What kind of a restaurant does the city Parks Department envision for the Tavern on the Green site in Central Park?
A pretty mediocre one, apparently, according to Post restaurant critic Steve Cuozzo.
Cuozzo went to Philadelphia to check out the only restaurant currently being run by the Emerald Green Group — which the city tapped to run a new Central Park eatery and whose co-owner includes the brother-in-law of one of Mayor Bloomberg’s closest advisers.
Turns out, the Philly restaurant is “minor league, even by Philadelphia standards,” Cuozzo wrote.
The folks who want to transform the historic site into a 500-seat dining destination are operating a 65-seat creperie with “a fast-food feel,” according to Cuozzo.
As for the food, the salad “tasted out of a supermarket bag” and the crepe fillings “had the formulaic, starch-bomb heft of thickened canned soup.”
All of which justifies the question raised by Cuozzo: “What exactly qualifies them for the task” of reinventing this iconic restaurant site and managing it for the next two decades?
And it should finally start raising some eyebrows around City Hall about how Emerald Green got the contract in the first place.
The Parks Department insists the group got a higher evaluation than either of its two local competitors, and provided The Post’s David Seifman with its internal scoring sheets.
But Cuozzo’s review — which, granted, is just one man’s opinion — suggests that the possible cronyism factor may not be as irrelevant as Mayor Bloomberg contends.
The crony in this case being former Deputy Mayor Kevin Sheekey — Mayor Mike’s political guru, key strategist of his flirtations with a presidential run and now a top exec at Bloomberg LP.
Sheekey’s wife’s brother, Jim Caiola, is one of Emerald Green’s co-owners.
Everyone concerned insists that Sheekey played no role whatsoever — and Bloomberg adds that Caiola did “exactly the right thing” in not notifying the Parks Department of his City Hall connection.
But it still stinks.
What the hell ever happened to the Caesar’s-wife standard, anyway?
New Yorkers have been waiting years for the Tavern site to be reborn — into something more inviting than the tourist trap it eventually became.
Frankly, it’s looking like City Hall is just baiting another trap.
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