There were some raised eyebrows among the NYC food media when Michael White and his Altamarea Group opened a French restaurant named Vaucluse last summer—after launching fourteen Italian restaurants over the past few years, including Marea, which did for Italian seafood what Le Bernardin had done for French.  I have not dined at every one of Altamarea’s restaurants, which now stretch from New Jersey to Las Vegas, Washington DC, Hong Kong, Istanbul, and London, but those I have dined at in NYC have, for the most part, been stellar additions, despite a couple of flops along the way.
    It is certainly a legitimate question how White can properly oversee so many ventures on three continents, in the same way that entrepreneur chefs like Alain Ducasse, Gordon Ramsay, Charlie Palmer, Jean-Georges Vongerichten and so many others do these days.  There is obviously a point at which the excellence of White’s original restaurants, where he was always on premises cooking, cannot be sustained with an absentee chef-leader, as if a conductor rarely sets food on the podium.
    Still, Vaucluse, on the Upper East Side premises of what had been Park Avenue Café, is very much a departure for White in that it is a straight-down-the-line French restaurant akin to some of those contemporary dining rooms of Paris like Benôit (owned by Ducasse), Atelier Maître Albert and Les Bookinistes (Guy Savoy), Lazare (Eric Fréchon) and  Le Quinzième (Cyril Lignac).  In each of these you’ll find a good deal of traditional and classic cooking always given a personal twist that redeems them from being predictable.  Little on Vaucluse’s menu can be exalted as wholly innovative, but almost every dish I tried showed the heightened attention of a kitchen not content to provide basic bistro/brasserie fare.
    The renovations to the bi-level dining rooms make Vaucluse as refined as any you’d find in NYC or Paris right now.  Downstairs is a loud buzz;  upstairs, which has been referred to in the press as “Siberia” (above), is actually a far more congenial and civilized room for conversation.  That I had no choice was due to a hostess who, noting I was the first in my party to arrive, sniffed, “You can wait at the bar.” Not “Would you care to wait at the bar?” I replied that I’d rather go to my table, causing her to turn to the sub-hostess and snap, “Thirty-three,” without so much as an “Enjoy your dinner.”  Nevertheless I preferred the quieter room of Siberia to the boisterous, if  “preferred,” downstairs dining room.
    The wine list, overseen by sommelier Leigh Weissman, is as admirably comprehensive as at other Altamarea restaurants but far more focused, as it should be, on French selections.  Curiously, prices by the bottle are quite fair, the markup often less than 100%, but by the glass you get gouged for wines like a $20 Christian Moreau Chablis 2014 that sells for $25 in the wine shop.  Cocktails run $17.
    The spring menu is now in effect, so aside from a selection of oysters with red wine mignonette (six for $21) and American caviar (a whopping $115 per ounce), there is a pretty salad with mesclun, mushrooms à la grecque and shavings of tête de moine cheese and black truffles ($22)—a salad it would be difficult not to love (right). Tartare of beef with capers, cornichons and toasted baguette ($21) was good, if not earth-shaking. A silky terrine of foie gras took on the added interest of guinea hen, with shaved asparagus and a dash of  sweet Sauternes, served with sourdough bread ($26).
    When I saw onion consommé on the menu ($19) I hesitated, knowing that this deceptively simple reduction was once a staple of menus everywhere but one now rarely seen.  The late restaurateur Joe Baum used to barrel through his kitchen and complain about the consommé without even tasting it, growling to his cooks, “I don’t have to. There’s always something wrong about the consommé.”  So I decided to see if White and his cooks could bring this classic soup back to eminence and was giddy upon finding they did. For not only was the broth deeply flavorful and of a perfect dark copper color, but the unexpected addition of bone marrow and a little tartine topped with melted Gruyère added measurably to the sweetness of the slowly reduced onions.
    Since everyone expects White to have pasta on his menus, and because there is hardly a French restaurant anywhere that does not these days, he’s added four. The lobster raviolo with fines herbes and a rich shellfish bisque (left) was very good, very creamy and did actually taste of lobster, but $26 for one large raviolo as a starter tilts towards exorbitance.
    Each day there is a specialty, such as boeuf bourguignnone on Wednesday and blanquette de veau on Thursday. Under “Viandes” you’ll find a beautifully cooked filet of veal done à la Rossini, with fresh sautéed foie gras, a caramelized onion tartine and a deliciously extracted black truffle jus ($46, which is actually a fairly moderate price).  Next to the consommé, I found the slow-cooked rabbit leg with barley and bacon superb, just kissed with enough Dijon mustard to bring up all the flavors ($35), and it was a surprisingly big leg for a rabbit.  I did not have a chance to try the duck à l’orange (another French item you don’t see much any more) because it is only served for two ($42 per person).
    There is a cheese selection of six French varieties ($17 for three, $23 for five) and an excellent list of dessert wines to go with them by the glass.
    Alina Martell, formerly at White’s deluxe Italian place Ai Fiori, is now going full-tilt French with very fine renderings of chocolate cake (right) with mocha crèmeux, genoise and caramel glaze ($15), and a tangy lemon tart with Meyer lemon cream, brown sugar breton cookie, and citron glaze ($13).  I’m always a sucker for Paris-Brest (named after a 1910 bicycle race), that way-too-much-of-a-good-thing made with a ring of pâte à choux pastry filled with caramelized white chocolate and a praline croquant ($13), though the crust was not as crisp as it should be and the interior cream tasted more like whipped Chantilly cream.
    I for one am happy White has tried his hand at a French restaurant—after all, he had extensive training in France as well as in Italy—one that does not try to compete with the more nouvelle examples at Jean-Georges.  Instead, for its sophistication and modernity of design, Vaucluse rises above the evergreen charms of bistros that perform by rote, and in its cuisine there is far more personal expression and attention to detail than you might have expected.  Then again, why would you not from someone of White’s stature?  Now, if he’d only alight more at his restaurants, all would be even better.

Open for Lunch Mon.-Fri.; Dinner nightly; Brunch Sun.

Joseph Drouhin Domaine des Hospices de Belleville Fleurie 2014 ($26) and Morgon 2014 ($21.50)—Properly aged Beaujolais are starting to blunt the inane reputation of Beaujolais Nouveau, and these two examples from Joseph Drouhin show all the color, fruit and time-will-tell ripeness that is achieved after slow fermentation and six months of aging before bottling. The Morgon is lovely for springtime dishes like baby lamb, while the somewhat fleshier Fleurie, from the most southern terroir of Beaujolais, takes well to dishes like roast pork with prunes.

Nobilo Icon Marlborough Pinot Noir 2014 ($19)—New Zealand Pinot Noirs can be lighter than Australian examples among New World wines,  and can give a better bang for the buck.  In this case you get a solid, well-knit NZ-PN with plenty of cherry flavors of a kind the grape should deliver without the inky sweetness, and the 13.5% alcohol is just where it should be.

Matanzas Creek Winery Jackson Park Vineyard Merlot 2012 ($60)—While its price pushes the upper limits for American merlot, Matanzas Creek has been delivering excellent examples for three decades from the cooler Bennett Valley in Sonoma. Winemaker Marcia Monahan-Torres uses a clone from the illustrious Château Pétrus of Bordeaux and it shows this silky red wine.

Vistalba Corte A 2012 ($70)—The continuing evolution of impressive red wines from Mendoza, Argentina, is on full display with this massive, 15.5% alcohol blend of 67% Malbec, 25% Cabernet Sauvignon and 8% Bonarda from a vineyard dating back to 1948. Founder Carlos Pulenta wants his wines to age, and I think this will indeed be better when it is softer and more balanced.  Right now the first sip raises eyebrows for its fruit and density, but, were I on a hacienda in Mendoza with a side of beef on a spit, I’d drink this now. But better to wait.

I Veroni Chianti Rufina Riserva 2011 ($$25-$30)—Twenty-First century Chiantis differ so radically from what the wines once were that it’s impossible to say any are typical of the name.  Yet, while Chianti Classicos get most of the attention, there are excellent Chiantis from other Tuscan regions, including this D.O.C.G. Rufina, made from 100% Sangiovese (once the wine would have also contained Canaiolo Nero, Colorino, even Trebbiano).  This is a big, bold, meaty red with a hefty fruit component softened by 18 months in French oak and 10 months in bottle. 

Tenute Cisa Asinari dei Marcheso di Gresy Langhe Martinenga Nebbiolo 2014 ($22)—The Nebbiolo (below) grape goes into Piedmont’s great Barolos and Barbarescos, but it is also a workhorse for wines of Langhe, and this example’s 13.5% alcohol shows a level of refinement you might not expect for $22.  The Martinenga vineyard actually lies within the environs of Barbaresco, so you’re getting much the same terroir and a much lower price. Excellent with tomato sauces and ones made with funghi porcini.

Montesodi del Castello di Nipozzano Frescobaldi 2011 ($27-$35)—The aristocratic Frescobaldi family has 700 years of experience making Tuscan wines, and its Montesodi label shows just how impeccably a modern I.G.T. wine can be made, which is “only in exceptional years” from Sangiovese.  With bistecca alla fiorentina, this wine is perfect, easy to drink, yet formidable at every point on the palate.