Description
The Ritz brought in Chef Christian Clair to oversee the former and much-loved Cero space and handed him a comfort-food menu with home-style Italian favorites. The space has all the elements of an excellent hotel restaurant, from the cavernous and well-adorned dining room to the full view of the ocean across the way. The classically trained Clair nails the preparation of dishes like arugula and beet salad, Atlantic halibut, and a tenderloin with a compound butter crust. But the Ritz also confines Clair by sticking him with dishes like rigatoni and orzo soup when he should really be cooking the food of his home in Champagne France. It's still worth a splurge - if only for the nutella beignets, which are, after all, real French comfort food. And it's also fun to imagine what Clair could do if the Ritz let him loose.
