Richard D. Parsons has held many titles during his career: media conglomerate chief, chairman of Citigroup, wearer of leather jackets.
Now he can add “co-owner of a critically praised restaurant†to his résumé.
The New York Times on Wednesday gave high marks to the Cecil, a restaurant that counts Mr. Parsons and Alexander Smalls, a former opera singer, as owners. The two men are already partners in Minton’s Playhouse, a revival of the legendary Harlem jazz bar that is nearby.
The Times’s Ligaya Mishan gave high marks to the Cecil’s “Afro/Asian/American†cuisine, as prepared under the guidance of the chef Joseph Johnson. More from the review:
Some dishes verge on monumental, like gumbo with a pleasingly sour undertow of dried shrimp and feijoada, a Brazilian black-bean stew stuffed with a whole merguez lamb sausage and crowned with a slab of oxtail whose daunting layer of fat arrives already melting.
But many of the pleasures here are subtle. For wild bass, Mr. Johnson draws on a jerk recipe from his great-aunt in Barbados, balancing the heat with soy, orange and lime zest so the dish soothes rather than inflames. Wok-fried lo mein noodles, accompanying a hearty duck leg, are tinged with a delicate Indian-style cashew broth.
