A New Côte
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

La Côte Basque, the venerable Midtown bastion of haute French cooking, closed in March, eliciting tears from a certain stratum of diners, but swiftly reopened as LCB Brasserie Rachou with the same staff and a simpler character, targeting a broader, younger audience. But calling this distinguished restaurant’s reinvention at age 45 a “modernization” is overstating the case. The famous murals of the namesake coast are gone; the walls are painted a vivid shade of sea-urchin, offset by dark wood moldings. But the staff still answers the phone “La Côte Basque,” the service is still ceremonious, and the staid atmosphere is far from the casual, contemporary one the snazzy new name might imply. Jean-Jacques Rachou, the restaurant’s owner and chef for almost 30 years, has an Old World vision that some may find surprising in this city of Japanese and Creole brasseries. But the restaurant’s lifelong clientele, glad to be back after an alarming hiatus, seems to like that just fine. On a typical night here, gray-haired heads outnumber non-gray ones; about half the men (and all the waiters) wear neckties. The mood is not formal, but it’s more stuffy than comfortable: seats are stiff, tables closely spaced, and the lighting is alternately too bright and too dim. The pampering service can verge on theater, as when a squad of unsmiling servers surround a table, lock eyes, and whisk the silver cloches from six dishes in perfect synchrony.
Apart from the murals, little has been lost. The large menu includes brasserie essentials, such as escargots and steak frites, while retaining such elevated creations as tripe in Armagnac broth and roast duck with Grand Marnier sauce. Sadly, the quality of the preparations can be spotty, sometimes falling far from the high standard set by the original Côte Basque.
Escargots are served elegantly in little individual cups, submerged in luxurious hot parsley-green butter ($12). But the plentiful garlic flavoring the butter is barely cooked and retains a harsh raw edge, enough to make this normally docile dish a little unfriendly. The snails themselves are unpredictable: the dip of a fork may pull up a perfectly supple specimen, or, just as likely, a rubbery one. Another brasserie classic, onion soup gratinee ($11), fares better. Acres of crusty, elastic Gruyere cover a savory, bread-filled soup: not a subtle dish, but highly effective.
A first course of mussels marinieres ($12.50), dramatically served in a rectangular silver pan, refines the familiar dish, with plentiful tender, plump mussels lazing in an unusually silky broth, heavy on the cream and the wine. The brasserie omits the customary frites. Quenelles of pike ($14.50), a starter from the less casual side of the menu, truly dazzle. This was one of the stalwarts of the old Côte Basque, and its survival here is cause for elation. A pair of perfect light dumplings, neither leaden nor – equally egregious – too airy, are lapped with two creamy sauces: one yellow with saffron and sweeter in flavor, the other a modified sauce Nantua that fills the mouth with rich flavors of lobster and brandy. Tiny bay scallops and savory mushrooms nestle against the quenelles. The restaurant doesn’t get any better than this.
Bouillabaisse, in good French-restaurant tradition, is the Friday night special entree here ($32): a sizeable bowl of thick, ruddy, intensely flavored shellfish broth littered with sea creatures of all types and accompanied by croutons spread with an eye-opening aioli. The components are excellent, but the lobster redolent soup is strong where it should be delicate; the flavors become salty and muddled.
The original restaurant was known for its cassoulet, and LCB gives the stew pride of place among the menu’s “specialites traditionnelles.” Here, though, the orderly dish ($29), which requires long cooking to marry its component flavors, is reduced too far, so that it becomes over concentrated. As in the bouillabaisse, salt predominates, and the various elements become jumbled. The ingredients – garlicky sausage, rich duck confit, succulent white beans – are still topnotch, but the dish as a whole is disappointing.
Duck is roasted to meaty tenderness, given a mahogany sheen with a honey glaze, and served with a cherry-Grand Marnier sauce that’s tartly tasty in its own right but does little for the fowl ($31). The crisp, savory glaze complements the meat’s rich texture and deep, unctuous flavor. A plethora of discrete fruity adornments accompany the duck and sweeten the course: chunks of cooked apple, spicy pumpkin mousse, and a dessert like custard of banana and raisin.
But another haute staple, tournedos Rossini ($38), disappoints lamentably. The splendid slice of foie gras on top has no flaw (one only wishes it were larger),and the truffled demiglace is full-flavored, but the thick beef filet requires an unbecoming amount of effort to cut and chew, and its callow character fails to integrate into the deep and complex dish.
For dessert, individually made chocolate souffle ($10) strikes a perfect balance: delicate but not faint flavored; decidedly chocolaty (the glossy sauce in particular) but not garish or overwhelming. Other desserts are less proficient: a large, gleaming, floating meringue island in creme anglaise ($8) has marvelous texture but is dominated by the strident flavor of powdered sugar, and creme brulee ($8), saturated with lemon and vanilla and topped with pineapple compote, lacks finesse.
The wine list is sizeable and stately, with no qualms about listing four-figure bottles. By-the-glass offerings and lower-priced bottles are somewhat limited, though: despite the ostensible democratization of the restaurant, there’s a gaping interval between the $9 glass of Dancing Bull zinfandel and the $2,800 Chateau Petrus that could usefully be filled out.
The distinctive 19th-century vision of M. Rachou won’t appeal to the crowd for whom Balthazar epitomizes brasserie dining: there is very little about Brasserie LCB that’s modern. Instead, it continues to fill more or less the role in New York’s dining landscape that La Côte Basque did, preserving a certain set of culinary traditions against a changing world. The highly sporadic output of the kitchen aside, LCB has the inexorability of an institution, and its highlights are very good indeed. If and when a rumored new Côte Basque opens on the Upper East Side, one can only hope it’s as stodgy as this one.