Not Just Desserts

There's excitement in the air whenever a chef with a pastry background opens a new restaurant. Maybe it's the thrill of versatile virtuosity, or the hope that everything on the menu will be as completely satisfying as a good dessert. Iacopo Falai, once pastry chef at Le Cirque, now oversees a two-year-old empire of three excellent restaurants all his own. And food-world gossip has been running high about the incipient launch of Tailor, the solo venture of Sam Mason, pastry chef of WD-50. So P*ong, the new restaurant of Pichet Ong, has garnered its share of excitement. Mr. Ong's Asian-inspired desserts were reliably remarkable at Spice Market and Perry Street, and I was among the anticipating throng at his new casual West Village spot.

P*ong is a little place with soft, curvy lines, decorated with fabrics and pillows and a dark, looming bar dividing the room. Dinner consists of small plates a la carte in the $10–$15 range, or a two-hour-long parade of 10 smaller plates for $59 — not a bad deal as tasting menus go. Mr. Ong's savory dishes, like his desserts, tend to involve fairly subtle flavor combinations, often pitting sweet against salty, often taking an unexpected path through familiar territory. His bluefin tuna tartare ($14) is a free-form pile of perfectly diced maroon fish, tangled with kelp and sea salt — good so far — and sided with a big smear of Meyer lemon sabayon, which has the jarringly bright, sugary tang of cake frosting. Excellent little whole shrimps form the core of a spicy ceviche ($12), joined by smooth, rich mango sorbet and powerful little Thai chilis. After bringing it to the table, the server mists the dish from a spray bottle containing an infusion of lemongrass and cachaça liquor, which doesn't seem to offer much besides a show.

Few of the dishes make complete sense, but some are more straitlaced than others. A blob of topnotch, super-creamy burrata ($14) comes with a cap of gray paddlefish caviar, and a couple of bagel chips — a funny touch — to scoop it all with. The texture contrast would be keener with a crunchier roe, but the combination works regardless. The ruddy, paper-thin beef of a carpaccio ($19) has little flavor for all its pricey Wagyu pedigree, but the creamy white pesto sauce, made with pungent Japanese shiso leaves and drizzled over smoky miniature arugula, is worth the price of admission on its own. But there's nothing to recommend a complicated, bland crab salad ($15), with hunks of mild baby crab bound with too much overly rich mayo. Mr. Ong places the scoop of salad, not on toast or greens or something sensible that would cut the richness, but on a thick bed of gooey apple mousse, which cloyingly augments it.

From the "Savory " section, which contains all of the above, the menu moves into a transitional "Sweet and Savory" section and then into "Sweet," which is, of course, the chef's forte. Among the transitional dishes is an concoction of Meyer lemon granita ($11) set on top of mascarpone cheese; the savory component comes in the form of a sprinkle of salt and pepper, but the main pleasure of the extremely mild dish is the textural contrast between crunchy ice and creamy cheese. A plain composition of chewy fresh dates ($10) strewn with slivers of sharp, cheddar-like Spanish mahon cheese that gives a meal at P*ong, whose balance can fall on the bland side of subtlety, a welcome wake-up dose of salty savor.

To nobody's surprise, desserts are the best thing at P*ong. The same creativity that in the earlier courses gives rise to confusing, unsatisfying combinations is more successful when the unifying power of sugar is involved. It makes delicious sense of a cylindrical Kaffir lime meringue wrapped around lemongrass-scented yogurt, rhubarb ice, and coconut gel ($10). It makes stars of unlikely ice creams, among them a sweet basilarugula one that accompanies the flat, though gloriously fragrant, walnut-crusted Stilton soufflé ($14). There's potential, too, in a smooth, otherworldly miso ice cream ($12), but unfortunately just a smear of it is served, sandwiched between slices of pound cake that have the chewy staleness indicative of long refrigeration.

Elaborate cocktail creations include a "chocolate mojito" with passion fruit ice ($14) and prosecco spiked with elderflower, candied rose petals, and shavings of gold leaf ($12). But a soda with house-made rhubarb syrup ($4) has a simple grace that kept me ordering refills: seasonal, fresh, and tart.

The savory dishes include numerous moments of pleasure, but they don't carry their weight, leaving one to regret filling up on them when the sweets can be so spot-on. P*ong reaches beyond the scope of dessert bars in the vein of Chikalicious and Room 4 Dessert, but too many shortcomings stand in the way of Mr. Ong's ambition to take responsibility for the entirety of the meal.

P*ong (150 W. 10th St., between Waverly Street and Greenwich Avenue, 212-929-0898).