Oct. 17 (Bloomberg) -- BLT Market in the Ritz-Carlton offers everything the corner of Sixth Avenue and Central Park South needs: a relaxed and generous restaurant, practically parkside, that softens a somewhat daunting hotel.

Only an idealist would find any reason to complain, but I guess that's me.

By now I suppose everyone knows that ``BLT'' doesn't stand for a sandwich. It's the corporate prefix for chef Laurent Tourondel's chain of brilliantly conceived semiformal restaurants, now including a herd of BLT Steaks and a passel of other Bistro Laurent Tourondels.

I don't suppose any other chef-entrepreneur has so successfully captured what the money masses desire these days: clever (if overwrought) food combined with impeccable (if overdesigned) ambience.

Come as you are. Don't expect bistrolike bargains.

BLT Market has a few flaws, but the nastiest of them will soon ebb: When you're dining on a warm day, you can't help but notice the tang of the carriage horses that line the park.

``Smells like a stable,'' said one 10-year-old boy I brought to lunch -- and we were seated indoors.

Somewhat disappointing to the idealist in me is the casualness of the food. I miss the old Laurent Tourondel, haute chef. For a few years he ran Cello, a stunning Manhattan seafood restaurant that, the way I heard it, lost money with every meal.

Big Portions

The BLTs are certainly upscale, but in a different way. There's no impeccably sourced sliver of halibut atop a sauce whisked for half a day. These are chain restaurants -- warm, noisy and even a little slapdash. Portions are huge. BLT Market's very good chicken stuffed with bread crumbs and herbes de Provence could feed three. Recipes are complicated. The raw yellowtail with cilantro-avocado puree would have been fine without the apple vinaigrette and the diced pickles.

Tourondel doesn't mind having a little fun. Meals at BLT Market begin with a complimentary hors d'oeuvre, Germanic pigs- in-a-blanket topped with sauerkraut. BLT Bar Mitzvah this is not.

The menu is essentially elevated bistro staples -- pastas (consistently good, particularly the red-sauce rigatoni, although the truffled rock shrimp risotto would be better without the rock shrimp) and big chunks of beef (the steak au poivre is better and less peppery than the Kobe skirt steak). Both come with soft, savory potatoes roasted in duck fat and laden with onions -- the kind of food you might expect from a French country grandmother taught to cook by her French country grandmother.

Juicy, Sweet

A special one day was a juicy, beautifully cross-hatched chicken paillard so huge I wondered if the breast meat came from a bird as large as a horse. (Sorry, but horses were never far from my mind.)

The food has considerable sweetness, too, another obvious appeal to wide-ranging tastes. Caramelized walnuts, port reductions and honey-mustard dressings appear. The honey- marinated black cod -- sweeter than Nobu's famous miso-marinated black cod -- came with a squash puree so sugary it could have done service as a pie filling. The cod is too good to skip, but nibble at it with three or four friends.

The richness of the food might make you woozy. One friend remarked, ``Is one of the investors the National Dairy Council?'' Desserts follow form: They're complicated and sweet, but they're hard to resist. Best are the apple cake and the pear tarte Tatin, both meltingly soft and wonderfully evocative -- more old-fashioned French fare. The chestnut nougat sundae is a tower of pleasure.

Wine List

The wine list is better than it has to be, with leftovers from the days when the Ritz-Carlton's restaurant was the more formal Atelier. Not to be missed is the '06 Lamoreaux Landing Gewurztraminer ($43) from New York's Finger Lakes. Gewurztraminer is the best grape grown in that region, regardless of what riesling devotees claim.

The restaurant is casual in the fanciest possible way. The plain tables and chairs feel expensive. The designer touches are delightfully incompatible -- Edison bulbs in snazzy modern fixtures; oversize and overly bold paintings of fruits and veggies; old farm implements; arrangements of the perfect country blossom, sunflowers.

The design, like everything else, should appeal to the broadest possible audience, although I don't want to give the impression that only the unwashed masses are showing up. One night Alan Greenspan was sitting a couple of tables away.

The Bloomberg Questions

Cost? Prices range from $12 for seasonal field greens to $43 for lamb loin with all this: fava beans and fava bean-mint puree; raw and caramelized artichokes; potato gnocchi; lamb- olive jus.

Sound level? Lean-over-your-table loud, even when buses aren't idling on Sixth Avenue waiting for the light to change.

Date place? Not unless Neil Diamond background music turns you on.

Inside tip? A good, if unlikely, spot to splurge on wine. The list of Atelier leftovers includes a 1978 DRC Richebourg for $2,300 and a 1980 DRC La Tache for $2,400.

Special feature? The garlic bread is a tour de force, the best ever: heavy, house-made baguette slathered with a mild but pervasive garlic-parsley butter.

Private room? No.

Lunch? Yes, plus breakfast and weekend brunch.

Will I be back? When cold air arrives, terrace dining ceases and the door to the outside is closed tight.

BLT Market is at 1430 Sixth Ave., at Central Park South. Information: +1-212-521-6125 or http://www.bltmarket.com.

(Alan Richman is a restaurant critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer of this story: Alan Richman at thecritic@optonline.net.

Last Updated: October 17, 2007 00:01 EDT