Marc Forgione

134 Reade St., Tribeca, NY

6.8

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Neighborhood
Tribeca

Cuisine
American

212-941-9401

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By Andrew Steinthal
October 6, 2010

I’m obsessed with Tribeca. Those blocks north of Chambers between Hudson and Greenwich are some of my favorite in the city. Tribeca is my life goal and I’m not going to stop until I live there, in a dope loft, with a dog named Boner (Infatuation mascot of the future), a terrace with views of the skyline and a shower that fits two, comfortably. “If there is any place in this world that you want to come to, to be able to make it big or to go after your dreams, it is New York City. WOOHHOOOOHOOWOOO Barbra Streisand.” Marc Forgione might be my favorite dining space in all of Manhattan. It’s the perfect compliment to its Reade Street location and serves as a reminder as to why Tribeca is so great. The design and attention to detail is impeccable. Plenty of restaurants go for the urban-rustic look. Most don’t pull it off. Marc Forgione nails it.

Fully prepared to throw our seal of approval on Forgione and become a regular, we were bummed when things took a took a turn for the worse. Forgione is a top notch restaurant – why mess around with live music? If I wanted to hear someone cover U2 and Radiohead while I eat my dinner, I’d take a trip to sh*tty Irish Bar in Hoboken and eat a bad burger for a fraction of the price. Talk about killing the vibe. The other issue is that we didn’t exactly see eye to eye with the menu. Everything sounded great in theory and looked stunning on the plate, but nothing we put in our mouth wowed us. Marc Forgione is obviously talented. He’s on the new season of The Next Iron Chef and just scored a two star review from the NY Times. But for our taste, his dishes just have too much going on. While there are certainly people who will freak out over his ideas, technique and execution, we’re simply concerned with how it tastes and whether or not we want to eat it again and again. Unfortunately, while we didn’t have a bad meal, it wasn’t the home run we were hoping for. That being said, we’ll be coming back. Next time just with tempered expectations and ear plugs.

Food Rundown:

All Natural Veal & Coriander Sausage with Pierre Poivre Gnocchi
Served with honey crisp apples and micro celery, this appetizer is good, just not memorable. This sounds ridiculous, and we were all kinds of psyched for it, but it just didn’t all come together the way we were hoping. Too much other stuff, not enough gnocchi.

“BLT”
This one is a creative spin on a BLT, with a Stokes Farm heirloom tomato salad, crispy pig ears and a smoked onion remoulade. I won’t lie, the plating is beautiful, it gets an A for that, but it was hard to get a piece of each ingredient on the fork together and you wound up eating everything separately which is kinda boring when you’re’ talking about a BLT – something that’s supposed to be eaten together.

BBQ Baked Olde Salt & Hummock Island Oysters
I’m not sure whether it was the aromatic sea salt or bacon powder they used in these, but there was some specific spice in here that our table was just not in to. Too bad because it overpowered what would have otherwise been a great dish.

Hampshire Pork Tenderloin & Belly, Suckling Pig Cheeks
Pork served three ways with clams, matsuktake mushrooms and black garlic. It was hard to figure out exactly what was going on here, but the dish was focused around a nice chunk of belly that was served in a pork broth with strips of pork tenderloin. Although we finished it, we wouldn’t order it again next time.

LI Duck Breast
This was the best thing we ate at Forge. The duck was perfect.

Fried Quail
A special on the menu, and their spin on fried chicken. While the meat was well cooked and the flavors were there, it just wasn’t as exciting as some of the really good fried chicken we’ve grown accustomed to eating lately. And after recently sampling the quail at Gramercy Tavern, everything else pales in comparison.

Assorted Ice Cream Cones
When every other table in the joint has a rack of mini ice cream cones being delivered for dessert, there’s no chance you’re not finishing with that as well. Honestly, I would have liked this better if it was standard cones (and not homemade) with Ben & Jerry’s flavors (and not homemade), but it’s a creative idea and they executed the presentation well.