Shariq’s Département

As you know from an earlier post, I am a fan of Craftbar.  The restaurant is cosy, the food is excellent and innovative at non-exorbitant prices.  Even their brunch has very unusual dishes: I recently ate a dish of short ribs, leeks, baked eggs, pototaoes and dusted with Ibarra chocoloate.  I was hesitant to order it, but it was extremely delicious.  Kudos to the chef for innovating with the sacrosanct American steak and eggs and taking it to a whole new level.

Craft, on the other hand, continues to prove why it has lost its Michelin star, and should not regain it.  When I took my parents for dinner there recently, the food was shockingly bad and the menu was boring and uninspired.  We kept looking at the one-note dishes trying to figure out what we were going to order. 

There was a time when the notion of just a protein and side dishes was cute, but now it seems tiresome.  The concept depends on fantastic execution and fresh ingredients.  However, the side dishes we ordered, including the much-praised mushroom sides were rubbery, bland and unappetizing (picture 1).  My lamb, which had been ordered medium-well was delivered so rare that it was almost oozing blood, and when it was returned after a 20 minute delay, it was a charred mess and about half the size of the original dish (picture 2).  M. had the famous short ribs, and said they were just ok.  Take a look at picture 3 of the short ribs, and you will see that they look quite unappetizing!

Definitely stay away from Craft and go to Craftbar instead.  It has been almost a year now since Craft lost its Michelin star.  Tom Colicchio seems to have seen this as an opportunity to neglect the restaurant even more, since it has become a brand and been exported to Las Vegas, and still charge stratospheric prices.  He needs more chefs like the one at Craftbar.