Stateside

This trendsetting whiskey bar and small-plater perches like a cocktail bar cockpit next to the Singing Fountain, but has slipped in the years since opening chef George Sabatino brought it to three bells.

That was clear at my first revisit, which brought lobster agnolotti with little lobster, too-salty mushrooms in the lettuce roll-ups, and oddly deep-fried pork rillettes (our server: "like a high-end taquito from, you know, 7-Eleven").

The stuffed-leaf brassica dish and Sazerac held promise.

But things got worse on a follow-up visit that brought less-than-prime raw oysters, miserly slices of cheese (for $6 each), and a whiskey sour perfectly stenciled with "SS" on its frothy top - but so bitter it was actually undrinkable.

Reviewed March 2012

Revisited in April 2015 and downgraded to one bell