46 West Market Street
Rhinebeck, NY
845-876-5551

Do one thing, and do it well.

This past weekend, Lisa and I tried out one of the most recent arrivals on the surprisingly trendy restaurant scene in Rhinebeck. The area benefits from its proximity to the Culinary Institute of America, some of whose graduates (and dropouts) fall in love with the Mid-Hudson Valley and never leave. One of Dutchess County's favorite restaurateurs, a man named Bing, returned from a period of world-traveling to open his long-awaited eponymous restaurant this past fall.

The physical space of Bing's restaurant is designed to invoke the various cultures that influence his menu. Bing has chosen a strange way of doing this, dividing his dining space into six separate rooms, each with a distinct cultural theme. This idea is gimmicky and cute, and probably allows Bing to book lots of private parties without shutting down the rest of the dining rooms, but has the potential to be more trouble than it's worth, as it was when Lisa and I visited.

Simply put, dividing the restaurant into so many distinct compartments seems to rob the front-of-house staff of the flexibility they need to attend to all their customers. In our room, two waiters and two busboys attended to about 40 diners, with a captain checking in occasionally during his rounds from room to room. Twelve of the diners were all at one table, for a retirement party. A table for twelve cannot be handled by just one waiter, which meant that the other 28 of us in that room were basically given short-shrift by the wait staff the entire night. And since the remaining wait staff was probably spread equally thin in the five other rooms of the restaurant, there was no way the captain could compensate. I'd say the answer is a bigger staff, but the rooms are so tight that there isn't really enough space for more wait staff to be milling around.

When the wait staff can't efficiently mediate between the kitchen and the diner, even the best food suffers. Bing's kitchen staff are quite skilled, and generally turn out well-prepared dishes with strong flavors. But if a party of two's entrees sit on the pass for five to eight minutes while the entire wait staff is serving dessert for a party of twelve, the entrees are not going to be at their best when they make it to the table. If a waitress doesn't have time to pick up a drink order at the bar, a wine carefully paired to a particular course can't work its magic. And communication between Bing's wait staff and its kitchen apparently isn't smooth enough to work out the timing in these situations.

There are other little things I might complain about. A roasted vegetable terrine was overpowered by red bell peppers, and apparently the chef has not decided what temperature he wants it at -- it was served warm on a cold plate. The shell of a meyer lemon tart was so hard as to be impossible to cut and difficult to eat. But the food, on the whole, is not Bing's problem. The risotto was creamy with a slight bite, his tenderloins of beef and pork were perfectly cooked and accompanied with powerful but still subtle sauces. What the menu lacked in depth, it made up for with skill of preparation.

Which brings me back to where I started. For all Bing's travels, there is not a strong influence of any particular culture evident in his menu. His cuisine is, basically, the same ecumenical New American fare at which the Culinary Institute of America so excels: a commercialized melange of the least threatening flavors and ingredients from around the world. The confused design of his restaurant is simply incongruous with the output of his kitchen, and he is paying a dear price for it in the level of service he is able to provide his customers. Maybe he should drop his attempts at cross-culturalism and instead trust to what he does best: serving quality New American food with a finely honed sense of style and taste.