Restaurant of the Week: Gemma

Few restaurants have a higher profile than this Italian eatery snugly situated in the ground floor of the Bowery Hotel. Gemma is the work of hoteliers and restaurateurs Sean MacPherson and Eric Goode (The Maritime Hotel, Bowery Bar, Waverly Inn), two men who are enjoying a very party-pages sort of year. They enlisted Freeman's owner Taavo Somer to design the space, who went with a rustic Tuscan kitchen sort of vibe (rustic Tuscan kitchens being the natural habitat of models, celebrities and magazine editors, at least in 2007). The restaurant's executive chef is Chris D'Amico, who comes from the Maritime Hotel's Italian restaurant La Bottega. Gemma doesn't take reservations, employs at least one host with a waxed mustache, and is so faux-aged (dripping candelabras, iron chandeliers, countrified bric-a-brac) that just nabbing a table feels inauthentic, like an experience that happened to someone else that you read about somewhere, like maybe in, oh, Vanity Fair. So yes: The scene, at least at the moment, is the reason to drop by. But the service is impeccable and the food is decent. Starters like flori di zucca (lightly battered zucchini flowers with ricotta cheese, $10) and pomodorini e basilico (grape tomatoes and basil, $4) whet the appetite for competent mains like bistecca alla fiorentina (grilled porterhouse with roasted potatoes, $36) and the branzino al forno (sea bass served up with broccoli rabe, $19). The gelatina di prugna (plum cobbler with olive oil gelato, $8) is a nice way to finish. The food's nothing remarkable (although certainly priced like it is), but then, Gemma isn't about eating anyway. The Bowery Hotel, 335 Bowery, (212) 505-9100.