Sometimes you can try so hard at something and still come out looking quite inept. 
    So it is with The Grill, whose unique beauty—dating back to 1959, when it was called The Four Seasons—gained rare landmark status, meaning the new owners could not so much as put a tack into a wall.

    Having so much grandeur to work with, the owners, along with the Major Food Group’s partner/chefs Rick Torrisi, Mario Carbone and partner Jeff Zalaznick, have pulled out all the stops in a gamble that seeks to bring back the fine dining era of the 1960s, while upgrading every item on the menu.  Ironically, none of the partners was even born back then and none has any first-hand knowledge of the time. And, they have not, in any way, succeeded in replicating those days.

    Lest anyone suspect my writing a social history of The Four Seasons  20 years ago colors my current reaction to The Grill, the former was never among my favorite restaurants in New York City, except for that spectacular interior and its enormous influence on fine dining in America. It was where the Power Lunch was created, with every table in the Grill taken every day at lunch by NYC’s media, show biz and political titans. It was a place to take one’s out-of-town friends for elegantly presented—often tableside prepared—fare that was always consistently good, though rarely exquisite.  And it cost a royal fortune to eat there.

    It still does but, as they say, you can’t eat the furniture.  You can bask in the ambiance and look for celebrities, but the reason most people go to a restaurant is for the food. Little I tasted at The Grill would make me return.  There is much pizzazz but not much good taste. Tableside service has returned, but it’s nothing like what you’d expect: A $10,000 silver duck press (never much used in NYC restaurants) is employed by a single server to make parts of a duck and bacon fat into a bland sauce that is poured over tagliatelle noodles to no savory effect ($29) (right).  More on the roast beef rolling cart in a moment.

    As you walk into the former Four Seasons restaurant—The Grill is set down a hallway from the even grander Pool Room, which I wrote about a few weeks back—you face four pleasant greeters in the white marble-clad, rather cold lobby. The host station used to be at the top of the stairs, where it makes sense. At the top of that grand staircase is a splendid bar to the right, overhung with a famous Richard Lippold sculpture of gold rods. As of 6 p.m. it gets very loud there, not helped by the intrusion of wholly unnecessary music from the Fifties and Sixties.  When the bar crowd staggers out around seven, things quiet down a little. But the lighting in the dining room is much lower than it used to be, so that all hopes of spotting someone of any note is dimmed.

    I doubt you’ll find a better trained staff in NYC, though it’s difficult to figure out who does what. There seems to be no maître d’ per se, though there are figures in Tom Ford tuxedos and others in waiters’ or busboys’ jackets, then those two people who run the tableside service, someone who seems to be the sommelier, and assorted others who rush frantically about the room.  But they are knowledgeable and gracious, happy to discuss a menu that needs a lot of explanation.  God knows how many times a night a waiter needs to launch into an inane story about how JFK on his birthday at The Four Seasons was serenaded by Marilyn Monroe but just asked for what is now called “Jack’s Pie” on the menu.  “Pheasant Claiborne” would seem to be named after the late NY Times food critic Craig Claiborne, but it’s never satisfactorily explained.

    There is a chef’s buffet offered nightly and a selection of chilled crustaceans, along with items like house-cured salmon ($24), pickled sardines ($21), and crudités $23). One of the best dishes I had was the tangy cauliflower piccalilli.  A wild mushroom omelet ($25) is prepared tableside, which is odd when you have a buffet cook nearby.  Marvelous rolls come warm to the table but the only butter you get is compounded with ingredients.

    Crab Louis ($29) is a salad of crab and hard-boiled egg (left) formulated on the West Coast before World War I—Louis has never been convincingly identified—that has acquired avocado at The Grill and emerges looking like a ladies’ luncheon plate at a country club. A dish of fresh, seared foie gras with onions ($32) was very disappointing, because it was sinewy, suggesting it might be grade B or C liver (right, shown with shared chicken).  Like most dishes at The Grill, it was very salty, as was the Seagram Crabcake ($36), topped with a crisp potato layer, which at these prices should have been composed entirely of jumbo or colossal lump crab.

    Triple lamb chops with curried flavors and mint jelly ($59) were fine, best enjoyed with the hash brown potatoes ($12).  Bay scallops were good to find on the menu, but they were served at room temperature when a quick sauté would have improved their flavor.

    As for that rolling serving cart (below), which was once a staple of old line French restaurants, it was good to see it back.  Much has been written about how the chefs pondered how to improve the cooking of prime rib, which too often emerges steamy on the plate.  Their solution was to cut off the bone, slowly barbecue, then bring it back for service with a slab of nicely marbled roast beef ($65)—a very good idea, because that bone is the very best thing I had that evening, a succulent, mustard-flavored, crusted beauty to gnaw on. The problem is that that crust is, yet again, powerfully salty, as is the rim of fat around the smoky beef, rendering it close to inedible.  For the record, no one at our table of four finished their slice of beef, which tasted closer to pastrami than to Prime rib (below).

    Possibly the most retro thing at The Grill is the desserts ($15), which might well have shown up at any continental restaurant in the U.S. back in 1965—including a way-too-sweet grasshopper Charlotte, which looks like a Carvel birthday cake and needs a stake in its heart forever.

    The wine list is exemplary and wide-ranging, though trying to find a bottle under $150 is tough. Most cocktails are $18, oddly enough not the highest in town. Offering dozens of vintages of Château d'Yquem Sauternes is very odd indeed, since so few people ever drink Sauternes anymore. Especially when they run several hundred dollars a bottle.

    By the way, though not unusual these days, there is absolutely no dress code at The Grill or The Pool. In the past, The Four Seasons offered an array of blazers for gentlemen who arrived in shirtsleeves; now, in a place of such sophisticated grandeur, you may well be sitting next to a table of guys who look like they just came off the set of a Seth Rogen movie.

    The Major Food Group has tried hard but has not delivered on its extravagant dream to place The Grill and The Pool among of NYC’s great restaurants.  That is not entirely surprising, for Torrisi and Carbone, who have enormous chutzpah to match their considerable talent and foodie media idolatry,  have never actually operated anything on this grand scale before. They began with a charmingly modest little Italian-American spot named Torrisi (now closed), then several sandwich shops called Parm, a flagrantly expensive Italian throwback called Carbone, ZZ’s clam bar, a bistro with the off-putting name Dirty French, even a Japanese brasserie named The Lobster Club.  So the leap from those to remaking The Four Seasons is like the gang on Pawn Stars opening an Old Masters art gallery, or Miley Cyrus singing Carmen.  Easier dreamt than done.

    One last thing, if you can find the restaurant’s phone number—it’s not on its website!—212-375-9001—you’ll get the recorded voice of a woman with a curious British accent who says you cannot book a reservation by phone, only through Open Table.  I’d expect that from a casino-based branch restaurant in Vegas, but not in a restaurant striving to epitomize NYC hospitality in 2017.

Open daily for lunch and dinner.

        The days of American Merlot struggling for respectability are, thankfully, in the past.
    Consumers at retail and guests of restaurants are increasingly spending their money on what, in the right hands in the vineyard and winery, has the potential to be one of America’s vinous calling cards. Just last month, in fact, Wine Spectator announced its Wine of the Year: The Duckhorn Three Palms Vineyard Merlot 2013, a glorious wine that I wish I had more than one bottle of in my personal cellar, the better to follow its evolution over the next several decades.

    There is, of course, no single style of American Merlot, just as there is no quintessential American accent, culinary tradition or political affiliation. Indeed, even within individual regions or appellations, the range of styles can be tremendous, depending on drainage, aspect, wind and what precisely happened in that particular patch of the planet 250 million years ago that impacts the exact nature of the soil even today. Just tasting through the marvelous single vineyard Merlots from Duckhorn, or pouring the La Jota and Mt. Brave Merlots side-by-side—both crafted by the same deeply talented and dedicated winemaker, Chris Carpenter (right), from totally different terroirs—is enough to prove that. They’re also enough to prove just how fascinating and delicious American Merlot can be when treated with the respect it so richly deserves.

    For all of this range of American Merlot possibilities, however, I have found that the best of them typically boast generous fruit, a hint of herb or tobacco in the background, and a sense of structure that, while perhaps less monumental in general than the top Napa Cabernets, still provides the scaffolding for the best of them to age for many years—and sometimes decades—in the cellar in top vintages.

    As these wines continue to gain traction, consumers should expect them to keep getting better for reasons of simple economics: As the wines improve, and as their reputations (and therefore prices) continue to catch up with their already high quality, better and better land will be given over to Merlot, which will increase quality even further, inflate prices higher, increase American Merlot prestige, and on and on the positive feedback loop will spin.

    Right now, however, there is no shortage of world-class Merlot being produced all over the United States, and often at prices that, given the pleasure they offer now as well as their potential longevity, are beyond fair. Here are seven of my favorites, listed alphabetically, either varietally-labeled Merlot or blends based on the grape. Any one of them would be a more than welcome addition to the cellar or the dinner table, during the holiday season and well beyond.

Broadside Merlot Margarita Vineyard 2013 Paso Robles ($13).

Lush and perfumed nose, with spice, sandalwood, and a hint of incense, turning to flavors of kirsch, cassis, chocolate, and espresso. Drink now to 2022.

Dolin Malibu Estate Vineyards “The Blue Note” 2012 Malibu Coast ($45).

A blend of 44% Merlot, 36% Cabernet Sauvignon and 20% Cabernet Franc. Gobs of crème de cassis and kirsch define the liqueur-like nose. The palate boasts sweet fruit that remains in balance, with fig pudding, game-meat carpaccio, and a hint of flowers on the finish. Excellent with slow-braised meats this winter. Drink now to 2021.

Duckhorn Vineyards Napa Valley Merlot 2014 Carneros ($37).

Serious Merlot, with a tar-like edge of aromatic savoriness to the black cherry, cherry liqueur, and vanilla pod. On the palate, this is plush and giving, with chocolate, black cherries enrobed in ganache, a hint of coffee, and violets, especially on the finish. Drink now to 2024+.

La Jota Vineyard Co. Merlot 2014 Howell Mountain ($84).

Brilliant, generous nose of wild strawberry, dark berries, and sweet oak spice, and a palate that is still in its youth, yet already showing cherry, flowers, and vanilla crème brûlée, all framed with the minerality you’d expect from such high-quality mountain fruit. The structure and long, balanced finish promise a decade and a half of evolution. Drink now to 2033.

Mt. Brave Merlot 2014 Mt. Veeder ($85).

An entire field of mountain berries is zipped through with mineral on the nose, and there is a hint of Chinese five spice peeking through it all. On the palate, this is impeccably structured and defined by its minerality, as well as currant, mulberry, cherry, plum pit, and spice, electrified with excellent acidity. Fantastic now with a stint in the decanter, but I’d hold onto it for a few more years. Drink 2020 to 2042.

Stinson Vineyards Meritage 2014 Monticello ($32). A blend of 46% Merlot, 20% Cabernet Sauvignon, 12% Cabernet Franc and 12% Petit Verdot. Lots of red cherry and fresh raspberry on the nose, with a touch of well-integrated oak, and a silky palate of fruit and spice, more of that cherry, and a bit of tobacco-flecked vanilla. The finish is more savory than expected, and complicated by a delicious licorice note. Drink now to 2022+.

Switchback Ridge Peterson Family Vineyard Merlot 2012 Napa Valley ($55).

This has started down the road toward maturity with a real sense of elegance, the aromas of sweet exotic spice and cigar humidor, as well as dried figs and plums, all turn to a palate sweetly fruited and generous, with roasting coffee beans, dark and dusty chocolate, a hint of wild strawberries and dark cherries, cinnamon, and a touch of clove. Drink now to 2022.