Ko Impresses Adam Platt, But He Misses the Old Momofuku Style

Adam Platt pays several visits to the "new, more polished, impersonal version of [Momofuku] Ko," just off the Bowery. There he finds a restaurant that feels "less like an intimate New York dining destination than an ambitious new-money wine bar somewhere in the boomtown sprawl of Shanghai or Toronto." The menu regularly rotates but, on one visit, Platt says:

The best dish...was a crimson slice of venison touched with fermented cranberries and served with whipped potatoes folded with funky Époisses cheese.

On another visit:

There were also sunflower seeds scattered over a beautifully cooked piece of branzino, which I enjoyed after a delicious little pod of agnolotti dressed with shavings of black truffle and filled with ­celery-root cream.

Platt registers few complaints, but says, by the end of one meal: "I couldn't help pining for a taste of something less precious, more spontaneous, and more distinctly Momofuku." Three stars.