Openings: Matsugen, New York
Ken Scrudato
June 23, 2008
66 was probably doomed the minute AA Gill mercilessly and hilariously lacerated it in Vanity Fair. And really, did anyone need poncey Chinese cuisine? (It could surely have only lead us down the dangerous path to, like, haute latkes or something.) Jet-setting superstar chef Jean Georges Vongerichten, never one to be stubbornly high-concept when something simpler will do, has now stripped away those most archly glamorous and sex-oozing elements of Richard Meier’s interiors (au revoir, prosperous times!) in favor of decidedly more subdued sophistication.
The food at Matsugen is reliably upscale Japanese, a soba noodle joint for those whose platinum cards haven’t been forced through the post-Wall Street shredder. The bar-lounge area remains, sure to be buzzing with urbane after-workers who still, you know, have somewhere to work. So yes, it’s hard to imagine anyone will actually be lamenting the demise of 66. For as Mishima so poignantly stated it, “No death may be called futile.” Totally.
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