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There's something resolutely male about South Gate, the new restaurant at the Jumeirah Essex House, the historic Art Deco hotel across from Central Park. Designed by Tony Chi as part of a ninety-million-dollar renovation, it's a bachelor pad writ large: walls of mirrors, divided into angled grids, like the peel of a disco ball; leather everywhere, even on the tabletops, in various shades of latte; and, flanked by half-stocked bookshelves, a minimalist gas fireplace in which a long ripple of flame seems to leap straight from stone. All that's missing is a bearskin rug.
But if the goal here is sly seduction, the service is slightly buffoonish. When asked which dishes best showcased the chef's style, a waiter proclaimed, "All of them. It is like nothing you have tasted before." Further details were not forthcoming: a pave cut was described with karate-chop hand gestures (it turned out to be a square); the word "Lillet" drew a blank; and any question about an entree was answered with a rearrangement of the ingredients already listed on the menu. (Of the spice-roasted cod with mustard greens: "We take the cod. We roast it with spice. There are mustard greens." Ah, yes: It is like nothing you have tasted before.)
The exaggeration ...