"21" And Still Counting

By Mimi Sheraton

Finally the wraps are off. The "21" Club, New York City's legendary oasis for high-rolling power brokers and celebrity watchers, opened its famed iron gates after a four-month face-lift, a reported $8 million exercise in cosmetic surgery that included the premises, the food and the menu as well. The big question: Has "21" changed? Has the new owner-management team dared to alter the setting or, even worse, change the food? Do they still make the famous hamburger? And, in effect, will we still be able to love it and hate it?

Not that anyone with eyes or a palate could possibly have thought the old place was really in good shape, or that the pricey food was anything more than dependably dreary. But nostalgia is a heady seasoning, and panic set in among habitues as soon as the word was out that the new owner, Marshall S. Cogan's Knoll International Holdings Inc., had turned the management over to Ken Aretsky and Anne Rosenzweig, the team behind Arcadia, a popular East Side boutique-restaurant celebrated for its new American cooking. Even more frightening to those accustomed to "21's" innocuous but soothing nursery dishes was the news that Rosenzweig, who would mastermind the kitchen, had chosen as her lieutenant Alain Sailhac, one of the best French chefs in the country, who had distinguished himself at Le Cirque. What was right for Arcadia and fancy French restaurants would not be right for "21," doubters said, fearing nothing so much as an invasion of foodies and yuppies. Yet faced with an aging clientele, the new team clearly had to attract a younger, more style-conscious audience. New or old, all "21" customers had better bring money: the prices are now even more astronomical than they used to be. (For real plungers, there is a new members-only breakfast club, with a $1,500 initiation fee and $250 annual dues. Then you pay for the meal.)

The vote is still out on how well Rosenzweig and Aretsky are doing, but there are some early returns on the fare, all of which is new or redesigned. After one lunch in the bar and two dinners in the second-floor dining room, this critic can report that the answers to the burning questions about changes, so far, are yes and no. The public and banquet rooms at "21" are nearly the same, but they are brighter and fresher. An eccentric addition to the lobby is a life-size wooden horse, a 19th century conceit that is the pet purchase of Cogan. The more sweeping changes were made in the brand new kitchens, and despite some lapses, the food has generally improved.

The most critical room is the bar, drinking and eating headquarters for the most die-hard devotees. Blessedly, it is intact, with all appointments, including the famous collection of toys, cleaned and polished. This remains the noisy, sexy, energizingly macho soul of "21." Clients who favored the upstairs room will probably continue to do so; more than ever it suggests a European dining salon, posh to those who like it, corny to those who do not.

Menu offerings in the bar and dining room are much the same at lunch but differ at dinner, with the more gussied up Arcadia-style food served upstairs at night. That seems to be the least successful fare, primarily because of overdone, often sweet garnishes -- oranges in an otherwise luscious lobster ! salad, a cloyingly sugary bed of sauteed onions overpowering the delicate Dover sole meuniere. Another problem at all meals in all rooms is the tearoom breads, delicious by themselves but poor as foils for wine, the satiny American smoked salmon and the elegant terrine of truffled duck liver. Other fine dinner appetizers were the silken lobster-filled ravioli with chanterelles and hazelnuts and a ragout of wild mushrooms. Among main courses, moist, roasted pheasant with a subtle gamy flavor was well set off with pungent cranberries, and a mustard glaze added zest to sliced, rare roast filet of beef. Near misses were a too soupy stew of wild duck, the sweetbreads that tasted of overheated oil and both the gratin of salt codfish with a Parmesan cheese and soft-shell crabs that were impeccably prepared but stingingly salty.

At lunch, more "21" favorites are on the menu in new guises, not all of them improvements. Among the better results are the brilliantly cold, clear oysters; bluepoints, Cotuits and belons are handsomely served on seaweed- strewn ice with a cocktail sauce that has a thicker, lusher texture than in the past. Other welcome additions are the puffy, golden-brown crab cakes with a gossamer horseradish-butter-cream sauce and the rose-pink calves liver bedded down on red-onion marmalade. Chicken hash, as always, is really creamed chicken but fresher and more flavorful.

Why those in charge could not have let alone the famed "21" burger is beyond imagining. It now arrives atop a slice of grilled country bread, and embedded in the burger is a big knob of green herb butter, a touch that adds flavor -- and cholesterol. The butter also prevents the inner meat from remaining truly rare. In much the same way, Rosenzweig should have let well enough alone with the rice pudding, one of the few really good things on the old list. New desserts are still uneven; better additions include ice cream glazed in the style of creme brulee, a crunchy maple pecan pie and a fine custardy clafoutis with blackberries.

The most surprising unevenness is in the drinks. Order a Bloody Mary straight-up in the bar, and you will get a weak one in a stem glass; ask for it in the lounge, and you draw a powerful potion in a highball glass. A gimlet in the bar at lunch had a barely perceptible level ofalcohol, and a meager pouring of premium Scotch was overpowered by ice. In a restaurant that began as a speakeasy and is proud of it, such vagaries are disquieting.