Velvet Hauteur at Angie Mar’s Le B.

Still, it wouldn’t be a Mar joint if the restaurant didn’t have some essential element of hauteur; Le B. may be her bid for a more downtown vibe, but that doesn’t mean that things skew to the proletarian. Tables are set with silver. A mahogany cheese cart rolls around the room, and the formidably curated wine list reads like a French vocabulary lesson. Nearly every dish incorporates luxury ingredients, though they generally show up as supporting players: foie-gras drippings in a creamy onion dip, or an earthy whiff of white truffle in a garlic-cream soup. At times, this can feel a bit like opulence theatre, rather than actual opulence—a black-truffle-flecked gelée, draped over a devilled egg en chemise, tasted like nothing much at all, least of all truffles—but when it works, my God, it works. A heavenly first course identified as Liver & Onions involved braised lentilles du Puy, toothsome and outrageously savory, topped with a sliver of nearly melting foie gras, which gracefully balanced the intensity of the brothy legumes with its slippery, ferric sweetness. A server explained that the dish is Mar’s tribute to her father’s favorite meal during his time serving in the U.S. Navy, but I can’t imagine that mess-hall eating rose quite to this level.