Someone must have thought to themselves, "y'know, screw it. We'll just do everything," while developing this restaurant. Coffee, pastry, gelato, short-order griddle fare, and the best Japanese food in the city, bar-none. I was once a Kawasaki devotee, and I never understood the Minato people. Niwana is really unforgivable.
XS picked up two veterans of Nobu under Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto, and then of Morimoto's own restaurant in Philadelphia. These guys got some serious game (more on them later).
You walk in, you sit down at the sushi bar, behind which is the line for American food, (waffle maker, fryolator, girddle) and ask what you should eat. What's the freshest? What's special? What's new? The best thing you can do here is talk. Really.
The chefs are professionals, and they know what's good. If you don't talk to them, they'll knock out your order like nothing matters. If you ask their advice, not only will you make a better choice when you do order, but the chef will do a better job. My first time there we got a flight of nigiri and some boring maki.
The mackerel nigiri was superb, and I told the chef. Then he knew I knew something, and made us a special roll he had been working on. Contents: smoked salmon, lettuce, smelt roe, avocado, and other tasty things I don't remember; it was wrapped in shaved dikon radish instead of nori; and the best part was the sauces, plural: teriyaki barbecue sauce, chipotle mayonnaise, and lemon curd. Beautiful combination of flavors, completely original.
At this point I tipped lavishly (he hadn't charged for the special roll). Now whenever I sit down at the place, I know I can get the best the house has to offer. You can too; talk to the chefs.
And the best the house has to offer is very good. There is an extensive menu of traditional sushi, as well as specials of the house that are less traditional. Udon? They have it. And it's good. Made my birthday dinner just perfect -- that and the free piece of chocolate lasagna they bring the birthday boy. Oh yeah, the desserts demand proper attention. These are not the overwrought and supersweet pastries you might expect. The light hand of the sugar here is almost southern Italian. The emphasis of the whipped cream is the cream, the milk fat. Lovely presentation, which really doesn't mean that much outside of pastry, but within it indicates the kind of attention to detail that proves the stirred custards not over-stirred, the choux paste for profiteroles not too dry, and the fruit gelati precisely saturated with the color and taste of summer. But the green tea ice cream? I've never understood why someone thought that was a good idea. I mean, after you make it once in the back of your restaurant, try it, and realize it's awful, why would you tell anyone about it, much less sell it to your customers? XS does try to make it good, and it's the best attempt I've seen. But really, just don't do it.
You could easily think that the American fare would be a menu-filler for the sushi-squeamish, and it does fill that role well, but it's also just plain good. You can't hope for more than competent from fryolators, from pancake griddles, from waffle makers, but XS ekes out a noble victory against those limitations. They really distinguish the breakfast menu with their French Toast. Lots of it--thick cut, crispy, eggy, and with lovely banana flavor. The breakfast is well matched by their coffee, which while not a revelation as to the likes of The Usual Suspects, makes a fair pass at Reservoir Dogs.
D??cor. Very impressive, but I look up so little from my plate that I saved it for the end. It's a gutted row-house with four open stories of seating, far too many stairs, and one bathroom. But after all, if the waiters can carry pancake plates with little tilted pitchers of syrup on the side up four flights, you can make it to the couches on the top floor, too.
The look is exposed brick, brushed steel, and glass, with plants hanging about and large flat screen televisions looming above the third floor bar and the top floor couches. It's a beautiful space, and with not only an open sushi bar, but the American food line right behind it, I'm a staggeringly boring dinner companion for all the staring at the chefs I do almost involuntarily.
Service. Good. They had some kinks just after opening, but now they run like clockwork up their too many stairs. There's a horrible rumor that their top sushi guy left, but the staff continues to rock, having been well broken in. Oh yeah, one other thing, everyone who works there is really cool.
One recent tragedy has befallen XS: the two Morimoto trainees left in a huff during the dinner rush on a Friday. They've gone. The menu, which was designed primarily around the talents and specialties of these two chefs, has diminished.
A few of my favorite things have been taken off the menu: kaki masago is gone, the toro tartare that's a clone of Morimoto's toro tartare is gone. The menu has been rounded out in a fairly good way, and the management is looking for an effective way to rebuild the menu back to what it was, but there has been a decline in quality. The sushi there is still the best in the city, but right now it's just short of the stratosphere. It'll get back.
