A Japanese brush with greatness

Steve Cuozzo

RESTAURANT REVIEW

BRUSHSTROKE 30 Hudson St., at Duane Street; 212-791-3771.

Were you fed up waiting for Brushstroke, three months old and four years late? At least take comfort that David Bouley’s many-course kaiseki extravaganza isn’t one of those holy Japanese joints. Dishes reflect "roots on both sides of the Pacific," says the house-organ magazine.

Although many ingredients are from Japan, the lobster hails from Cape Cod, o-toro from Boston. "The salt is from Sicily," confided entertainingly chatty bartender Gen Yamamoto.

Lobster in clam and garlic sauce did taste rather Italian. "Too much garlic," we said. "It needed to be sweated longer in the pan," grumbled the Japanese guy next to us. The chef heard him and grinned.

Elion Paz

Chawan mushi with Dungeness crab and black truffle.

Forget the reverential hush of Masa. This is a jolly, social-networky place. Maybe too much so: A couple clearly bored by their 10-course pre-fixe spent most of the night viewing safari footage on their iPad under the sushi chef’s nose.

Dummies, because chef Isao Yamada’s interpretive modern-Japanese menu is marvelous. Even so, a meal comes with more caveats than the fine print on prescription-pill ads. "Are you sure you’re dining with us tonight?" the mixed-up hostess icily greeted us on a night when our reservation had been made with the publicist’s help and we spent nearly $500 for two.

You’ll likely spend as much, and more, soon — current $85 and $135 prix-fixe (no a la carte in the dining room) for raw materials so meticulously chosen won’t pay the house’s bills for long.

At a place so long in coming, you want to be not merely delighted, but dazzled. How long? Brushstroke, a collaboration of Bouley and Yoshki Tusji of Osaka’s Tsuji Culinary Institute, was first announced in the days when few New Yorkers could name Barack Obama’s home state.

Construction finally began in a building around the corner two years ago until Bouley quit the site and decided to move his labor of love into the triangular Hudson Street room that was previously Danube and Secession. You’d never guess kavalierspitz was once served here: Hapsburgian baroque was blown out for a clean, airy rush of blond wood and reclaimed stone. The place to sit is the dining counter facing the kitchen, made from a 135 year-old oak chopped down by Bouley himself. The tree, we are assured, was in failing health.

The vast open kitchen resembles an open factory, industriously churning out dishes like widgets. But they are wonderful widgets, served on gorgeous china — round, hexagonal and in all shapes between. Many dishes relate traditional Japanese elements to American ones without playing at "fusion;" the spirit and techniques are Japanese even when the combinations seem not to be.