Brass - 9.5/10

Brass stuns, hitting exactly the right notes on all fronts, design, lighting, music, elbow room between your table and the next table, noise level, and even a cool mirror outside the bathroom. If you went into the hypothetical lighting studio of Brass, the highlights, lowlights, contrast, saturation, shadows, and luminance would all be adjusted to a perfectly pleasing level. Angle upward in the main dining room and you’ll see a gorgeous elevated greenhouse-style dome skylight covering the ceiling. Angle back down to the middle of the room where a grand piano and upright bass player will start playing live music around 9:15 pm on Fridays and Saturday nights.

Back up to before you are brought to your table, checking in at the host stand outside of the restaurant in the Tusk Bar area made me envious that we hadn’t arrived early enough to have a drink at the bar in advance of dinner. The Tusk Bar is a large u-shaped bar, lit strategically and cautiously, with under-bar lighting, lamps, and small table lights. Menu is more limited than the main restaurant, but not so limited that you couldn’t enjoy several items with cocktails for dinner or a date night. Expertly decorated and furnished with varied seating, couches, curtains, coffee tables, and even several petite bistro dining tables. Next time I’ll be back for a Smoke Show Martini, which includes smoked olive oil, brine, and blue cheese olives.

The host brings you through the Tusk Bar area to the main Brass dining room. Reminiscent of classic old New York dining rooms, the tables are clothed, the seating is a mix of elegant red chairs and red booths, it’s actually remarkable how red they decorated the room while remaining understated and not too flashy or bold.

The wine list is approachable, but not terribly affordable, only a few bottles under $100 but the environment calls for a bit of a treat now doesn’t it? The sommelier was friendly, knowledgable, and attentive, never making us wait hardly a two minutes for a refill as we drank. The menu includes options to build the perfect meal, from hors d'oeuvres, to entrées (in the French sense of the word, meaning entry to your meal, thus, appetizers), and mains. We enjoyed the tarte flambée ($21) to start, a flatbread-esque item with fromage blanc, onions, and lardons that truly rivaled the tarte flambées I ate during my time living in Strasbourg, France, where the dish originates. The French training of chef Jeremiah Stone was on display here, who graduated from The French Culinary Institute in New York and trained in France. A truly enjoyable happy accident happened next. We had ordered the crab & maitake croustade, with black truffle and scarlet crab from the list of hors d'oeuvres. However the waiter misheard us, and what arrived was the crabcake over bibb lettuce ($41). The waiter explained that it’s recommended to be eaten as a sort of crab lettuce wrap, with a creamy mustard next to it for addition. We frankly did not notice that there had been a mixup in the plates, and thoroughly enjoyed the crabcake, which was perfectly cooked, almost spreadable, rather than a dry patty format, how I typically find crabcakes. The bibb lettuce was expertly seasoned with gentle oil and salt and pepper, I say expertly because adorning simple leaves of lettuce that perfectly, taking them from a garnish on a plate to a true element of the meal, holding their own next to crab really is a touch of skill that can’t be replicated at home, or at least in my home.

Finally, for the main course we shared the Aged NY Strip ($59) and a side of the Dauphine potatoes ($15). I struggle with knowing where to start. The strip is sliced and presented gorgeously, au poivre atop a plate lathered in sauce, with a sweet prune armagnac on the side. The steak was perfectly cooked, and the salt flakes were palpable, not one too many or too few. The au poivre sauce was rich and delicious but not heavy and didn’t drown out any other element on the plate, literally. The prune armagnac was a surprise sweet element which complemented the rest of the plate expertly, holding salt, protein, creamy sauce, and sweet jam in a quartet with one another, not one overpowering the other. The dauphine potatoes tasted like fried dough and I mean that as such high praise. They were flaky, soft, sweet, and useful as a tool for picking up leftover au poivre sauce toward the end of the meal. I tacked them onto our order at the last minute and I’m so glad I did, they rounded out the table well, and frankly felt like dessert to us, since we were well filled from the meal that we did not try any desserts.

I’m already hoping I’ll be back at Brass soon. I daydream of sitting at the Tusk Bar, enjoying a martini or two, some oysters and maybe the Tusk burger. We felt treated as guests but also as friends in Brass, where the setting was gorgeous, elevated, and professional, but didn’t verge for one moment toward stuffy or too high-brow. Brass would be a great choice for a celebratory girl’s night, an alluring date night, or even an impressive choice to take your out-of-town parents who want to “experience New York.” Brass felt like fine dining, it also felt like nightlife, it felt a lot like New York, and a little bit like Paris. The ultimate trick Brass pulls off is hitting every note right on the money. Brass is an absolute return.

All photos courtesy of Brass.