Bar Contra — Restaurant in New York

Where to begin. This was a singularly awful dining experience that I would not wish on anybody.

Let's start with the food. We ordered the $120 "carte blanche."

The first course of caviar and tofu was actually pretty good, the flavors unexpected but interesting, almost going well with the Catalonian pet nat paired with it (more on the wines in a bit).

The beef tartare was supposedly wagyu but quite chewy, fine.

It would be about thirty minutes after finishing the tartare that we would see any food. Our waiting was rewarded with three or four broccolini segments dressed in a sauce memorable only for its low pH. I suffer from acid reflux so at least I could understand the inspiration.

The jonah crab dish... what can I say. It was so awful I felt myself compelled to rationalize it to my fellow diners out of pity. ("Surely they must have tasted this before letting it out of the kitchen.") The concept seemed to be to make a salty, no, the saltiest crab bisque you could imagine, forget it on the stove as it dries up, then scrape the remaining embarrassment of crab meat out of the pot onto a plate and cover it in kohlrabi and shame.

The final course consisted of a few pieces of cuttlefish the kitchen must have tried very hard to transform into pieces of lukewarm plastic, flavorless and devoid of any textural interest that might have suggested the thing was once alive, again covered, this time by an equally flavorless foam, as if in shame. Here too I felt compelled to finish off the pieces of cuttlefish left on my fellow diner's plate: no creature deserves to be left in that wretched state.

The dessert course was some deconstructed grape granita that requires the diner to meticulously reconstruct to be palatable (think deconstructed components such as "salt" and "ice", so inhomogeneously mixed that one bite is overwhelmingly salty, the next acidic, the next sweet). At this point thought it was a mercy just to be done.

Let me pause and mention the wine pairing, offered for $80. The wines were all very natty--I don't want to fault them for this, natural wines are clearly some people's cups of tea--but the overwhelming sense one gets from these particular choices was laziness. As a wine nerd even I was left unable to explain to my friends what was supposed to be interesting about these wines, most of which spoke more to their microbial mismanagement than any notion of terroir. Two of the wines came from the same producer, but the guy pouring the wines could not even remember the name (it's three friends, he said) and had to be reminded that such things as labels exist. The best explanation I can give for the wines chosen is that the sommelier is someone who thinks IPAs are the Taj Mahal of alcoholic drinks and that everything else should taste more like them.

Honestly, I could have understood all of the above as a fluke, an off day, if the service was good. Instead, the service was maybe the worst part of the meal. The timing of the dishes was entirely sporadic, like an afterthought, sometimes immediate and sometimes taking up to half an hour. The wine pairing would, on the other hand, be unfailingly poured as soon as the previous dish was taken away, making it a test of the will not to drink the maybe two sips of wine poured during the interminable wait for the dish it was paired with. And this is not an establishment for sober people.

Worse than the poor operations management however was how utterly disinterested the staff was. To be fair we were almost entirely served by the guy at the bar so this may not accurately reflect the rest of the restaurant. The wine pairing came with next to no explanation and every concern was met with a shrug or a smirk. "We're working on it" and a laugh were the response to an inquiry about why the food was taking so long. May I humbly suggest that working out how to reliably cook and serve food should happen before a restaurant opens for business. And the temerity to charge a $20 credit card use fee to top it off.

Oh, almost forgot: the...

This week we had the opportunity to have dinner at 2 restaurants that have reputations for guest chefs and amazing, inventive tasting menus - at not stratospheric prices. One was "Contra" on Tuesday 7-17, one was "Intersect by Lexus" a few days before. Per person incl tip was about equal before drinks with Intersect offering 12 tastings and Contra 7. Based on our experience, our advice would be to skip Contra (w no FOMO) and definitely go to Intersect. Here's why: The service: The FOH staff in both restaurants work as a team, with a lead waitperson taking care of you but with a mix of staff bringing the tastings, explaining, clearing plates, etc. At Intersect, the staff struck the perfect balance of enthusiasm for each bite, a friendly and welcoming vibe while communicating the feeling of your importance as a customer. Each staff engaged with us in a way that made us feel special. At Contra, with the exception of the requisite friendliness of our waiter at our arrival and then in delivering the check, the interactions with the staff in between were a bit factory-like, mostly a basic listing of ingredients of each tasting with a mostly unsmiling, haughty-cool-veneer vibe. More like a feeling that we were lucky to be there. And the cool, loud music mostly obliterated the explanations they were giving. The food: Based on reviews, we expected true inventiveness and lots of unique flavor combinations. We got this from Intersect, but not at all from Contra. In fact, writing this the very next day, I had to refer back to the menu to even remember what we had. A bonus amuse bouche was interesting looking raising our expectations, but out of the 7 tastings, only 3 were memorable (the fresh tofu, the skate with succulents and blueberry and the tomato/mussel dish) and 3 were surprisingly mid-level restaurant basic (the spinach/rhubarb/fava had some nice flavors but only 2 of the 6 parts stood out, the chicken/peas was truly pedestrian and the plum dessert was basically a swirl of vanilla ice cream and plum sorbet). The final tasting, a mango dessert, was inventive, and interesting, just not our favorite flavors and it came after another fruit-based dessert. We expect to like some tasting more than others, but this was just inconsistent. The pace: We arrived early at 6:30. The dishes began to arrive soon after and were coming at a perfect and steady pace. Suddenly, there was over a 20 minute lag just before the last savory tasting (which turned out to be the disappointing chicken/peas). In that 20 minutes, the 4 servers walked by our table many times without one of them engaging with us about the delay! The 7 tastings took a full 2 hours.

Our sense was that Contra may be getting tired - the chefs less inventive than previously? and maybe the staff is getting weary? Or maybe the sustained high reviews makes them feel they don't have to really try? At least that is what it felt like from our diner's perspective. Based on our experience, we would not return to Contra. For a truly top service experience with a generous variety of incredibly inventive food and unique and surprising flavor combinations, we will definitely return to...

Given that Contra is known for its tasting menu experience and natural wines, it was extremely unfortunately that the restaurant was woefully understaffed the night I went. The tasting menu meal took almost 4 hours, and this is no Eleven Madison Park.

Bread was placed on the table without bread plates. We all look confused at each other... are we supposed to just spray crumbs all over the table? I asked the server if they were going to bring out plates, and they said they would. The warm bread got cold in front of our eyes, and when we asked again, they said "I actually don't know if we have plates available now..." apparently a dishwasher called out sick. At one point I asked for more bread, and upon asking again, they said, "don't worry it's in the oven warming up for you." It never came out.

The sommelier recommended us wines that were not nearly as magical as described, and given how slowly the food was coming out, we were drinking Gamay with lobster and it made no sense at all. I expected the meal to end with a red meat but it didn't, which was disappointing. Why would the sommelier recommend a red, if that were the case?

It's too bad because the food was good. I would not do the tasting menu; get the a la carte. I would skip the soy tofu dish (too watery and sweet as a starter and could have used more of the textural topping). The tomato starter is also a waste of money; nice gelee but spend your $16 on a glass of wine.

The wagyu beef crudo with rhubarb mole was lovely; the sweet-sour profile reminded me of preserved plums, and the sesame topping and shiso evoked Asian flavors. The fava and spring onion was just okay as well; the walnut streusel could have used more flavor; maybe roasted walnut would have been nice.

The crab and potato was one of the tastier things I've had. I felt like I was in Ireland with the samphire topping. It was vaguely oceanic but still hearty. The boudin noir sounds interesting and largely tasty but execution was poor; the sourdough toast on the bottom fell apart. The grilled lobster was another stunner. They were able to deshell a lobster claw while keeping the meat intact. I'd have love to sop up the sauce vin jaune with more bread (and plus I was hungry) but the bread never came...

Apricot and burnt vanilla ice cream was very balanced and I liked the dash of olive oil on it.

It's always challenging when the food is good but the service is poor. At nearly $200 a person though, I expect better service - and if they can't bring me my food, they should have brought me bread to keep me happy... and...