Those Board of Health sodium warnings couldn’t have come at a better time—salt shakers are deployed with a brash disregard for blood pressure at the Ribbon, the latest tentpole dining room in brothers Bruce and Eric Bromberg’s increasingly eclectic Blue Ribbon restaurant empire.
Heavy-handed seasoning strikes early and often: Fat flakes of the stuff cling mercilessly to the rosy flesh of an otherwise juicily tender nine-ounce prime rib ($36), set in a viscous pool of pan drippings; and similarly speckle pucks of chicken-fried short ribs ($26), which end up being more batter than beef. Striped bass ($26), though sporting a good crispy skin, cuts so sharply of alkali that the accompanying fennel-citrus salad is nearly pickled.
That oversalting won’t stop RedFarm-fatigued uptowners from coming in droves to the Brombergs’ latest—the demographic’s a cross-section of tie-loosened young professionals and the folks who raised them, an age bracket that remembers the brothers as the onetime young guns who kicked off their now 19-property brand on Sullivan Street in ye olden days of 1992. The dark-wood space works overtime, oddly pandering to both targets, with mural-painted brick and an Edison-bulb lettered marquee for the millennials, and a vintage juke and yellowing Zeppelin posters for the middle-aged.
Of the mind-bogglingly diverse Blue Ribbon catalog—sushi counters, bread bakeries, bowling-alley snack purveyors—the through line has always been the crowd-favorite, honey-slathered fried chicken, which is issued out here for Sunday and Monday dinner only ($25). But fellow Bromberg pleasantries are nowhere to be found—no pupu platters, no saucy pork ribs, no French-bread pizzas—replaced by staid pâtés and ho-hum vegetable risotto. If only the Bromberg boys had as much ballsiness with the menu as they do the salt shakers.