Six nights a week, the Times Square area is a mad, deafening rush of New Yorkers, tourists, cops, food trucks, buses, cars and taxis.  People disgorge from the restaurants at six-thirty p.m. to catch a curtain or head to Madison Square Garden for a Billy Joel concert.

    But on Monday nights, when the theaters are closed, the area is calmer, people aren’t in such a rush, and you can really appreciate the extravagance of  the light shows up and down Broadway.  So it was a good night for me and my guests to try out a year-old restaurant in the Moxy Hotel, when we didn’t run into the buzz saw of exiting diners. (Actually there was one table next to us talking so loud they did sound like a turbine generator, but fortunately they bolted to catch a Knicks game at the Garden.)

    So it was easier to appreciate this handsome, marine-themed restaurant up a flight of stairs off Seventh Avenue, with walls of old-fashioned white and green tiles, cushy banquettes, rough wood tables, and a ceiling with panels that soak up noise.

    I had not actually heard of Legasea, and I’m sure the reasons it had not been much talked about or reviewed by the media had to do with the usual bias against hotel restaurants, especially one in the Theater and Garment District, and not least because it is owned by the international TAO Group, known more for its ear-splitting mega-nightclub restaurants than its fine cuisine.

    But at Legasea, a smaller venue, they had the good sense to put a top-notch, very experienced chef in the kitchen—Jason Hall, who’s worked at an impressive number of restaurants in and out of New York, including Craft, Hearth, Gotham Bar & Grill and Anthos, this last a revolutionary Greek restaurant I picked as the best new restaurant of the year when it opened about ten years ago.

    Legasea also enjoys the careful, cordial professionalism of general manager Alexandra Lesser, who’s worked with TAO restaurants in the past and even opened a restaurant in Dubai.  The waitstaff is equally as personable, though at slow times in the evening they congregate too frequently at the bar.

    The menu is deceptively traditional for a seafood house. There are all the expected items, from a generously proportioned seafood tower ($75 to $105) of raw shellfish, lobster, crab, mussels and shrimp with various sauces to fried calamari with zucchini and cherry tomatoes sauce ($17). You can get simply cooked fish and end off with a slice of cheesecake.  But that is far from all that Hall is producing.  He’s certainly not alone in pursuing sustainability of his products, but he is one of the rare chefs who brings in wild branzino and other species from the Mediterranean and Montauk. But first you begin with a pan of hot, buttered salted yeast rolls and spreads you’d wish more places served instead of the usual bread basket.

    One of Hall’s signature items this season is acorn squash that is slow-roasted in olive oil and lemon and served with a cold maple yogurt ($10). Quinoa is crisped in the oven and sprinkled atop the squash (right), with pumpkin seeds and tart dried cherries for garnish. I told you this was not your usual seafood house.

    Also out of the ordinary are his creamy, piled-high crab beignets (above, left) with chipotle-laced crème fraȋche and a powder made from Indian butter ($16). The tuna tartare ($22) comes glistening and sweet, mixed with avocado, soy ginger vinaigrette and served with lavash crackers.  And I was really happy with an old-fashioned salad he calls BLT of cold iceberg lettuce tossed with bleu cheese and crispy shallots for crunch ($16), which easily serves two people.

    That wild branzino ($39), which comes to the table splayed, is wonderful, but yellowfin tuna au poivre ($36) lacked flavor, in both the fish itself and the black pepper.  Chatham cod fish and chips ($29) was perfectly cooked, so that the batter stayed crisp and the cod exceptionally moist but not steamy within, served with good French fries.  We also ordered some German butterball potatoes with chives and truffle butter for the table ($12).

    Hall makes all his own pastas, and it showed in the fine texture of black pasta shells in a very savory, well-seasoned sauce of lobster, shrimp, scallops and spicy cherry tomatoes. ($27).

    We were pretty sated by this point, but could hardly refuse two styles of fall dessert: fried apple fritters that had a delightful sweet-sour balance, and soft baked donuts kissed with cinnamon sugar.  My wife had to have the recipe for that one.

     Those desserts were gobbled up, but I cannot fail to mention the assortment of  excellent ice creams and sorbets (three for $15) with which you can have toppings like Oreo crumbs and gingersnap cookies.

    We were at our table at Legasea for nearly three hours, not because there was a lag in service or delivery of the food but because we just kept enjoying every morsel of what was placed before us. More abstemious gourmets might have stopped after the shellfish tower, but on that lovely Monday night in New York we were wholly content to be right where we were in the heart of the city.

 

            As the harvests end in northern hemisphere wine estates, new vintages from prior years come into the market.  Here are some I’m enjoying at the moment.

 

BARON DE BRANE 2010  ($27)—Very rich, very supple, very layered, showing its Margaux appellation beautifully. The blend is 53% Cabernet Sauvignon and 47% Merlot, with no Cabernet Franc. The vintage was a dry year with cool summer nights that helped build up the aroma and phenolics. This is the second wine of Château Brane-Cantenac, a renowned second growth, overseen by Henri Lurton, and a very good price for a Bordeaux of this quality. It’s ready to drink right now.

 

CHÂTEAU GRAND TAYAC 2014 ($33)—I was equally taken with this Margaux, though perhaps less multi-dimensional than the Baron de Brane right now—and it’s young. It was rewarding for its deep fruit flavors, lush feel on the palate and long finish. Winemaker Eric Boissenot, who consults for many of the First Growth Bordeaux, makes a small number of bottles he proudly puts his reputation behind.

 

DRY CREEK THE MARINER 2014 ($50)—With 69% Cabernet Sauvignon, 12% Petit Verdot, 9% Merlot, 8% Malbec and 2% Cabernet Franc, this is a carefully cultured blend from Sonoma County, and it has plenty of pleasure in it with soft fruit and tannins—very much  a fine example of a Meritage wine, which Dry Creek pioneered back in the 1980s. The name refers to a poem by Longfellow on the label entitled “The Building of the Ship”: “In spite of rock and tempest’s roar,/ In spite of false lights on the shore,’/ Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea!” Whatever.

 

LONG MEADOW RANCH WINERY ANDERSON VALLEY PINOT NOIR 2015 ($40)—Subtlety is a virtue too often lost on California’s Pinot Noir makers, so I applaud how Long Meadow Ranch’s owners, Ted, Laddie and Christopher Hall, who make their wines right along with olive and fruit orchards as well as raising cattle and horses, have produced a wine that is supple, fruit forward but not massive, neither in its alcohol (13.5%) nor its tannins.  It tastes of Anderson Valley terroir, and this autumn I’ll be drinking it with roast duck and cherries or any mushroom-hearty dish.

 

GEORGÓS “FARMER” SIREN’S LURE 2014 ($31)—A Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Malbec blend, this wine shows how far Greek reds have come just in the past five years. The siren in the name references Corfu and its alluring sea serpents who seduced Ulysses. All grapes are 100% non-GMO sustainably grown. It’s a nicely robust red at 14.4% alcohol and is perfect with roast lamb or lamb chops. 
 

 

PLANTATION XAYMACA SPECIAL DRY ($24.99)—The question with rum is: Is it too good to be used in a cocktail?  With this new import from Jamaica, the answer is that it is a very good, medium-bodied rum that blends impeccably into a Daiquiri or rum punch—though lost in a piña colada—while it’s an easy rum to sip on its own, before or after dinner.  At 86 proof, it’s not too weighty, and master blender Alexandre Gabriel sought to emphasize the fruit and spice flavors with “animal intensity,” achieved by aging to a medium amber color. Maison Ferrand, best known for its Pierre Ferrand Cognac, owns two historic pot still distilleries at Long Pond (right) and Clarendon,  known for their high esters.