The six-story former brownstone on West 57th Street, wedged between Carnegie Tower and Metropolitan Tower, was purchased in 2004 for a reported $19 million by the RTR Funding Group, headed by Manhattan realtor Gerald Lieblich—the fourth owner in just over a decade. While the new proprietors declared they hoped to revive the storied icon as a serious restaurant and celebrity roost, I had my doubts.

My long and patchy courtship with the R.T.R. dates to the mid-1980’s, the twilight of its so-called golden era, when the glimmering main dining room served as a canteen for marquee names in the entertainment business—agents, playwrights, actors, musicians, producers. It was one of my first, albeit involuntary, outings when I moved to town.

“You have never been to the Russian Tea Room?” my new boss, Arthur Gelb, an assistant managing editor of The New York Times, asked with incredulity.

“No,” I confessed, confirming my status as a rube—especially so considering that I had recently been hired as a lifestyle and food reporter.

The following day, we were seated in the R.T.R.’s ground-floor dining room, second banquette on the right—Mr. Gelb’s table. Before I had a chance to crack a breadstick, he was in badinage mode with a couple on our left, who turned out to be the actress Ruth Gordon and her droll husband, the writer and director Garson Kanin. A moment later, another thespian couple stopped by: the seemingly ageless Jessica Tandy and her husband, Hume Cronyn. They lingered for some time, no doubt obscuring my view of other luminary traffic—although I did spot, sitting alone and looking rather dyspeptic, super-agent Sam Cohn.

It wasn’t until that evening, while recounting the experience to my wife, that I gave much thought to the restaurant’s food.

“How was the lunch?” she inquired.

“The blinis and caviar were great,” I said. “The rest pretty much sucked.”

My ensuing visits, some two years hence, were in the capacity as The Times’ restaurant critic. This meant I had to try everything on the menu, some of it twice. In the end, I awarded the Russian Tea Room one star.

That first review earned me a phone call from the owner, one Faith Stewart-Gordon, who graciously conceded some of the kitchen’s inadequacies, then added: “But, Mr. Miller, the Russian Tea Room nourishes more than just the body!”

Ms. Stewart-Gordon took possession of the restaurant in 1967 after the passing of her husband, Sidney Kaye, an outgoing man of Russian descent who presided over its halcyon days in the 1950’s and 1960’s. (It was opened in 1927 as a chocolate shop and tea emporium by former dancers from the Imperial Russian Ballet.)

During much of her tenure, it continued to attract notables from Broadway, Carnegie Hall and, later, Hollywood. In those dark years of the Cold War, when so much of actual Russian life was marked by mirthless uniformity, the Russian Tea Room celebrated its culture in a setting of anarchic abandon: music and Champagne, red leather banquettes and pine green walls adorned with a riotous collection of art, tinsel-lined chandeliers, glittering Christmas-tree ornaments, burnished brass samovars, and tunic-clad “Russian” waiters donning nametags like “Salvador” and “Raoul.”

Ms. Stewart-Gordon, who for decades had snubbed lucrative offers from developers who wanted to bulldoze the joint and put up a high-rise, sold the property in 1995, for $6.5 million, to Warner LeRoy, the puckish, bigger-than-life impresario behind Tavern on the Green and, in the 1960’s and 1970’s, the country’s seminal (no pun intended) singles’ bar, Maxwell’s Plum. Mr. LeRoy passed away in 2001, and a little over a year later, so did the Russian Tea Room, which wound up in bankruptcy proceedings.

The building was picked up for $16 million by a most unlikely patron, the United States Golf Association, but the expensive project never got off the first tee and the association passed it on to the unromantic-sounding RTR Funding Group.

This means that, for the first time, the valuable air rights on both 56th and 57th streets are held by a builder.

When I arrived at the restaurant last week for dinner, the place looked familiar, if somewhat subdued. The new leather banquettes were a less garish red, and the walls appeared darker green. Gone was the holiday tinsel, and there didn’t seem to be as many Christmas-tree balls hanging about. The Doctor Zhivago–esque background music was reassuring.

The new chef, Gary Robins, has been around the city’s gastronomic billiard table, and has been widely lauded as a deft fusion-style cook at a place called Aja and, most recently, at the Biltmore Room, north of Chelsea (now closed). He might seem like an improbable choice for a Russian restaurant, but judging from the dishes I had a chance to sample, he could well succeed where others have failed: crafting a contemporary, challenging and lighter R.T.R. menu while paying obeisance to the bone-warming classics.

One stellar example is his foie-gras-stuffed pelmeni (like ravioli) in an intense, limpid broth holding root vegetables, chanterelles and truffles. Another is the cider-glazed quail offset by salty duck prosciutto and spiced Champagne grapes.

“We haven’t yet put on the menu some of the classics, like chicken à la Kiev and stroganoff,” explained Mr. Robins, a lanky, soft-spoken fellow who clearly has high aspirations for the place. “We want to see how things go in the early days and get a feel for what customers want.” He plans to go after the power-breakfast crowd as well—blinis with caviar and orange juice?

The airy double-height second-floor dining room—the original restaurant Siberia—will hold à la carte customers, while the third and fourth are for private functions.

The past two weeks have been somewhat of a nostalgia-fest for certain curious ghosts of parties past, like 83-year-old Mary Elizabeth Culhane, of Stamford, Conn., whom I encountered outside of the restaurant on the rainy evening that I stopped in to make a reservation. She was reading the posted menu, quizzically.

“Are you coming inside?” I asked.

“I don’t know if I should,” she replied. “My husband and I came here for lunch every Friday for nearly 20 years. Mr. Kaye was wonderful. We met Burt Lancaster here, and Mary Martin, too, who was very nice.”

“Really? How was the food?”

“We always told friends, ‘Do the triple C’s and you can’t go wrong—Champagne, caviar and chicken Kiev.’ The stroganoff was not very tasty.”

The six-story former brownstone on West 57th Street, wedged between Carnegie Tower and Metropolitan Tower, was purchased in 2004 for a reported $19 million by the RTR Funding Group, headed by Manhattan realtor Gerald Lieblich—the fourth owner in just over a decade. While the new proprietors declared they hoped to revive the storied icon as a serious restaurant and celebrity roost, I had my doubts.

My long and patchy courtship with the R.T.R. dates to the mid-1980’s, the twilight of its so-called golden era, when the glimmering main dining room served as a canteen for marquee names in the entertainment business—agents, playwrights, actors, musicians, producers. It was one of my first, albeit involuntary, outings when I moved to town.

“You have never been to the Russian Tea Room?” my new boss, Arthur Gelb, an assistant managing editor of The New York Times, asked with incredulity.

“No,” I confessed, confirming my status as a rube—especially so considering that I had recently been hired as a lifestyle and food reporter.

The following day, we were seated in the R.T.R.’s ground-floor dining room, second banquette on the right—Mr. Gelb’s table. Before I had a chance to crack a breadstick, he was in badinage mode with a couple on our left, who turned out to be the actress Ruth Gordon and her droll husband, the writer and director Garson Kanin. A moment later, another thespian couple stopped by: the seemingly ageless Jessica Tandy and her husband, Hume Cronyn. They lingered for some time, no doubt obscuring my view of other luminary traffic—although I did spot, sitting alone and looking rather dyspeptic, super-agent Sam Cohn.

It wasn’t until that evening, while recounting the experience to my wife, that I gave much thought to the restaurant’s food.

“How was the lunch?” she inquired.

“The blinis and caviar were great,” I said. “The rest pretty much sucked.”

My ensuing visits, some two years hence, were in the capacity as The Times’ restaurant critic. This meant I had to try everything on the menu, some of it twice. In the end, I awarded the Russian Tea Room one star.

That first review earned me a phone call from the owner, one Faith Stewart-Gordon, who graciously conceded some of the kitchen’s inadequacies, then added: “But, Mr. Miller, the Russian Tea Room nourishes more than just the body!”

Ms. Stewart-Gordon took possession of the restaurant in 1967 after the passing of her husband, Sidney Kaye, an outgoing man of Russian descent who presided over its halcyon days in the 1950’s and 1960’s. (It was opened in 1927 as a chocolate shop and tea emporium by former dancers from the Imperial Russian Ballet.)

During much of her tenure, it continued to attract notables from Broadway, Carnegie Hall and, later, Hollywood. In those dark years of the Cold War, when so much of actual Russian life was marked by mirthless uniformity, the Russian Tea Room celebrated its culture in a setting of anarchic abandon: music and Champagne, red leather banquettes and pine green walls adorned with a riotous collection of art, tinsel-lined chandeliers, glittering Christmas-tree ornaments, burnished brass samovars, and tunic-clad “Russian” waiters donning nametags like “Salvador” and “Raoul.”

Ms. Stewart-Gordon, who for decades had snubbed lucrative offers from developers who wanted to bulldoze the joint and put up a high-rise, sold the property in 1995, for $6.5 million, to Warner LeRoy, the puckish, bigger-than-life impresario behind Tavern on the Green and, in the 1960’s and 1970’s, the country’s seminal (no pun intended) singles’ bar, Maxwell’s Plum. Mr. LeRoy passed away in 2001, and a little over a year later, so did the Russian Tea Room, which wound up in bankruptcy proceedings.

The building was picked up for $16 million by a most unlikely patron, the United States Golf Association, but the expensive project never got off the first tee and the association passed it on to the unromantic-sounding RTR Funding Group.

This means that, for the first time, the valuable air rights on both 56th and 57th streets are held by a builder.

When I arrived at the restaurant last week for dinner, the place looked familiar, if somewhat subdued. The new leather banquettes were a less garish red, and the walls appeared darker green. Gone was the holiday tinsel, and there didn’t seem to be as many Christmas-tree balls hanging about. The Doctor Zhivago–esque background music was reassuring.

The new chef, Gary Robins, has been around the city’s gastronomic billiard table, and has been widely lauded as a deft fusion-style cook at a place called Aja and, most recently, at the Biltmore Room, north of Chelsea (now closed). He might seem like an improbable choice for a Russian restaurant, but judging from the dishes I had a chance to sample, he could well succeed where others have failed: crafting a contemporary, challenging and lighter R.T.R. menu while paying obeisance to the bone-warming classics.

One stellar example is his foie-gras-stuffed pelmeni (like ravioli) in an intense, limpid broth holding root vegetables, chanterelles and truffles. Another is the cider-glazed quail offset by salty duck prosciutto and spiced Champagne grapes.

“We haven’t yet put on the menu some of the classics, like chicken à la Kiev and stroganoff,” explained Mr. Robins, a lanky, soft-spoken fellow who clearly has high aspirations for the place. “We want to see how things go in the early days and get a feel for what customers want.” He plans to go after the power-breakfast crowd as well—blinis with caviar and orange juice?

The airy double-height second-floor dining room—the original restaurant Siberia—will hold à la carte customers, while the third and fourth are for private functions.

The past two weeks have been somewhat of a nostalgia-fest for certain curious ghosts of parties past, like 83-year-old Mary Elizabeth Culhane, of Stamford, Conn., whom I encountered outside of the restaurant on the rainy evening that I stopped in to make a reservation. She was reading the posted menu, quizzically.

“Are you coming inside?” I asked.

“I don’t know if I should,” she replied. “My husband and I came here for lunch every Friday for nearly 20 years. Mr. Kaye was wonderful. We met Burt Lancaster here, and Mary Martin, too, who was very nice.”

“Really? How was the food?”

“We always told friends, ‘Do the triple C’s and you can’t go wrong—Champagne, caviar and chicken Kiev.’ The stroganoff was not very tasty.”

In advance of the formal opening on Oct. 6, they were hosting “guinea-pig” dinners for friends and colleagues, which, I envisaged, would comprise a stellar cast of marquee names.

This promised to be a big outing for me and my wife, Amy, considering we were new parents who had been living under self-imposed house arrest for more than a year.

“Come on,” I urged. “Let’s get out of the house for once—besides, it’ll be a real scene.”

As we drove up to the restaurant, Amy primped in the visor mirror while I patted the front of my blazer to make certain that nothing unsightly was clinging to it.

The restaurant occupies an airy barn with a timbered arched ceiling, rough-hewn walls, shiny pine-board floors and flattering soft lighting. As we approached the greeter’s station, I noticed that the cozy front room, flanked by a small bar and glowing stone hearth, was bereft of celebrities. Indeed, it was nearly empty save for a middle-aged couple in full country raiment—blue jeans, flannel and Timberlands; green cotton blouse and khaki slacks—and a younger duo who, similarly, seemed to have stepped out of the Lands’ End catalog.

“It’s early,” I whispered to Amy. “You don’t expect Lauren Bacall to dine at 6:45.”

The Dressing Room is not just another movie-star restaurant. As with all of the Newmans’ enterprises, it serves up ample portions of diversion and social consciousness in equal measure. Accordingly, there is the new Thursday farmers’ market, backed by the restaurant to support local organic growers and other food purveyors; the “line-caught” fish on the menu (no destructive bottom-draggers or wasteful giant nets); the antibiotic-free local beef. What is more, a portion of the restaurant’s profits will be funneled toward the venerable 75-year-old Westport playhouse that has been so much a part of the Newmans’ lives since they moved there in the 1960’s.

“Please let us know what you think of the food,” our waitress asked as she handed us the menus. The menu du jour presented dishes like Connecticut oyster stew, Maine crab cocktail with sweet corn sauce, fried calamari with cheese grits, pot roast, Berkshire pig with parsnip-horseradish purée, spit-roasted chicken, the Paul Newman hamburger, and chocolate bread pudding with orange creamsicle ice cream.

I opted for a cured duck salad with duck confit, which was delicious, nicely set off by sweet, crunchy wheat berries. Amy had the seared scallops (fetched with scuba and flippers, of course) accompanied by crispy pork belly, celery root, chanterelles and fava-bean purée.

In mid-bite, we were visited by Chef Nischan. A longtime leader in the organic-foods movement, he was opening chef at Heartbeat, the ticker-friendly dining room in Manhattan, and is the author of two cookbooks, the latest of which comes out this month: Homegrown Pure and Simple: Great Healthy Food from Garden to Table. Not averse to commuting, Mr. Nischan recently opened Pure, an organic and sustainable-focused restaurant at the Taj Lands End luxury hotel in Mumbai, India. (For the $3 million Dressing Room, Nischan and Newman kicked in 50-50.)

“Is Paul a hands-on guy when it comes to the new restaurant?” I asked.

“Oh, yeah,” he replied. “They’re both in here four days a week, and he’s always making comments—you need more vegetable and starch on the plate, the hamburger is not crispy enough, that kind of thing.”

Mr. Newman is famously fanatical about hamburgers. The restaurant makes its own buns, and he recently treated one of the chefs to a learned exegesis on this critical métier: The bun should be soft but not squishy, yet not so firm that the fixings start oozing out when you bite into the burger.

“He could talk about that stuff for hours—it’s not crispy enough, that kind of stuff,” Mr. Nischan added.

“Do staff members ever get ruffled when he’s around?” I asked.

“Yeah, sometimes,” he said. “Not long ago, one of the girls got so nervous that he went over and put his arm around her and said, ‘You know, if you pinch me I say ouch!’”

Chef Nischan has a crack tag-team working with him in the kitchen: Franz Fruhmann, who cooked most recently at Blue Hill at Stone Barns, in Westchester, and Bill Yosses, the former pastry chef at Bouley Bakery and the executive chef at the defunct Josephs, both in Manhattan.

Mr. Yosses recalled the day that Mr. Newman came in to taste-test the desserts. “It was the first time I was making a chocolate dessert soup. He tasted it and said, ‘It looks like a turd on the plate, but it’s delicious.’”

By 8:30 p.m., the dining room was full—of people I didn’t recognize. Maybe there were a few character actors or walk-ons from Law & Order—I don’t know.

One thing was sure: If Sidney Poitier happened to drop in, he would recognize me. Our warm relationship goes back to 1998. It came about because of my involvement with the Newmans’ Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, in Connecticut, a summer retreat for children with cancer (my Cajun band played at fund-raisers there). One winter evening, I was invited to a dinner party at the Newmans’ Fifth Avenue apartment, at which there were real celebrities, among them the imposing and dignified Mr. Poitier.

After a few drinks, I assumed a spot on a couch next to Mr. Poitier, who, I might add, was so well preserved he could, with a dab of hair coloring, reprise his role as a high-school teacher in To Sir, With Love. The narcoleptic effect of booze and warm air and chamber music was more than I could sustain. My guess is that it was 15 to 20 minutes before I awakened, somewhat uncomfortably, on the wide, cashmere-clad shoulder of Mr. Poitier. When I achieved verticality, he half turned toward me and grinned—not a so-great-to-meet-you-grin, but something more enigmatic.

As Amy and I took our leave from the restaurant, I ducked into the kitchen on the outside chance that Butch Cassidy would be squeezing burger buns. No luck. I asked the chefs to line up for a photo. The Dressing Room is bound to receive more press than a Brooks Brothers button-down, so reservations will be hard to come by for some months—especially during theater season, when, no doubt, it will be chock-a-block with movie stars.

In advance of the formal opening on Oct. 6, they were hosting “guinea-pig” dinners for friends and colleagues, which, I envisaged, would comprise a stellar cast of marquee names.

This promised to be a big outing for me and my wife, Amy, considering we were new parents who had been living under self-imposed house arrest for more than a year.

“Come on,” I urged. “Let’s get out of the house for once—besides, it’ll be a real scene.”

As we drove up to the restaurant, Amy primped in the visor mirror while I patted the front of my blazer to make certain that nothing unsightly was clinging to it.

The restaurant occupies an airy barn with a timbered arched ceiling, rough-hewn walls, shiny pine-board floors and flattering soft lighting. As we approached the greeter’s station, I noticed that the cozy front room, flanked by a small bar and glowing stone hearth, was bereft of celebrities. Indeed, it was nearly empty save for a middle-aged couple in full country raiment—blue jeans, flannel and Timberlands; green cotton blouse and khaki slacks—and a younger duo who, similarly, seemed to have stepped out of the Lands’ End catalog.

“It’s early,” I whispered to Amy. “You don’t expect Lauren Bacall to dine at 6:45.”

The Dressing Room is not just another movie-star restaurant. As with all of the Newmans’ enterprises, it serves up ample portions of diversion and social consciousness in equal measure. Accordingly, there is the new Thursday farmers’ market, backed by the restaurant to support local organic growers and other food purveyors; the “line-caught” fish on the menu (no destructive bottom-draggers or wasteful giant nets); the antibiotic-free local beef. What is more, a portion of the restaurant’s profits will be funneled toward the venerable 75-year-old Westport playhouse that has been so much a part of the Newmans’ lives since they moved there in the 1960’s.

“Please let us know what you think of the food,” our waitress asked as she handed us the menus. The menu du jour presented dishes like Connecticut oyster stew, Maine crab cocktail with sweet corn sauce, fried calamari with cheese grits, pot roast, Berkshire pig with parsnip-horseradish purée, spit-roasted chicken, the Paul Newman hamburger, and chocolate bread pudding with orange creamsicle ice cream.

I opted for a cured duck salad with duck confit, which was delicious, nicely set off by sweet, crunchy wheat berries. Amy had the seared scallops (fetched with scuba and flippers, of course) accompanied by crispy pork belly, celery root, chanterelles and fava-bean purée.

In mid-bite, we were visited by Chef Nischan. A longtime leader in the organic-foods movement, he was opening chef at Heartbeat, the ticker-friendly dining room in Manhattan, and is the author of two cookbooks, the latest of which comes out this month: Homegrown Pure and Simple: Great Healthy Food from Garden to Table. Not averse to commuting, Mr. Nischan recently opened Pure, an organic and sustainable-focused restaurant at the Taj Lands End luxury hotel in Mumbai, India. (For the $3 million Dressing Room, Nischan and Newman kicked in 50-50.)

“Is Paul a hands-on guy when it comes to the new restaurant?” I asked.

“Oh, yeah,” he replied. “They’re both in here four days a week, and he’s always making comments—you need more vegetable and starch on the plate, the hamburger is not crispy enough, that kind of thing.”

Mr. Newman is famously fanatical about hamburgers. The restaurant makes its own buns, and he recently treated one of the chefs to a learned exegesis on this critical métier: The bun should be soft but not squishy, yet not so firm that the fixings start oozing out when you bite into the burger.

“He could talk about that stuff for hours—it’s not crispy enough, that kind of stuff,” Mr. Nischan added.

“Do staff members ever get ruffled when he’s around?” I asked.

“Yeah, sometimes,” he said. “Not long ago, one of the girls got so nervous that he went over and put his arm around her and said, ‘You know, if you pinch me I say ouch!’”

Chef Nischan has a crack tag-team working with him in the kitchen: Franz Fruhmann, who cooked most recently at Blue Hill at Stone Barns, in Westchester, and Bill Yosses, the former pastry chef at Bouley Bakery and the executive chef at the defunct Josephs, both in Manhattan.

Mr. Yosses recalled the day that Mr. Newman came in to taste-test the desserts. “It was the first time I was making a chocolate dessert soup. He tasted it and said, ‘It looks like a turd on the plate, but it’s delicious.’”

By 8:30 p.m., the dining room was full—of people I didn’t recognize. Maybe there were a few character actors or walk-ons from Law & Order—I don’t know.

One thing was sure: If Sidney Poitier happened to drop in, he would recognize me. Our warm relationship goes back to 1998. It came about because of my involvement with the Newmans’ Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, in Connecticut, a summer retreat for children with cancer (my Cajun band played at fund-raisers there). One winter evening, I was invited to a dinner party at the Newmans’ Fifth Avenue apartment, at which there were real celebrities, among them the imposing and dignified Mr. Poitier.

After a few drinks, I assumed a spot on a couch next to Mr. Poitier, who, I might add, was so well preserved he could, with a dab of hair coloring, reprise his role as a high-school teacher in To Sir, With Love. The narcoleptic effect of booze and warm air and chamber music was more than I could sustain. My guess is that it was 15 to 20 minutes before I awakened, somewhat uncomfortably, on the wide, cashmere-clad shoulder of Mr. Poitier. When I achieved verticality, he half turned toward me and grinned—not a so-great-to-meet-you-grin, but something more enigmatic.

As Amy and I took our leave from the restaurant, I ducked into the kitchen on the outside chance that Butch Cassidy would be squeezing burger buns. No luck. I asked the chefs to line up for a photo. The Dressing Room is bound to receive more press than a Brooks Brothers button-down, so reservations will be hard to come by for some months—especially during theater season, when, no doubt, it will be chock-a-block with movie stars.

Paul McLaughlin, the restaurant's managing partner, promptly arrived and greeted him, presuming that he was a wine salesman or someone soliciting advertising for a magazine or newspaper. The man didn't offer a business card and introduced himself by first name only: Jean Eric.

"I thought that was a little unusual," recalled Mr. McLaughlin.

"I am from the Michelin Guide," Jean Eric said, "and would like to interview you and your chef."

Mr. McLaughlin was startled, to say the least. For one thing, he was aware that the first edition of the Michelin Guide to New York City hotels and restaurants-heretofore mainly published in Europe-was in the works (the publication date set for Nov. 15). And like all Michelin restaurant guides, this one presumably would adhere to the company's decades-old policy of absolute, almost fanatical, anonymity for its inspectors. What's more, Jean Eric informed Mr. McLaughlin that two different Michelin reviewers had already dined at Oceana, each separately. Today's interview was just a routine follow-up.

It seemed harmless enough. The chef, Cornelius Gallagher, was called up from the kitchen to take part in the discussion, which lasted a full hour-a genial grilling that touched on everything from the philosophy of the restaurant to its history, its clientele and the résumés of every person of responsibility on staff, down to the line cooks.

"He was very 'Frenchy,' if you know what I mean," said Mr. Gallagher. "He was sort of official, but nice."

Jean Eric then asked if he could tour the premises. In the dining rooms, he took note of every little detail: the wallpaper, the tablecloths, the paintings, the flatware, the sconces, the plates-everything short of the colors of the electrical outlets. In the kitchen, he was equally assiduous.

"He went everywhere!" Mr. Gallagher said. "The fish storage, the butchering area, the walk-in coolers, the cooking stations." He examined the wine selection, noting the commendable collection of Pacific Northwest pinot noirs. Mr. Gallagher was asked to provide him a recipe for one of his signature dishes, with photos (for the record, it was roasted Chatham halibut with spicy organic carrots and pork roasting juice).

He jotted down details about the ovens and burners, the kitchen design. ("He said he liked the flow of the work stations," Mr. Gallagher pointed out. "Very French.") With this astounding level of scrutiny, it would not have been a surprise if Jean Eric had pulled out a pipe wrench to check the water pressure under the sink.

Similar scenes are now playing out in top Manhattan restaurants like Alain Ducasse, Le Bernardin, Bouley, Cru, Aureole, Chanterelle, Daniel and other establishments that have made the cut for inclusion in the Michelin Guide to New York City (500 restaurants total). Some restaurants such as Le Bernardin and Aureole have had an easier time of it-that is to say, tidy sink drains and well-chilled halibuts are not part of the routine. But the arrival of Michelin has tongues wagging nonetheless.

To meet its November publication date, the guide's five full-time restaurant inspectors are wrapping up their assessments and conducting interviews in the next two months. Such scrutiny is rare in the New York restaurant-reviewing game. Anonymity is one reason. As for poking around the kitchen, that's considered the province of city inspectors. The majority of restaurateurs, while put off at first, actually welcome scrutiny and said customers should be reassured that the entire operation passes muster. Of course, it was no surprise that none of the chefs and restaurateurs had a critical word for the Michelin Guide.

"I was really spooked when he came in and started going through everything," said Shea Gallante, chef of Cru on lower Fifth Avenue. "Overall, though, I like the system. It's thorough."

The Michelin Guide to New York City, which is expected to sell for $15.95, will critique restaurants in the five boroughs as well as the city's top 50 hotels. Designed for both tourists and New Yorkers, it will carry many of the icons and abbreviations found in the familiar "red guide," the book that awards the all-powerful stars (one to three).

The stars break down like this:

-One star: "A very good restaurant in its category."

-Two stars: "Excellent cooking, worth a detour."

-Three stars: "One of the best, worth a special journey."

Michelin's methodology for the New York publication is similar to that for its hotel and restaurant "red guides" in Europe and beyond, which includes anonymous visits by a revolving team of inspectors (to avert inspectors being recognized) and an incremental rating system, whereby restaurants earn stars gradually over several or more years. It is virtually impossible for a new restaurant to earn the top rating of three stars. So does that mean the debut edition of the New York guide will have no three-star restaurants?

"We have to treat New York differently," said Jean-Luc Naret, director of all the Michelin Guides, in a telephone interview from Paris. "If a restaurant is two-star quality, we will give it two stars right away. And if it is three, we will give it three."

Mr. Naret also pointed out that in Europe, Michelin stars are awarded on the basis of the "overall dining experience," in which service and the setting carry as much or more weight than the food. As for the rigorous kitchen inspections, he said that they usually have little to do with the star ratings, unless there are big problems, which are rare.

Some in New York dining circles expressed concern about a French company with French inspectors and French dining traditions evaluating American restaurants.

"I think the Michelin is a great thing for New York," assayed Mr. Gallagher. "But there is some of that feeling that it's a French thing and they are going to play favorites, or that the French are so traditional that they won't understand us."

Michael Batterberry, editor in chief and publisher of Food Arts Magazine, is also reserving judgment. "It still concerns me a little that the French, by imposing their own criteria, could be creating their own cultural destiny," he said.

Adds Bobby Flay, the TV chef and owner of Bolo, Mesa Grill and Bar Americain, "With our system in New York, you can get to know a critic's palate, I guess-but this is different."

But Mr. Naret bristles at such a suggestion. "We are not a French company; we are a European company, an international company," he said. "Twenty years ago, it would have been different, but not now."

He is also quick to point out that his New York inspectors comprise four men (French) and one woman, an American, who was dispatched to France for training. She was chosen in part because of her anonymity in New York. (If experiences with the rest of the print press are any indication, she has about six months to go before her wedding-announcement photo is gracing the walls of city kitchens.)

While it's true that the roving French inspectors may encounter exotic, even zany, creations at the hands of young, experimental cooks, as well as genres of cooking unfamiliar to them-Southwestern, Floribbean, Cajun, Tex-Mex-they are not altogether swaddled in traditional Gallic fare. Take the mad professor Ferran Adria in Spain, whose gastronomic missionaries have planted flags in much of Europe and, increasingly, in the States.

The only other restaurant guides that inspect kitchens, dining rooms and perhaps restroom soap dispensers are the Mobil Travel Guide and the A.A.A. TourBooks Travel Guides. Both employ a five-point scale system-stars for Mobil and diamonds for A.A.A.-and attempt to employ anonymous experts, many of whom come from the hospitality industry. The 2005 Mobil book awarded five stars to three Manhattan restaurants: Alain Ducasse, Jean Georges and Masa. Top kudos from the A.A.A. book went to Alain Ducasse, Atelier, Aureole, Jean Georges, Le Cirque 2000 (since closed) and Daniel.

So while Michelin is an editorial dirigible that casts a shadow across Europe, its power in New York remains to be seen. For one, the book comes out annually, so the city's fervid foodies-who make reservations at new places before the architectural drawings are completed-may find it of little utility on a day-to-day basis. Also, unlike 20 years ago, New York City is rich with sources of up-to-date restaurant information, both in print and on the Internet. (While the Zagat Survey is an annual book, it now offers information on openings and closings on its Web site.) To the uninitiated, some may find the Michelin Guide-which carries only 500 of the city's top restaurants-incomplete, or elitist.

But despite all these possible hurdles, most chefs and restaurateurs said that the Michelin name would be a big success.

"I think they will do very well," said Daniel Boulud, of Daniel and DB Bistro Moderne. "It's the oldest form of classification, and the most honest. I think that for food and in every way, they are going to raise the bar."

Eric Ripert, the chef and partner of Le Bernardin, who was reached by telephone in Barcelona, also has little doubt: "It will be a big success, especially if there are controversial ratings at the top. Everybody will be talking about it, and it will get lots of press."

For restaurateurs, however, there's another concern. In conventional restaurant reviews, critics analyze many dishes, both good and bad. They may offer a restaurant constructive criticism concerning its food, décor and service. With Michelin, there is no individual critic, so there is no feedback. It is like getting punched in the gut by a ghost.

"From a chef's point of view, I think it's always good to have specifics on dishes or tastes or presentation," said Charlie Palmer of Aureole. "We have always looked very closely and, in some cases, have made adjustments because of critiques."

Michael Lomonaco, chef at Guastavino's, said he welcomed constructive criticism. "I make my sous chefs, the young cooks, everybody read every critique," he said. "That's how we keep up with the popular tastes."

In New York, restaurant criticism is personality-driven: What did Gael say? What did Bruni say? Michelin is a bullet-proof machine. No major food critic in this city can get away with anonymity, at least in the top establishments, for more than a year-the gastronomic grapevine is too well-greased. Michelin appears to have worked that out. Or have they?

"In France, we sometimes know them because they come alone, usually for lunch, and are very curious," said Yannis Stanisières, manager of restaurant Alain Ducasse. "He might order foie gras to start and then tournedos Rossini. Then he waits to see if the maître d'hotel says to him, 'Sir, you have two dishes with foie gras.'"

Given the size of portions in this country, that old French double-foie-gras trick might not be as effective. A big eater in New York could knock off those livers with the bread sticks.

Michelin has a lot to learn.

"This is a pilot project," said Mr. Naret. "We are not the French coming to conquer America. This will be done with much humility."

The Perfectionist: Life and Death in Haute Cuisine, by Rudolph Chelminski. Gotham Books, 354 pages, $27.50.

In September of 2002, my wife and I spent a week touring Burgundy's glorious Côte d'Or. Three of those days were spent in a nondescript little town called Saulieu, where the sole attraction was a Michelin three-star restaurant called, aptly, La Côte d'Or, whose proprietors were an adrenal 49-year-old chef by the name of Bernard Loiseau and his poised wife, Dominique.

We found it odd that our ebullient host, at that time one of the France's most celebrated chefs, seized every opportunity to solicit our opinion about whether his establishment, particularly the restaurant, was worthy of three stars-sort of like a 6-year-old passing her doodles to Daddy for his approbation. This behavior continued during the week, especially at mealtime. At one dinner, we spotted Loiseau peeking out at us from the pantry. No sooner had we sampled one of his signature dishes-steamed Bressane hen stuffed with vegetables, fois gras and truffles-than he materialized at our table.

"Three stars?" he beamed.

"Oh yes, absolument!" we lied. (It was bland.)

He bade farewell to every guest with the same question. We passed it off as an eccentricity, or massive insecurity. But we couldn't help reconsidering when, just five months later, on Feb. 24, 2003, Bernard Loiseau, after the restaurant's lunch service, returned home, placed a shotgun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

In The Perfectionist: Life and Death in Haute Cuisine, Rudolph Chelminski, a journalist who has lived in France for three decades and shared a friendship with Loiseau for as long, engrossingly recreates the life of this talented yet tragically flawed culinary icon. Along the way, he escorts his readers through the harsh and intolerant world of France's three-star restaurants, including the abusive apprenticeships that aspiring young cooks must endure.

As a teenager, Loiseau landed a place at "Troisgros University," the world-famous restaurant Troisgros in Roanne-somewhat like scoring a Supreme Court clerkship. The suffering didn't approach that of the galley slaves in George Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London, but it was pretty dismal. As Mr. Chelminski reports:

"Part of it was simple terror. Starting at anywhere from age fourteen to seventeen, homesick and heartsick, yanked from the comforting certitudes of family life when they were barely out of childhood, the kids suddenly found themselves thrust, in a state of near total ignorance, into a competitive, unforgiving man's world where everything had to be done right now, and had to be done perfectly."

One of the most absorbing parts of the book is Mr. Chelminski's inside look at the Michelin Guide and how its cat-and-mouse game plays out with restaurants. The life of a Michelin inspector, as Mr. Chelminski portrays it, is surprisingly unglamorous: "It was an odd kind of existence, the life of a Michelin monk." Never being home, the endless driving, two princely meals a day (alone), always undercover, the long report forms, the second-guessing and pressure from home office. A three-star rating from the Michelin Guide, Mr. Chelminski tells us, is "the Oscar, the légion d'honneur, and the Pulitzer Prize all in one."

Bernard Loiseau became obsessed-that's almost too mild a term-with earning three stars. (He'd already had garnered two stars while working at restaurant in Paris). But the supreme challenge came when he took possession of the once renowned but by then nearly forgotten La Côte d'Or. He plunged deeply into debt, renovating the place in a manner that he hoped would impress the Michelin inspectors, recruited a crack staff for the kitchen and dining room, and nervously refined his artful and salubrious style of cooking, which eschewed butter and cream.

Mr. Chelminski humorously recounts some of the absurdities of Loiseau's campaign: "When a nicely dressed gentleman would come for lunch alone," according to a friend and colleague, "he told us to go out and check his car to see if the tires were Michelins. That wouldn't be proof, but it could be an indication, anyway. Sometimes, when we weren't sure which car he had come in, he would have us going through his coat pockets in the vestiare to see if the keys might identify the car." (One slightly annoying aspect of The Perfectionist is the author's frequent and gratuitous use of untranslated French words and phrases, which invariably leaves the non-French speaker in the dark.)

The stars appeared, one by one, and with his coveted third star Loiseau became a national celebrity, right up there with his culinary deities Paul Bocuse, the Troisgros brothers and Michel Guérard. Inevitably, though, in the late 90's French cuisine moved on, and Loiseau was reluctant to board the train. Globalization was revolutionizing cooking with influences from Asia, South America and previously ignored countries like Spain. A new generation of cocky young chefs latched onto this trend and began winning their own stars for a style of cooking that Loiseau neither understood nor embraced. Add to that an economic recession, and seats were left empty at La Côte d'Or.

Mr. Chelminski also stands witness to Loiseau's increasingly pronounced mood swings. Unfortunately for the reader, the author fails to thoroughly investigate this vital aspect of Loiseau's downfall. Was he really bipolar, or did he suffer from something else? A Paris doctor had prescribed Prozac, but was Loiseau taking it? (Mr. Chelminski proffers that Loiseau's brief recovery in 2002 was likely caused by the turn of winter to spring.) Was there something in Loiseau's past that could have triggered his suffering?

Considering the great detail that Mr. Chelminski devotes to Loiseau's professional life and his famous cooking buddies (Mr. Bocuse, Alain Chapel, the Troisgros family, Mr. Guérard), he largely glosses over his personal life, which undoubtedly played a major role in his unraveling. There was a first marriage and a divorce, followed by a second marriage to a young writer, Dominique Brunet, whom he promptly installed at the restaurant's front desk. We barely hear from her again, even in context of the suicide. We learn that Loiseau was a neglectful father and inattentive husband, yet these relationships are not explored. Where was his family when things were deteriorating? What does his wife have to say about the tragedy?

Immediately after the suicide, many of France's top chefs blamed the press, specifically Gault Millau magazine, which had slightly demoted La Côte d'Or. That make no sense: Gault Millau, once a trend-setting food magazine, had all but lost its clout. And anyway, shortly before his death, Loiseau had learned that the Michelin Guide had maintained his three-star ranking.

Omissions aside, Rudolph Chelminski has written an exceptionally insightful and readable book about the mad, unforgiving and relentless world of haute cuisine.

Bryan Miller writes "The Edible Complex" for The Observer.

The Harrison looks like a clubby Upper East Side American bistro transplanted to the dusky fringe of Tribeca: dark wood, a burnished walnut bar, cream-colored wainscoting, hammered-tin lanterns and candles galore. Even the conservatively attired patrons appear to come from uptown ZIP codes.

Three and a half years old, the Harrison is the second collaboration of Danny Abrams and Jimmy Bradley, whose stable also includes the Red Cat, the Mermaid Inn and, most recently, Pace, on nearby Hudson Street. The food at the Harrison has always been good; however, it reached a peak last fall when the restaurant brought on board 36-year-old Brian Bistrong, whose résumé includes two years at Les-pinasse, seven years at Bouley, and the former Citarella (now called Josephs). Befitting this unaffected setting, his contemporary American cooking is inventive yet accessible, and with a clarity of flavors that never leaves the diner bewildered.

Virtually everything on the menu looks appealing. I rarely order quail as an appetizer, because it requires a lot of drilling for a thin vein of gold. Having seen one served to an adjacent table, however, I decided to give it a try. Partially deboned and splayed on the plate for easy cutting, it was roasted to golden crispness and boosted by a tamarind-tinged carrot "stew" flavored with cashew butter.

An example of the chef's winning restraint is a homemade ricotta cavatelli-the cheese is part of the dough-swathed in a vibrant mélange of bitter greens and a touch of tomato, and holding succulent shards of rabbit. A foamy horse-radish sauce did wonders for a duo of bulky sea scallops, paired with a warm potato salad.

Even the ubiquitous fried calamari gets an uplifting treatment. Perfectly fried, the little pinkie rings are arranged over an invigorating combination of chopped parsley, chives, piquillo peppers and salty serrano ham. One of the more winsome dishes (and not among my favorites) is a play on biscuits and gravy, in which scallion-laced Southern biscuits are ringed by three types of clams-razor, Manila and Wellfleets-all adrift on a clam-juice velouté that was somewhat overshadowed by salty slivers of chorizo.

While the dining room can be crowded and cacophonous, the servers, donning preppy blue-checked shirts and ties, are sharp and professional, even when it comes to wine.

The international wine selection is organized by characteristics-light, medium-bodied and full-and quality bottles abound in all price ranges. Two exceptional inexpensive choices are the white 2003 AZ pinot gris, from the Willamette Valley in Oregon ($29); and, in red, the 2000 Meix Foulot Mercurey, 1er Cru, Cote Chalonnaise ($27).

Seafood is the strong card among main courses. A thick plank of pan-roasted fluke is enlivened with a zesty mustard sabayon and a bittersweet reduction of browned onions, vermouth and chicken stock. If you aren't among the legions of anchovy-phobes, a subtle and mildly salty white anchovy sauce brings to life a beautiful fillet of grilled striped bass. Another uncommon combination-cod and braised red cabbage-sounded improbable, and while it was less combative than I had expected, the dish would have been fine with only its warm hazelnut dressing, toasted hazelnuts and crosnes (similar to Jerusalem artichokes).

Calf's liver aficionados would be delighted with this rendition, served with a sweet sherry reduction and a terrific bacon and onion torta. An excellent quality free-range chicken, firm and meaty, is perfectly roasted and served in a faintly sharp paprika sauce, Brussels sprouts and chestnut stuffing. Vegetables are à la carte, and I can recommend the heady leek and mushroom risotto and herbed spaetzle.

Pastry chef Jeff Gerace turns out a patriotic assembly of fine desserts like banana cream pie, apple and cranberry crisp, and devil's food cake. Also outstanding was the meyer lemon meringue pie with an intriguing lemon-thyme sabayon and candied kumquats. And if the chocolate mousse layered devil's food cake weren't swoony enough, the superb coffee ice cream, velvety and rich, packs enough caffeine to energize a fleet of cabbies.

"I looked at all of the boroughs in the city and discovered a huge void-in the Bronx," Mr. Sherman recalled. "So I thought, 'Well, no competition-that sounds pretty good to me.'"

Indeed, there was little, if any. Every once in a while, a promising spot opens in a far-flung section of the Bronx, but hardly any endure. And for all of their sentimental appeal, Arthur Avenue's restaurants are little better than ordinary.

Mr. Sherman planted his flag in the bosky environs of Riverdale-which, demographically speaking, bears about as much resemblance to the greater borough as does a shiny Mercedes to a decade-old Honda.

Mr. Sherman and his wife, Lisa, a pastry chef, came across a nondescript building-a former bodega-near the Manhattan College campus and set about creating a small French-American bistro called the Riverdale Garden.

The main dining room is charming and rustic, with an exposed brick wall, tile floor, beamed ceiling and a little wood stove in the rear. All about are charcoal sketches and paintings that look as if they came from a college art class. Little cast-iron ceiling lanterns with amber shades cast a warm and flattering light. At the entrance, concealed by a wall, is a small private dining room that includes a bar, with banquettes and tables that accommodate about 30.

In warm weather, guests can dine on a leafy two-tier terrace that enjoys a sweeping view of a subway car depot.

The menu, which the chef tweaks daily, is homey and inviting, with a particular emphasis on game-wild boar, ostrich, venison and elk. I sampled the rack of wild boar, three dark and meaty chops-more succulent than today's lean-bread pork chops-that were faintly sweetened with carob molasses. Along with it came good, cheesy grits, braised cardoons (reminiscent of celery but slightly sweeter) and cocoa nibs, which are roasted cocoa beans separated from their husks and broken into small bits. Another good choice is the loin of lamb marinated in rosemary and garlic. Breast of duck was tender but a little too rare for me (our waitress whisked it away and returned with an entirely new dish in about four minutes).

The seafood is pleasing as well. A pistachio crust contributed a nice texture and a bit of sweetness to a meaty Arctic char without blunting its flavor; saffron onions with kale were a good wintry accompaniment. Lemony sea bass was well cooked and enhanced with a rosemary brown butter sauce along with butternut squash.

Some of the young servers, who look like sophomores at the college, can get flustered at times and resort to auctioning food at the table or disappearing when you need them. However, their forgivable shortcomings are compensated for with genuine charm.

The limited but fairly-priced wine list is arranged by grape variety. Some of the better values are, in white, the fresh and dry 2003 St.-Veran Pouilly-Fuissé, Auvigue ($32) and the 2003 Sancerre, Domaine de la Perrière ($34); in reds, there is the full-bodied 2003 pinot noir from Au Bon Climat, from California ($42), and the vibrant 2001 Château Gloria, from Bordeaux ($39).

Appetizers are compelling. You'd do well to start with one of the daily changing soups: a restorative and well-seasoned creamless turnip purée, or a rich lobster-and-chestnut blend drizzled with olive oil. Two other cold-weather specials that can be recommended are the lusty agnolotti stuffed with highly spiced lamb and tossed with garlic-accented wilted spinach, and the rosy slab of foie gras ringed by cubes of ripe pear.

Lisa Sherman turns out an appealing roster of homey all-American desserts, like her hefty banana-bread pudding with butterscotch ice cream, and a fine lemon tart. The most popular sweet appears to be the chocolate trio, a will-breaking assortment of extra-thick chocolate pudding served in a tall narrow glass, a warm chocolate cake and white-chocolate ice cream. Another specialty is her tart-like apple streusel.

If the Riverdale Garden were in the West Village or Soho, it might quietly blend into the landscape and acquire its own loyal following. In Riverdale, however, it's as conspicuous as the college bell tower-and a sizable gift to the Bronx.

Blue-chip gastro-entrepreneurs continue to sow seeds around the island: Jean-Georges Vongerichten, Tom Colicchio, Laurent Tourondel and Bobby Flay, to name a few. And the little guys are finding opportunities as well, as evidenced by all the bistros (American and French), trattorias and homey American spots that are opening in all parts of town. Conversations with dozens of restaurateurs reveal that New Yorkers are dining out more than ever, spending more and, in particular, drinking better wine. Here are some of the more noteworthy new spots where you can indulge in all three:

In June, Arlene Weston, of the Caribbean/Southern restaurant Maroons, on 16th Street, opens an uptown branch in West Harlem. Bobby Flay has taken over the former Judson Grill on West 52nd Street and rechristened it Bar Americain, with an opening scheduled for March. In May, Laurent Tourondel's BLT trademark finds its third location on East 22nd Street, the former space of Union Pacific, to be called BLT Meat (or perhaps BLT Prime).

Stephen Starr, a successful Philadelphia restaurateur, is moving north to open a Japanese restaurant called Morimoto in the Chelsea Market; another import poised for a mid-March opening is KOI, a spin-off of a Los Angeles restaurant by the same name. It will be in the Bryant Park Hotel.

Another hotel creation slated for a spring opening is the American-style Country, in the Carlton Hotel on 29th Street and Madison, under the culinary direction of Geoffrey Zakarian.

It will be a busy spring for Tom Colicchio, who in April plans to move Craft Bar to new and larger quarters nearby at 900 Broadway; the existing Craft Bar will become a private dining room for Craft restaurant. Mr. Colicchio will also open another of his gourmet sandwich shops, 'wichcraft, in Tribeca, as well as establish a commissary and retail space in the former Tunnel on 11th Avenue. Finally, he has just signed a deal to take over the kiosks in Bryant Park, which will serves sandwiches, ice cream, coffee and more.

Two ethnic restaurants are throwing down roots in the West Village: the Japanese Yumcha on Bedford Street (late March), and Diablo Royale, serving Mexican fare (May). In April, Jean-Georges Vongerichten opens a 60-seat restaurant at Perry Street and the West Side Highway. The type of food is not yet finalized.

Moving into the East Village is director/restaurateur Bob Giraldi's TBD. Joe, the popular West Village coffee shop, will move this month to 9 East 13th Street.

On an unspecified date this spring, David Bouley will open Bouley Bakery, a three-story food market, bakery and 30-seat restaurant near Bouley restaurant on West Broadway in Tribeca. And starting in May, uptowners can begin saving a lot of cab fare when Nobu arrives on 57th Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.

From 53rd Street, you approach the Modern via a funhouse-like curving-glass passageway that is backlit by bright white bulbs-it could really give you the creeps if it weren't so short. The passageway deposits you into a large, loud bar area, made even louder by the plangent bass-driven jazz emanating from all corners. At the front of the room is a massive white marble bar, all 46 feet of it illuminated from below. At 7 p.m., the room was busier than a Bosch triptych, crowded with a farrago of post-museum-goers, happy-hour devotees and curiosity seekers like me.

The only objet d'art in sight was-now take a deep breath-a bowling-alley-size photograph of a paper sculpture of a forest. You'll have to see it for yourself. Called Clearing, it's by a German artist named Thomas Demand. At first I thought it strange that the bar and restaurant were not festooned with de Koonings, Dalís and Man Rays, but it became clear that the owners wanted to create a dining experience that was harmonious with the museum without being overwhelmed by it. Or, as executive chef Gabriel Kreuther recently remarked of the restaurant, "It's in a museum and not in a museum."

As for the "bar" food, don't expect chicken wings and fried mozzarella sticks. Along with your chardonnay, you can have anything from specialties like smoked eel rillettes (it's similar to a pâté-$11) to foie gras with toasted country bread ($17) to lamb loin with fennel confit ($14) and potato-and-marrow cassolette with smoked beef tongue ($11).

From my standing-room-only perch at the noisy bar, it was a little difficult to ask patrons what they thought of the place, but I did my best.

"What do you think of the place?" I inquired of two middle-aged ladies from Murray Hill who were sitting at the bar, one wearing a thick cable-knit sweater, the other in a red turtleneck. They were splitting a crab salad.

"Lovely place, a little dark-very nice people," said the first. "Do you think it will always be this busy?"

"Gee, I don't know-of course, this is a holiday weekend," I said.

"We're not really bar-goers. We're not really big museum-goers either," chimed in her companion. "But we had to see this. I think we'll come back for dinner."

"How about the museum?"

"Maybe when it gets warmer," she replied.

Behind a large glass partition in the back of the room is the much-anticipated restaurant, the Modern, which opened to the public on Feb. 7. In keeping with the Bauhaus tradition, the room is open, airy and cool: form following function at the highest level. I had invited a friend and frequent cohort on dining expeditions, Dominique Simon, who is a wine importer. We were seated in a deep horseshoe banquette that faced the cynosure of the complex, the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden. "Great seats," I said. "If your date is less than titillating, you can always commune with Henry Moore."

While it appears that there are as many staff members as there are customers at the Modern, it is a notably unfussy place. The service is exacting, but amiable and self-assured-I even had a brief conversation about zydeco music with one of the sommeliers.

Danny Meyer, president of the Union Square Hospitality Group, which runs all of the museum's restaurants, has spared no expense with the Modern's dining room: Egyptian cotton napery, elegant German-designed flatware and Spiegelau stemware. Mr. Meyer's trademark, which he pioneered with his enduringly successful Union Square Café, is to create first-rate, fancy restaurants with superb food and service-and then subtract the fancy.

"My hardest job right now is to get everybody to loosen up," he said as he stopped by our table, wearing a plaid suit, blue shirt and an expression of edgy vigilance. "Sometimes I just want to say to them, 'Chill out!'" His credo, he has said many times, is to create a beautiful space, serve excellent food and offer warm hospitality-then let it fly.

"That's not always an easy thing," he said.

Mr. Meyer's company, which owns, among other ventures, Tabla, Gramercy Tavern and Blue Smoke, runs all of the dining venues in the museum, including a large cafeteria-style facility on the second floor, a dessert parlor on the fifth and an employee cafeteria, also on the second floor.

Manning the stoves at the Modern is the soft-spoken Gabriel Kreuther, the Alsace-born wizard who previously served as chef of Atelier, the formal dining room in the Ritz-Carlton New York, Central Park. His menu is intellectual and innovative; he has pulled no punches because the restaurant is in a museum. The three-course prix-fixe dinner is $74; with a cheese course, it's $88. The international wine list has a little for every taste, and you don't have to be a Matisse collector to find choices in your price range.

On the current menu are dishes like sautéed skate in a pimiento nâge and fricassée of leeks, orange-dusted loin of lamb and a potato cake with escargot, scallions and gingered parsley jus. I started with sweet langoustines wrapped in applewood-smoked bacon along with spicy yogurt and cardamom oil, while Dominique opted for a dish that he liked so much when he was there last that he ordered it again: sweet-pea soup with barley, comté cheese and whipped cream. Two pleasing main courses were buttermilk-poached turbot with clove sauce, cauliflower and sea urchin, and a pair of faintly gamy wild boar chops with sauerkraut and a potato terrine.

When we took our leave at 9:30 p.m., the bar was still fairly lively; it stays open until 11:30 p.m. from Monday through Saturday.

I returned the next day to check out Cafe 2 and the dessert spot, both of which are accessible only to museum patrons who have paid the $20 admission fee.

It was shortly after noon, and the cafeteria was so packed you'd think they were giving away original Warhol soup cans with every bowl of clam chowder. So far, Cafe 2 has been serving more than 1,000 people a day. The large, spare, glassed-in dining hall could well be the cafeteria of an affluent suburban high school. Sparkling clean. Efficient. Cheerful. Rows of long pine tables spilling over with families, artsy types (the ones with berets), T-shirted teens, foreigners and more crumpled ski jackets than the base lodge at Vail.

Technically speaking, this is not a cafeteria. In single file, diners inspect the day's selections and questions about the food are answered by "menu consultants" (a.k.a. cashiers); servers then deliver the dishes to the table. The Italian-style menu revolves around pastas, panini, pizza, cheeses, salads and soups in the $5-to-$12 range.

My final stop was the Terrace 5, a smaller (60 seats) full-service café that offers, in addition to sandwiches and salads, 15 types of homemade and imported chocolates, as well as desserts like pistachio cake with hazelnut praline and cream ($7). Small savory plates, like Mediterranean chicken salad and seared yellow fin tuna, are in the $10-to-$16 range. This is one of the few such cafés I have seen that recommends wines with your desserts. A perfect match to the pistachio cake, the menu suggests, is a Ramos Pinto 20-year-old Tawny Port ($17).

It's a cute space, with a small anodized aluminum bar and a spectacular 40-seat outdoor terrace that floats over the sculpture garden. I could just imagine a June afternoon on the terrace, sipping Champagne and popping chocolate truffles.

On my way out, I checked in one last time at the Pamplona scene in Cafe 2.

"How long you been waiting?" I asked a fellow in the middle of the line.

"Actually, it's moving pretty fast-not as bad as it looks," he said, rocking his dozing toddler.

I haven't been to the restaurants in the Louvre in Paris, the Tate in London or the Guggenheim in Bilbao, but I'm certain that MoMA more than holds its own. Already, Mr. Meyer's ambitious projects have sparked some discussion about the synergies between art and food, and how the connection between the visual and the gustatory has taken on new meaning.

I was going to pose this question to Mr. Meyer, but then I changed my mind; he would have laughed at me. Instead I asked, "When the smoke clears, who do you think will come to this restaurant? Art types? Foodies? Tourists?"

"You know," he replied, rubbing his weary eyes, "so far we've had punk rockers, we've had people in suits, we've had Howard Stern-you name it. And that's the way it should be."