When Visiting New York City, Go Ouest

Planning trips to New York, most of us tend to think about the top restaurants we’d like to try. For most, even now, that means calling sometimes weeks in advance to secure a reservation. In Manhattan, if you want to dine at Babbo or Craft or the hot new Ilo anytime before 10 p.m., it takes perseverance and the crowds sometimes seem to have more tourists than New Yorkers.

Eating at a neighborhood place like 71 Clinton on the Lower East Side or the tiny bistro Prune in the East Village lets visitors in on a more intimate side of New York. Greenwich Village and Soho, of course, are crammed with appealing small restaurants, some of which, like the late-night Blue Ribbon, don’t even take reservations. Until now, other than take-out smoked fish from Zabar’s or Murray’s, the Upper West Side was sadly lacking anyplace you or New Yorker friends who love to eat would long to visit for dinner.

The buzz on the new restaurant Ouest (that’s west in French) from chef Tom Valenti, though, has been tremendous. Valenti was chef at the late Dominic’s and Butterfield 81, and wherever he’s cooked, the food has been good.

Unbelievably, I had to make a reservation two weeks in advance to get a table at 8:30 p.m. A friend who lives two blocks away still hasn’t been able to get in because he’s always trying on the spur of the moment.

Let me say that I loved this place--despite the 20-minute wait squeezed with dozens of others into a long, narrow space, which is sort of a hallway with a bar along one side and a maitre d’s podium at the far end. It was hot. It was noisy. It was fun.

Here, on the Upper West Side, you get a different kind of celebrity, the kind you recognize from book jackets.

We ate in a cheerful, cozy dining room with high ceilings, red and orange silk-shaded lamps and curvaceous, red Naugahyde booths, but there are tables in an upstairs mezzanine, too, and booths behind the bar.

To start, try the mustard-crusted pork “rillette,” shredded pork patties served with a warm Yukon potato salad. Supple slices of smoked duck breast are topped with a warm poached egg that’s been deep-fried to crisp it. And the chef makes a mean butternut squash agnolotti bathed in Parmesan broth with confit of duck gizzards. Interesting stuff, eh?

For the conservative crowd, the menu lists a handful of simple grills. For the rest of us, Valenti offers a wonderful sauteed skate with braised cabbage in a tomato chive broth and a rustic braised honeycomb tripe with lots of tomato in it and a small dish of homemade hot sauce.

Braised short ribs are a good bet, too, accompanied by baby turnips and soft polenta.

Plus, he’s got nightly specials (as in plats du jour) like whole roasted fish, rack of lamb for two and braised lamb shanks, which are, I’m presuming, so good they’ve devoted two nights to the dish.

On a Friday night, the place felt so festive and fun, it was easy to feel part of the neighborhood--and New York at large.

Ouest, 2315 Broadway, New York, N.Y.; (212) 580-8700. Open daily for dinner; brunch on Sundays. Appetizers $7 to $11; main courses $16 to $25.