Savoy; Convivium Osteria

I've learned a lot from seeing the world as a food critic who started as a music critic. For example, I know, now, that when pop-music connoisseurs blame "the system" for unrecognized greatness, they're critiquing democracy. They might think they're Marxists, standing up to capitalism. But young culture rebels know, deep down inside, that the art they enjoy doesn't serve the working class. No one can plausibly deny that rock and rap wouldn't exist but for free-market anarchy. As cruel and undercontrolled as capitalism may well be, in this case it's a scapegoat.

Blame must be assigned because developing an appreciation for exceptional music, surprisingly, brings as much psychological pain as listening pleasure. The source of suffering is not the mass celebration of inferior sounds. Rooted in a genuine flaw shared by American democracy and music capitalism (favoring winners too much), this problem is a mere annoyance.

Pop esthetes suffer when the relationships that supply their lives with meaning are destroyed. These are abstract relationships, but still they're love affairs. Apprehending beauty is a religious experience. By identifying greatness in his own time, and by feeling it resonate in his soul, the kid with taste is finally rewarded for an individuality he never sought. He gets to join a clique. The counterculture nurtures every member's foundational, private and solitarily rapturous sense of being in communication with the divine.

It's always ruined. Great musicians end up too popular, or not popular enough, or too depressed or whatever. There is no aspect of the system that preserves their audience's justified love. Something seems glaringly wrong with a world where people who successfully identify something of value cannot elevate or even save it. That can't be how it's supposed to work. It appears as if America places no faith in her most talented children, and if they achieve something without her help, some businessman always slaps them down.

People have spent their entire lives writing about rock with this worldview. Bring the same attitude to restaurant reviews, though, and it amounts to bitter and vain protest against one of American democracy's major successes. The Constitution was designed to thwart aristocracy, and it does. Capitalism gives aristocrats a headache, but religious freedom and equal rights are what terminated European tastemakers' fruitful, history-making affair with the arts. Now, the majority tramples upon the divine. Music snobs let themselves off the hook for hating it. In culinary circles, meanwhile, there's no denying that global commerce puts artistic treasures within working people's reach, and only lack of refinement keeps them from properly valuing it.

So when I say that the moneyed diners of Soho are philistines, understand that as an American esthete I was born to be frustrated, and that I know this. Yet, these people are cretins, for real. Savoy was definitely a great restaurant. It was creative and unique, with so much personality you could anticipate the frame of mind a meal there would put you in even though the food itself was sure to surprise. But too many people didn't like Savoy, and it had to change. You can log on to the New York Citysearch website and get a glimpse into the sort of mind that saw fit to stomp on this Manhattan flower. One author of a "user rating" called the restaurant "an embarrassment to Soho." Should we assume this person is proud of W. Broadway? Pardon me, but what a fucking barbarian.

Savoy's more marketable incarnation is already doing well. Unveiled a few weeks ago, it's colder and blander, with an intentionally uninspired menu. Lots of items are grilled. Everyone likes grilled. Prices remain in the $26-entree range. The downstairs now features a little U-shaped bar and a vaulted drop ceiling, very common. Upstairs is done in blond wood, a bit austere but mostly just cautious and modern. You'd never guess it used to feel like a room in an eccentric old rustic's house.

The service is still topnotch. It seemed as if every passing busboy was keeping an eye on our table in case we needed anything. Our waitress was more relaxed than I. We felt almost as well-taken-care-of as at a Danny Meyer restaurant, which fits because Savoy seems to be auditioning for the role of Soho's answer to Union Square Cafe. (They should have renamed it Soho Bar & Grill.) It might well get the part, if it regains some of its former confidence.

The day's market menu ($45) started with grilled shiitake mushrooms, olive and parsley relish on the side. The organic mushroom man at Union Square Greenmarket ruined me for lesser shiitakes. These were up to snuff. But nothing had been done to them that I couldn't have done myself. The next course was potato gnocchi in walnut and rosemary pesto. Much better. The pasta and fillings held together like longtime teammates, doing their flavorful jobs. The sauce was earthy and autumnal, a creamy harvest clay.

One of my companions started with late summer vegetable soup with croutons and basil ($9). It was light and simple if not particularly delicate, with tomatoes, carrots and celery stewed with mild spices, not pureed. Needed salt. Serrano ham with grilled peppers and balsamic vinaigrette ($10) was, like the mushrooms, familiar high-end market stuff, though the exquisitely charred green and red long, sweet peppers was a deft touch.

The market menu entree was grilled, smoked organic baby beef with chickpeas and shaved radish. The meat had a satisfying consistency. Smoking had loosened its grain, and skillful thin slicing allowed for a very quick encounter with the flame. So the beef was tender though rare, smoky but far from dry. Fresh chickpeas absorbed the gravy quite well, though a side that added another dimension to the dish would have been more welcome.

Savoy's current a la carte entree offerings include grilled salmon, salt-crusted duck, skate wing, grilled lamb and organic veal. Our party went with sheep's milk ricotta ravioli with mint and sweet pea sauce ($19), and the seared wild striped bass ($28). The fresh pasta and fresh cheese were unassailable, but mint and pea flavors did not come through. The inexpensive East Village Italian restaurant I covered two weeks ago, Supper, managed more flavor with the same type of dish. The striped bass was a strong piece of fish, served with string beans and chanterelles of commensurate quality, yet the dish felt more assembled than prepared. If we hadn't known better, we'd have guessed that the man in the back was an apprentice chef, not yet allowed to speak through his food.

Desserts were as good as the service. Savoy makes its own ice cream. A bourbon-chocolate variety came with molten chocolate cake ($8), and black mint was the flavor of the day. I ordered pears in red wine sauce as a tribute to an unbelievable trout in red wine sauce I ate for dinner at the old Savoy once. The pears were nice. Does New York need another restaurant with delicious desserts and boring entrees, though? They're already as plentiful as pop stars that look good but can't rock. My, how it hurts to be unable to ignore the difference.

Savoy, 70 Prince St. (Crosby St.), 219-8570.

Convivium Osteria

The spirit of old Savoy lives on at Convivium Osteria. The tiny Brooklyn restaurant expanded into its wine cellar not long after it opened two years ago. Early last year its owner-operators remodeled that basement into a second dining room. It's decorated like the out-of-the-way places in Barcelona's Gothic Quarter. You can imagine you're dining belowdecks in a wooden ship, only the hanging lanterns don't sway. The downside is that it's louder in the new room, especially because, unlike upstairs, there's room for a large party. Still, the restaurant's culinary panache borders on heroism, and that guarantees an air of romance.

The menu continues to roam all over the Western Mediterranean and Iberia, rotating in various examples of peasant wisdom, rustic tradition and regional flair. The night I visited they were making Sicilian couscous with shellfish, for two. There was also an appetizer for two, and every table was ordering it. It was a basket full of seafood tapas: clams in garlic and wine, red pepper stuffed with crabmeat, shrimps in lemon and sherry, wonderful codfish cakes, fresh pickled anchovies and more. Everything casually seasoned?dash of this, splash of that?yet perfect. Our entrees were also quite good, though I don't think Convivium's cooking is as special as it was during its first year.

I was disappointed that a dessert of chocolate-covered figs is not on the menu this season. The first time my girlfriend and I dined at the restaurant, the co-owner gave us some of those gratis with our port, just because she wanted us to try them. What a restaurant. I'd never really enjoyed chocolate-covered fruit before. Lord, was that a good dessert. This time, a chocolate fig cake approximated the experience.

Want a second opinion? Here's a verbatim quote about Convivium Osteria from a Citysearch user: "in europe, a place like this would be where working people eat. here, in trendoid brooklyn, ten dollar appetizers and a horribly over-priced, ridiculously limited, pretentiously presented menu with the best items so expensive that they bill them as 'for two' dishes are the word of the day! not on the side of the economically-distressed denizens that populate the neighborhood the're housed in, are they!?be prepared for appalling service and don't buy into that 'were continental european so we're really slow' schtick they're desperately cloying at! AVOID!!!"

Ah, democracy.

Convivium Osteria, 68 5th Ave. (betw. Bergen St. & St. Marks Pl.), Brooklyn, 718-857-1833.