Spice Market / New York@Food

The chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten's restaurant Spice Market has presented Southeast Asian fare in Manhattan's meatpacking district since 2004.

Photo: Raymond McCrea Jones/The New York Times

In 2004, Spice Market was "a theme park, yes, but an unusually classy one in which the cooking reflected nearly as much thought as the lighting," writes Frank Bruni, The Times's chief restaurant critic.

Photo: Raymond McCrea Jones/The New York Times

"Spice Market suggested the possibility of excellence in a genre often content with frivolity," Mr. Bruni writes. "Today it suggests the steepness of many a restaurant's decline once it has made its first, glowing impression."

Photo: Raymond McCrea Jones/The New York Times

The space, a two-story former warehouse in the meatpacking district, is theatrically decorated, with balustrades, canopies, silk lanterns and a bar framed in teak.

Photo: Raymond McCrea Jones/The New York Times

Many of the dishes on the menu -- there are nearly 50 in all -- remain unchanged from the restaurant's early days, emphasizing flavors from Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam and India.

Photo: Raymond McCrea Jones/The New York Times

The menu's structure is the same, too. Although the restaurant presents nearly a dozen relatively conventional entrees, it emphasizes appetizers, salads, soups and sides for sharing.

Photo: Raymond McCrea Jones/The New York Times

Spice Market is comfortable and it is run efficiently. Some of the dishes are winners, and its cocktails and desserts remain a cut above those of its peers. But, Mr. Bruni writes, "it bungles finer points." Sloppiness has set in.

Photo: Raymond McCrea Jones/The New York Times

Spice Market

★

403 West 13th Street (Ninth Avenue); (212) 675-2322; jean-georges.com

@Source from: http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/06/23/dining/20090624-REST_index.html