Restaurant Review: Le Rock Is Just What Rockefeller Center Needs

The new restaurant from the Frenchette chefs has downtown energy to spare. Midtown could use it.

With snails, natural wine and downtown energy, Le Rock brings adventurous dining to Rockefeller Center. The dark ages probably began when the Rainbow Room stopped taking reservations and turned into a wedding space. After that, Rockefeller Center went for years without having a restaurant that you’d really go out of your way for. This didn’t strike most people as weird. The dining scene’s center of gravity moved downtown so long ago that mediocrity seems like Midtown’s natural state.

But there’s nothing preordained about that, and the evolution of Rockefeller Center under its current owner, Tishman Speyer, is the proof. Lodi, the small, Milanese-style cafe that the chef Ignacio Mattos opened last year in a spot just south of the skating rink, was the first interesting new place to eat on the plaza in ages. With the arrival of Le Rock this summer on the opposite side of the rink, things started to get truly exciting.

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