The Libertine

With cold beer on tap, the game on the flat screen and hearty pub grub coming out of the kitchen, Todd English’s The Libertine hits so many solid guy notes, it could just as easily be called Maxim Café. The star chef’s 19th restaurant, in the Financial District’s new (and poorly timed) Gild Hall hotel, is like P.J. Clarke’s in designer duds—with golden tiles on the ceiling, a deafening classic-rock soundtrack, and creaky pub tables and chairs. A cartoonish mural of colonial New Yorkers and tintype portraits of old fashioned gentlemen in proper mustaches pepper the walls. Packed after work with hangdog bankers drowning their sorrows in bourbon, it’s a finance man’s haunt as a big-swinging cliché.

Somewhere along the way, the big-bonus playground described in preopening (and pre-banking-calamity) buzz—promising caviar sliders and Kobe beef franks among other expense-account treats—gave way to the scaled-back joint I found when I dined here. The pared-down macho menu—served with efficient good cheer—now features plenty of fried things along with sausages, potatoes, a signature burger and food cooked in beer.

English, best known for layering brash flavors, brings his trademark kitchen-sink whimsy to bear on Anglo-American gastropub fare, delivering a mixed bag of always bold, intermittently clumsy, beer-swigger’s dishes. His “carpetbagger” oysters—bar food inspired by the classic marriage of oysters and steak—features four golden fried bivalves draped in translucent raw beef. The oysters, also served at the chef’s Union Square Olives, made a succulent snack at dinner one night, but would have been fine without the extraneous meat. Mussels “rarebit,” another starter that must have seemed inspired on paper, also suffered from one too many elements. The burnt, gooey hunks of cheddar-topped toast, hidden under a fine heap of stout-steamed mussels, lent the whole thing a bitter, wince-inducing finish.

The chef’s aggressive take on a savory pub pie further upped the ballsy quotient with a fiery harissa-laced crust and generous slabs of feral, fork-tender lamb. Like a Moroccan tagine crossed with a Jamaican meat patty, it was a simple, satisfying dish (and the best thing I ate here). Which is much more than I can say for the chef’s hyperaccessorized Libertine burger. The thick, juicy patty comes sandwiched between layers of steak sauce, cheddar, crispy fried onions and horseradish mayo—an overkill clash of assertive extras (“our way or the highway,” as it’s described on the menu) that’s overpowered in the end by the A.1.-style sauce. The accompanying “everything spiced” fries—a junk-food novelty fit for a suburban bar—featured a combo of slim and wedge-cut fries doused in poppy and sesame seeds, among other fruits of the spice rack. A dense, sallow side of macaroni and cheese offered no solace with its happy-homemaker Ritz-cracker crust.

The down-market excess continued on through dessert—in a more-is-more spread of cookies and pies featuring a white-chocolate–covered pretzel, run-of-the-mill ice cream, a sickly-sweet caramel cupcake and a very McDonald’s fried apple turnover. That sugary feed might’ve been the perfect regressive recession indulgence, if only it had been less Mrs. Fields, more Mama’s homemade.