The Consulate is less a restaurant and more a meditation on refinement, wrapped in European sophistication, kissed by American edge, and delivered with the kind of poise that makes even the salt feel special.
At seven-, 14- and 62-years-old, these three restaurants were hardly flashes in the pan and yet they will all be gone too soon. We'll miss Ugly Baby for its unapologetically spicy, make-your-nose-run Thai food, M. Wells for bringing the excesses of Joe Beef-style dining to Queens, and La Grenouille for hanging on as so many of its contemporaries disappeared.