardwood booths are nice looking, but extremely uncomfortable, as if nobody ever told the designers that sitting on flat, hard wood without any cushioning or lumbar support could possibly be comfortable.  In addition, except for the floor, the entire place is covered with darkly stained hard wood.  And in order to light an environment filled with such saturated colors, they had to put in lights that were actually painfully bright to my eyes.  The result is a weird ambiance where I'm constantly squinting to see, even though my eyes are almost always hurting from the bright lights in my eyes.  And the other problem with the darkly stained wood is that the place reeks of lacquer.  Maybe I'm more sensitive to it than others, but I found myself a little light-headed after a while.  I suspect that in a few months, the smell will dissipate, but the aesthetically offensive ambiance obviously will not.

Dutch Kills might be better, in time, but for now, it's really not worth a trip, especially if you're coming in from Manhattan or Brooklyn.  If you're one of those masses of wide-eyed consumers who still believe (notwithstanding the White Star concept/menu problems, the Milk & Honey going-private debacle, and the overcrowding of Little Branch) that Sasha Petraske can do no wrong, I'm sure you won't take my advice.  But, once again, when you're leaving with light head and lighter wallet, you'll wish you had.

Ignazio's is like the bizarro version of Rudy, in which the hero tries really hard and displays lots of heart, and then fails to make the football team and has to go back to the steel mill to toil the rest of his days in obscurity.

I'm trying to imagine how this place could be worse, and the only thing I can think of is maybe our waitress might not have been attentive and sweet, despite the many opening-night foibles.  That's the one good thing.  That and the tasty ($9-a-glass-in-Brooklyn) wine.  They distributed cards requesting feedback as to how they could improve, but honestly, the things that are bad about this place are not things that they're going to change.  Here are the highlights:

1.) It's loud.  We came in and the place was half empty, and still it was oppressively loud with the chatter over obtrusive and incongruous jazz standards.  Then, later, when the musicians called it a night, it was just weirdly noisy with conversation, kind of like when the bartender says last call and kills the jukebox and everybody keeps talking as loud as they had before.  The place is always going to be loud because the front wall is all windows (to facilitate views), and the back wall is all mirrors.  The carpet stands little chance.  They need soundproofing and stat.

2.) The decor is the perfect storm of garishness and complete lack of taste.  The place is 95% saturated colors: dark wood, purple walls, magenta carpet, orange chairs, and teal-framed mirrors.  It's almost like the single guiding principle behind the decor was to force you to look out the windows at the gorgeous panoramic views because looking at anything else is unpleasant.  And that was before our wine was served in tacky ceramic goblets that looked straight out of the Aid to Artisans bargain bin.

3.) The food is, well, completely missable, if not bad.  Especially a block away from Grimaldi's.  Our salad had almost no dressing.  And there was no salt or pepper at the table to be found.  (FYI: This is a pizza joint, not Le Bernadin, so I get to decide how much salt and pepper I want.)  The pizza is bland, and the crust was undercooked.  Really no flavor to speak of whatsoever, and that's hard to achieve with an anchovy pizza.  No herbal flavor, no spice.  Just bland tomato flavor over chewy dough with scant cheese.  And large spots of the pizza with nothing on it at all.  Literally.  Spots of blank dough.

4.) It's expensive.  Two people, three glasses of wine, one large pizza, and one salad.  Total cost $72 leaving a good tip.  And that's taking into consideration they took off the $9 toppings charge because they messed up our pie and had to re-make it (and made it wrong again).  Which is fine, because it's opening night and that stuff happens.  But our pizza was supposed to cost $27 (that's $18 base plus $3 per topping).  In Brooklyn.  One block away from Grimaldi's.  And you can't overlook that.  Because against that competition, Ignazio's could have pursued one of two possible angles for success: (a) go for a lower price point, or (b) go for a higher quality product.  They succeed at neither.

Basically, let me bottom line the "whether to go to Ignazio's" decision-making process for you:

Are you a New Yorker and/or any serious pizza connoisseur?  Steer clear.  You'll be disappointed and out a serious chunk of cash.

Are you a tourist?  Fine.  You'll be too busy clapping at the pianist and gawking at the skyline to notice that you're being fleeced.  

Are you a DUMBO/BH local who is unwilling to stand on a 2 hour Grimaldi's line and unwilling to walk 5 minutes up into Brooklyn Heights for a Fascati's pie?  Then you may wish to consider Ignazio's.  Because at least it's better than the taco pizza at that awful slice joint, Front Street Pizza.

I feel sort of bad panning this place, because I'm a neighbor, and they really are trying hard.  Too hard.  (How else could they have spent so much time and money making the joint look like such a tawdry, overwrought mess?)  And DUMBO/BH really needs stuff that's good!  But this misses the mark, and it's not even close.  But it's fine.  It's pretty clear now that this place is as much in it to snare the captive audience of tourists as Pete's Downtown is, so it'll do just fine even after nobody believes me and finds out for themselves how truly mediocre and disappointing this place is.

Critical Eye Review:

If anybody needs confirmation that the NYC speakeasy scene is dead, Apotheke will be more than happy to provide it for you.  From start to finish in my brief visit to Apotheke, I was more or less appalled at how gaudy and indelicate this place was.  Basically, nothing worked.  Apotheke is a conceptual failure on all levels.

For me, the first bad sign was turning the corner onto what it maybe the quirkiest street in Manhattan, Doyers Street, and finding the quiet and stillness of nighttime Chinatown shattered by a large crowd of hipsters smoking loudly on the street.  The sinking feeling in my stomach was then confirmed when I saw the doorman presiding over the door, which frankly was doing a poor job of keeping the sounds of "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy" by Rod Stewart.  At some cheesy Chelsea nightclub, this might be forgivable, but not at a place that fancies itself a cocktail den.

Once inside, I was met with a wall of heat and odor, and the perspiration of people dancing inside the tiny space forced me to remove my glasses from the steam.  It was tightly packed with people occupying every possible space in front of me, and the bad music was easily twice as loud as necessary for everybody to hear it and still have a conversation.  This is not a cocktail den, I realized, it was a place for well-heeled people not affected by the recession to get drunk fast on high-potency drinks.  At least, that's the point.  In reality, it's probably just people going farther into credit card debt trying to look cool.

Finally finding Dr. Becca and the other Yelpers there that night, we decided to get a drink.  So we pushed our way past the oblivious drunks collected at the bar, and grabbed a cocktail menu.  The menu was sticky and wet from having drinks spilled on it, and its tiny, indistinct font was almost illegible in the dim light.  After reading through 20+ cocktails, I was thoroughly unimpressed.  Everything on the menu is over-thought and overworked, as if the menu's creator had no training whatsoever in the classical method of constructing cocktails.  Ingredients were thrown together without rhyme or reason.  After briefly considering a "Smoking Jacket", I decided maybe it would just be better to keep it simple with a Manhattan.

Dr. Becca, who had opted for something a little more adventurous, warned me as our drinks were being made, that at Apotheke, they have a funny practice of putting an ice cube in all their cocktails.  I thought she was kidding until my Manhattan came back with a large cube of ice.  Disgusted, I quickly grabbed the cube with my fingers and dropped it on the bar, upon which it was clear to me that this "funny practice" was really nothing more than a shyster move to get away with charging $15 for a half-drink.  And a badly-made one at that.  Overpowering vermouth flavour was not contrasted in the least by any discernible taste of bitters.

But at least I didn't order what Dr. B. had.  She offered me a sip, and when the foul taste of whatever was in that glass hit my tongue, I had to stop myself from spitting it out.  Literally, if she would have told me that they were serving her a vodka and pickle juice cocktail, I would have believed her.  It was some kind of noisy melange of dill, salt, cucumber, and other herbs.  Truly disgusting.  The kind of drink that makes dirty martinis seem tasty and balanced in comparison.

Naturally, having spent $35 for a pickle juice cocktail and two sips of a bad Manhattan, things could only look up from there.  It was kind of cool that they had apothecary bottles all over the place, but I seriously doubt that any of their bartenders even know what most of them contain, if indeed they serve any purpose other than a purely decorative one.  It's very clever that the bartenders are wearing lab coats, but, in the end, it's just too obvious.  And it's true, the space is pretty inside, if only there weren't such bad (loud) music playing, and so many people.  At all times, you must be aware of the people around you, because you're constantly being jostled, and often your drinks spilled.  That happened to us, as a drunk girl trying to take pictures of her friends basically walked backwards into us.  Turning around and noticing that we were wiping alcohol off our arms, she disinterestedly asked "was that me?" before turning back to her pictures.

All in all, Apotheke is the kind of place that really gives The Randolph a run for its money in the competition for worst cocktail bar in NYC.  If you go here, I'll feel sorry for you.  And if you like it here, well, let's just say I hope I don't see you at [REDACTED], [REDACTED], or [REDACTED], where I'll be having a real cocktail, thank you very much.

Critical Eye Update:

Upon critical review, Little Branch gets the slap-down with a two-star deduction.  Here are a few reasons why:

1.) It's basically impossible to get into anymore, and they've shown no initiative to transition to a reservations system.  Back in the day, a busy night meant you might have to wait 45 minutes at the bar to get a table.  Now, more often than not, you'll have to wait 30+ minutes AT THE DOOR, then another 45 minutes at the bar if you want a table.  I'm sorry, but I don't drink $13 cocktails standing up at the crowded, noisy bar.  At that price, I get a server and I get a quiet, comfortable table.  Plus, isn't this place supposed to be a "speakeasy"?  With the doorman and the line out front, it's easier to find Little Branch than it is to find the dance club across the street!  And this isn't just on warm, summer nights; I've seen lines of shivering fools 20-30 deep waiting to get in on cold winter nights.  They need to adopt a PDT-style same-day reservations system.

2.) The prices are up to $13 per cocktail.  As with Milk & Honey, at that price, they need to up the creativity and innovation factor.  If you're a seasoned cocktail vet, you'll be better off steering clear of the "bartender's choice", because what they make for you will almost always disappoint.  Recently, I've seen the bartender's choice order produce a Dark 'n Stormy, a real low point in terms of cocktail creativity.

3.) Not to be snooty or back-in-MY-day-ish, but all the wrong people have found this place.  It used to be a cool and low-key place to go for quality drinks and conversation.  Now, apparently, it's a first-date hot-spot for UWS I-Bankers and their DABA bimbo ladyfriends.

In sum, Little Branch is in a bad way.  I'm not sure there's even a time or day of the week when this place is tolerable anymore.  So, I'd say unless you have a higher tolerance than I for excessive waiting, noise, and flying elbows with your pricey drinks, avoid at all cost.

Critical Eye Update:

Milk & Honey has now gone semi-private, with membership being offered for $300 per annum.  That gets you the ability to make reservations up to a month in advance, as well as the right to walk in and cut the line of people on the waiting list.  Of the six tables, four are reserved for members only.  Non-members: good luck getting one of the two unreserved tables.  Yes, the blogs are saying that Sasha himself was the source of the new leaked telephone number, but just because you have the number doesn't mean you can get in.  My suggestion would be to try for an early reservation on an off-night.  The days of texting at 11pm on Friday and scoring that impossible "come right over" reply text are over.

As far as the drinks go, M&H really needs to come up with a paper menu to stimulate the imagination and get you thinking about what you're in the mood for.  If you're a new recruit into the cocktail cult, then asking for a "bartender's choice" is worth it.  If you're not a cocktail novice, then asking for the "bartender's choice" will almost always disappoint, as they'll invariably give you something boring that you'd never have ordered (e.g., a 1920 Cocktail #2) or something you've had a million times (e.g., a Greenpoint).  Mixologically, the bartenders are first-rate, but in terms of being on the cutting edge of creative mixology, M&H is a long way off their A-Game.

In the end, upon critical review, M&H loses one star because, given the atrophy of creativity and innovation, their drinks just aren't worth $15 anymore, which is what you'll pay if you're a non-member.  For the $9 members price, however, it's almost a great deal (as perverse as it sounds to call an almost $10 cocktail a good deal).

If the NYC nightlife scene were featured in an episode of E.R., the speakeasy trend would have been declared dead on the operating table at least six months ago.  So why do these places keep opening?  

Well, the best I can figure is that at this point, the true cocktail nerds have purchased their Milk & Honey memberships for the nights they want to "go out", found a great local cocktail bar for low-key nights*, and have put together a decent home bar (because, let's face it, it just isn't too hard to make a tasty Manhattan).  That leaves B&T, scenesters, and urban daddy-reading young professionals to fight for line space outside places like this and Little Branch.  And looking around, a lot of the people I saw looked like they'd be much more comfortable in the MPD or the UWS.

Seriously, guys, the speakeasy appeal is completely lost when you have a line out front.  Not only is it no longer a quiet place to have good drinks and conversation, but also, it's EASY TO FIND.  It's really a shame that these places have become victims of their own success, but unfortunately once the speakeasy thing catches on, the concept cannibalizes itself.

In case I'm speaking too generally, I'll be more specific about my experience.  

The positive(s): the RLR is a really nice space.  Small, comfortable, and slightly unique.  That said, we've seen all this before, and it's overdone.  Attention to the details transmogrifies into obsessive plunking down of incongruous ornamentation without much of an apparent vision other than to make it "generally antique looking".

The negative(s): It's always a negative when they can't make a drink you ask for, and the Penicillin (a creation of a M&H bartender) isn't really very demanding in terms of arcane ingredients.  I felt the need to go off menu because I found the cocktail menu to be limited and fairly unimaginative, limited primarily to safe classics.  And when I asked for a Penicillin, the waitress responded in that perfectly obvious manner that makes clear that they don't know what you're talking about, but they're unwilling to admit that they don't understand what you're asking for.  In addition, excepting the waitress, who was quite friendly and unassuming, I found the FOH staff to be stuffy, bordering on pompous.

In the end, the so-so drinks, a confusing door policy (I was given dirty looks by the hosts when I just walked in, not knowing there was a bell that I was meant to have rung), and the off-putting location (who goes to 17th & 6th at night?) probably make this a one-time visit for me.

*Mine, in case you're wondering, are REDACTED and REDACTED, which are both perfect, no-nonsense, under-the-radar places with great drinks and better company.

Taking a class in the Astor Center theatre-style classroom reminds me of my 1L year law school classes.  

Except fewer people playing solitaire on their laptops and IMing with somebody on the other side of the room.  

And less callous socratic-method humiliation of the kids in the back nursing a hangover.  

And also, we learnt mixology, not the Rule Against Perpetuities or Pennoyer v. Neff.

Oh, and we were drinking cocktails in class, not coffee.

Well, actually that last one might not have been different for you, depending on your law school experience.

In any case, the class was lots of fun and very informative.  Honestly, I'd like to see the prices come down a little if I'm going to be in a class with 50-60 others, but other than that, I highly recommend it.