The Service Issue
Time Out New York
A fancy restaurant where the staff is so intuitive, it seems like they’re invisible
Of all New York’s hyperextravagant eateries, Jean Georges has the most clairvoyant service. The waiters glide imperceptibly throughout the dining room, predicting a diner’s needs with eerie accuracy: Glasses fill and refill as if by sorcery. But those are common parlor tricks compared with the polished sleight of hand with which waiters perform the restaurant’s signature tableside flourishes, such as spooning yellow-orange Château-Chalon sauce around ghostly white turbot. Only service this seamless maintains the precarious illusion of high-end dining: All you notice is the fabulous food. 1 Central Park West between 60th and 61st Sts (212-299-3900)
A fancy restaurant where the chef reads your mind
Even in the best restaurants, waiters can sometimes mangle a chef’s good intentions. The antidote: a seat at the bar at Sushi Yasuda, in front of head chef Naomichi Yasuda. With only a small counter separating customers from the affable master, Yasuda develops an uncanny understanding of each person’s preferences. “Small mouth, yes?” he greets a woman for whom he always makes his pieces of sushi a bit smaller. “Bigeye!” he says to another as she sits down—a nickname referring to her favorite type of tuna. Express enough admiration and you might get a nickname too. 204 E 43rd St between Second and Third Aves (212-972-1001)
A cheap restaurant where the staff knows the food
Too often, ambitious Brooklyn restaurants are felled by embarrassingly amateurish service. The Farm on Adderley, in faraway Ditmas Park, is a delightful exception. Owners Gary Jonas and Allison McDowell, who occasionally push plates themselves, take special care to ensure the staff tries all the regular dishes, seasonal specials, wine and beer. But it certainly doesn’t come across as pretentious; the waiters are as likely to wax poetic on the artisanal cheeses and mostly local vegetables as they are to gush in layman’s terms about the strapping burger (“so good!”). Perhaps that’s why they garner so many raves in the comment book that accompanies the check. “The service was impeccable,” one diner wrote. “Celine, thank you.” 1108 Cortelyou Rd between Stratford and Westminster Rds, Ditmas Park, Brooklyn (718-287-3101)
A high-end bartender who serves you quickly and attitude-free
The arrival of cocktails-done-right has brought with it the sometimes insufferable sense of bartender-knows-best. Enter Jim Meehan, the gracious, hunky drink-slinger at Pegu Club (Monday) and Gramercy Tavern (Thursday to Sunday). “I’m not going to serve an aviation to someone who wants a piña colada,” says Meehan, who comes from the old school of bartending—ask him about his influences and he may cite a book by 19th-century bar icon Harry Johnson. Besides mixing skills, he’s also an expert diviner of drinkers’ desires, whether that means chatting them up or leaving them alone. Either way, he’s inspired a loyal fan base. As Meehan says, “A great bar is filled with regulars.” Pegu Club, 77 W Houston St between West Broadway and Wooster St (212-473-7348); Gramercy Tavern, 42 E 20th St between Broadway and Park Ave South (212-477-0777)
A coffee joint that feels like a community
There’s a convivial authenticity that comes from family-run D’Amico Foods’almost 60 years in the neighborhood—a feeling that neither free Wi-Fi nor mustachioed hipsters hunkered on grungy couches can replicate. From one of the ratty stools pulled up to the granite-topped counter in back, you might see the guy who pulls your espresso (8 o’clock shadow, big basketball shorts) parrying flirty insults from a gaggle of tweens sipping self-serve (but irreproachable) coffee. When the skirmish gets out of hand, the group of weathered Italian men (derby hats, glasses thick as osso buco) headquartered at the rickety tables nearby gently scolds them all. Starbucks, eat your heart out. 309 Court St between DeGraw and Sackett Sts, Cobble Hill, Brooklyn (718-875-5403)