Park Avenue Winter.(restaurant)(Restaurant review)

In recent years, the resolutely sedate Park Avenue Cafe tried and failed to recruit younger diners with gimmicks like Pay Your Age; last year, it closed. The owners have since remade the place as an ode to the four seasons, with the restaurant's decor, menu, and name changing quarterly. What began as Park Avenue Summer was done over as Park Avenue Autumn; now we have Park Avenue Winter; soon it will be Spring, and so on. Compounding the loopiness of it all, the decor is said to be inspired not only by the seasons but also by the voyages of Captain James Cook. As the restaurant's Web site puts it, "Winter pays homage in part to Cook's travels in the Antarctic Circle, combined with a classic drawing room aesthetic." Don't bother parsing that too closely; instead, think vases filled with bare branches, chandeliers, and lots and lots of white. The look suggests a fancy restaurant not on the Upper East Side but somewhere else--Narnia, maybe, or heaven.

Fortunately, the homage to Cook's Antarctic Circle journey doesn't extend to the menu. (When provisions ran low, the captain and his crew dined on penguins. Cook's assessment: "I cannot say they are good eating.") Park Avenue Winter interprets the idea of seasonalism loosely; with its citrus fruits and Florida-stone-crab claws and ...