NY Times Gives “C” Grade to Rye’s Encore Bistro
Rye's Encore Bistro, opened in 2014 and a sister restaurant to the one in Larchmont, got a "meh" review by M.H. Reed in The New York Times. Reed score the restaurant a "good" among the standard choices of excellent, very good, good, fair and poor.
Some of the outtakes:
"But our expectations may have been a bit too high; some of the classic dishes we hoped would be transporting lacked excitement and finesse…
Certain salads needed more dressing, which might have provided the desired flavor connection to a featured ingredient, like warm goat cheese spread on toasted slices of bread or a big, meaty crab cake. But with the tuna tartare, even when a connection existed, as with capers, anchovies and sesame oil, the dish still came across as a cold, coarse chop of fish. The major disappointment was a “tarte Tatin” of tomatoes. In a less than delicate arrangement, small red and yellow tomatoes were roasted and plunked whole upon a thin disk of tough pastry.
Some entrees had problems, which, since the restaurant has been open for almost a year, should have been worked out by now. A lack of seasoning resulted in unappealing food. And although one component of a dish could be quite decent, the whole combination might be spoiled by, say, a burned sauce. For example, our thick, nicely grilled steak came with an almost black, burned sauce, bitter fennel and somewhat mushy fries that needed cooking in hotter oil…
Not all entrees we sampled were as successful: A clean, lovely trout amandine was unseasoned, and a very salty Parmesan crust topped seven nonetheless flavorless sea scallops, extremes that failed to merge. In the intense broth of a bouillabaisse, chunks of salmon and trout held their own, but shellfish were overdone and chewy. Rouille, a sauce that serves as the stew’s classic garnish, had little if any of the requisite garlic. The best side dishes seemed to be couscous, broccolini, haricots verts, spinach and pasta. Avoid the French fries and the boiled-out fennel…
By choosing carefully, diners can have a delightful meal here, and there are bargains to be had."
You get the idea… read the entire review.
Read the LoHud.com article after the opening in 2014.
Read reviews on Yelp.
Owner David Masliah's profile on LinkedIn.
