Top Chef has made everyone a food critic. Each week, viewers judge Richard for amping his ice cream with foie gras or Marcel for getting trigger-happy with liquid nitrogen—all without sampling a morsel of their creations. We think we know them, but do the cheftestants actually have cooking chops, or are they just telegenic twits? Only when they launch restaurants do we really find out. Some have opened shop and proven their mettle (you betcha, Harold). Others not so much (sorry, Nikki). And now Sam Talbot is at the real-life chopping block, this time without Padma’s monotone ringing out the judgment.
Talbot has migrated from Montauk to run Imperial No. Nine, an expansive “sustainable” seafood restaurant in the new Mondrian Soho Hotel. Nab a seat in the swanky atrium, an airy space festooned with potted ferns, oversize chandeliers, and a gorgeous centerpiece (an homage to Jean Cocteau) of glass urns and vases from sculptor Beth Lipman. It resembles a winter garden designed by a Miami Beach decorator for whom Alice in Wonderland is gospel. Yet this sumptuous restaurant has its less sexy side, too—a gold-hued but depressing interior dining room adjacent to a larger bar. Or is that area dreary because the homelier folk are herded there, by an unnaturally beautiful waitstaff?
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