http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/04/dining/restaurant-review-the-simone-on-the-upper-east-side.html 2014-12-27 12:11:09 Restaurant Review: The Simone on the Upper East Side The Simone’s lived-in warmth has become rare in Manhattan. === The chef Chip Smith and his wife, Tina Vaughn, moved to New York in 2012 after shutting their restaurant in North Carolina, but the Simone, which they When you call the restaurant, which is the only way to reserve one of its 11 tables, Ms. Vaughn will write your name in something called a “book,” holding an implement known as a “pen.” She applies the same antique tool to the menu, which she writes out in cursive and photocopies each time Mr. Smith changes it. The Simone’s search-engine strategy is the opposite of optimized. The restaurant is not on Open Table, Menu Pages, Twitter or Facebook, and an Internet search will turn up an unrelated martini bar’s website before But as some of those youngsters know, the worn grooves of an old LP can sound richer than the shimmering precision of an MP3. And the Simone has the kind of textured, lived-in, analog warmth that has become rare in Manhattan’s increasingly corporatized, professionalized restaurant scene. Though expensive, with main courses fluttering into the low $40s, and formal, with waiters in vests and neckties primping white tablecloths, the Simone isn’t starchy at all. It’s a living, breathing mom-and-pop outfit where Ms. Vaughn will gush with bubbly pride about the Provençal bottle she spontaneously offered to work into a flight of rosés, while Mr. Smith, no showboat, channels his pride into the cooking. (A third owner, Robert Margolis, keeps a poker-faced watch on the dining room.) Like the rest of the Simone, Mr. Smith’s kitchen is a bit of a throwback. The winds of If you were designing a dish to go viral on Instagram, you’d start by ruling out flounder, which has the must-see quotient of a “Matlock” marathon on TBS. The fish is a favorite of Mr. Smith’s, who served me two flounder dishes that rank among the best seafood I’ve tasted this year. In late winter, he rolled juicy, big-flaked fillets around a mousse of flounder and black truffle flecks; I would have burrowed into it until spring if I hadn’t also wanted to eat the whole thing. The flounder’s cold-weather swaddling disappeared a few weeks ago, and a jaunty new May outfit appeared: a golden sheet of bread crumbs speckled with fresh green herbs on top of the fish, a platform of crushed, minted favas below. Mr. Smith’s main courses often pair two takes on a protein, one very good and the other exceptional: a juicy roasted chicken breast with fried croquettes of dark meat, ham and foie gras so hard to ignore that dinner came to a dead stop while we passed them around; a drum of braised lamb shank with a single rib daubed with a Moroccan spice blend that landed with a menacing uppercut of heat; a crisped boneless duck thigh with thin slices of breast that were pink right out to the edges and almost surreally tender. One time, Mr. Smith doubled down and lost. The grilled loin and braised thigh of rabbit, both on the dry side, must have been a fluke, because he usually showed the intuition of a chef who knows just how his ingredients want to be handled. He has good sense with appetizers, too, and an admirable sense of restraint; he doesn’t turn them into scene stealers that leave the main courses nowhere to go but down. The first king salmon of the Alaskan season were shown off handsomely in a tartare with crisp cucumbers and bright preserved lemons. His goat-cheese soufflé was more warm custard than eat-it-now atmospheric condition, but it was still an excellent custard. He carves sweetbreads into long planks, creating more surface area for the crunchy coating of bread crumbs and Dijon mustard that was more than half the point. House-made charcuterie sits at the top of the menu, and it belongs there. Mr. Smith treats the tradition with a rare classicism, as in his recent bacon-wrapped terrine of pork, chicken liver, pistachios, pink plugs of foie gras and Armagnac prunes. I wished that the brioche toast served with it had been a little softer and lighter, but I was happy enough eating the terrine alone. It was like a rousing chorus of “La Marseillaise” made of meat. One night, Ms. Vaughn explained that during some lean times at a previous restaurant when they had to let the pastry chef go, Mr. Smith taught himself to make desserts. He has more of a feel for the last course than many chefs, although there were a few false moves, like a lemon tart that wasn’t puckery enough to withstand a sugary overload of meringue. But other desserts fell right into line, like a tart of Mr. Smith’s own marmalade with a crushed almond topping, and a little tower of There is no bar “program” at this restaurant, no list of nine-ingredient cocktails with dingbat names like Simone Says. But if your drink request is normal enough, it will materialize on the staircase in the hands of a waiter who presumably got it from some unseen, unheard Jeeves on the second floor. The Simone is a personal restaurant, and it has some personal quirks. The sophisticated-lady playlist can push nostalgia a step too far; raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, on the original cast recording, may not be everybody’s favorite thing at dinner. And Ms. Vaughn has a funny habit of sidling up to the table to ask single-word questions: Delicious? Lovely? The thing is, there was always a single-word answer: yes. The Simone ★★★ 151 East 82nd Street (Lexington Avenue), Upper East Side; 212-772-8861; ATMOSPHERE SERVICE SOUND LEVEL RECOMMENDED DRINKS AND WINE PRICES OPEN RESERVATIONS WHEELCHAIR ACCESS