Casual, Fine Dining on the UWS

How do you set up a fine dining establishment in a neighborhood where the very word is anathema?

By carefully presenting haute cuisine as still paying homage to neighborhood culture, according to John Fraser, chef and owner of the new, yet already highly acclaimed, Dovetail on the Upper West Side.

Responding to a family-friendly and casual neighborhood atmosphere (Shake Shack UWS is around the corner) with a desire to show off its fine cuisine, the restaurant presents a homey but daringly ambitious restaurant experience. “The design was such that we were trying to juxtapose fine dining and causal—no table cloth on the table, but carpet on the floor,” said Fraser. “We are trying not to be too stuffy, but knowledgeable. Everything is on purpose.”

The restaurant achieves this by being deliberately simple. From the muted browns to the exposed brick walls, the atmosphere subtly points toward home, even if the food does not.

Though the style is new American and most of the ingredients are seasonal from local sources, you won’t find any of that information on the menu. In an age where menus tend to read like Wikipedia entries, Dovetail’s menu is short and succinct—glorious for a foodie, daunting for your average Joe the Plumber.

“I prefer to keep it our little secret until you ask, and then we’ve got a lot to say about it,” Fraser said.

Ironically, it is the fine dining that seems to put Fraser in his comfort zone. After working a few summers bartending and cooking in Montauk to pay for school at University of California, San Diego, where he pursued an anthropology degree, Fraser took a leave of absence and headed to Los Angeles’ Coco-Pazzo, diving headlong into his culinary career. “The chef that I was cooking for opened my eyes to the idea that food is not just food and restaurants are not just restaurants,” he said. “You don’t have to be an alcoholic or a drug addict to get stuck in restaurants—some people actually choose it.”

The hospitality industry can be dirty work, with long hours and little respite, but Fraser shows no remorse about leaving anthropology class for a life of dicing, grilling, and vacuum-packing. “I chose it,” he said. “It didn’t choose me.” From Los Angeles, Fraser migrated north to Napa, California and the famed French Laundry. It was there that Thomas Keller, one of the United States’ most famous chefs and owner of both French Laundry and New York’s Per Se, became Fraser’s mentor.

It was from him that he learned to highlight the ingredients and stay seasonal. Fraser uses this philosophy when creating dishes for Dovetail’s menu. Currently, the menu reflects some of Fraser’s favorite winter ingredients, including brussels sprout leaves, piquillo peppers, scallops, and butternut squash complementing hearty entrees like sturgeon, grilled venison, and pistachio-crusted duck.

“If it’s not grown around here, more than likely you are not going to see it on the menu. It pushes the cooks in the kitchen to stay evolving, and it also gives us a window in which to create. We use the season to box in our painting, and we use that canvas,” he said.

After his experience in Napa with Keller, Fraser moved to Paris for a year before arriving in New York in 2003, ready to head his own kitchen. After starting in a small, 40-seat restaurant in the Village, Fraser moved to Compass before opening Dovetail last December.

In his kitchen, “the appearance is simple, but the technique is complicated. The goal is to preserve as much as possible when you cook things.”

His approach is obviously working, as positive reviews continue to pour in, and Dovetail was awarded three stars from the New York Times last February.

“The reviews and the way people were reacting to the food, the service, and the space pushed us in the direction of being more fine-dining,” said Fraser.

But what exactly is “fine dining?” At Dovetail, it presents itself in dishes like lamb’s tongue ($14) and roasted sirloin with beef cheek lasagna ($36). Each dish is carefully crafted. There is a purpose to every ingredient, its placement on the plate, and every subtle flavor a dish is infused with. Ingredients are of the highest quality, and the prices reflect such.

The restaurant offers a six-course tasting menu every night for a hefty, though relatively cheap by New York standards, $88.

At the same time, a trip to Dovetail does not necessarily need to break the bank. Sunday Suppa, probably one of the best values in the city when quality is accounted for, will run you only $38 for two courses. Lunch or brunch is also an affordable choice—one that Dovetail just began experimenting with last month, bringing with it a slightly new perspective on an Upper West Side favorite. Sunday brunch started in October, and lunches Wednesday through Friday, as well as Saturday brunch, begin this week.

“It’s a little bit more diverse because when I go to brunch it drives me crazy to sit down for brunch ... everything takes so damn long.”

Fraser has eliminated the three course brunch, opting for a streamlined process where canapés (bite-sized appetizers) are served as diners sit down, they order a main dish, and a small plate of desserts is served to the table at the end of the meal. “We’re trying to streamline it. Here comes a bunch of food, enjoy it. Order the thing that you came for, and then here comes a bunch of desserts, eat them if you want to,” he explained.

And judging from the early response, everyone wants to.

Dovetail is located at 103 W. 77th St. at Columbus Ave. Dinner is served 5:30-10 p.m. nightly, lunch is served 12-2:30 p.m. Wednesday through Friday (beginning Dec. 3), and brunch is served Saturday and Sundays, 11:30-2:30 p.m. (beginning Dec. 6).