South Gate.(Restaurant review)

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 ...