Izakaya En Franais

At Maison Yaki, the skewers are Japanese, the sauces are French, and the portions are tiny.

- Adam Platt

AFTER MANAGING, by some miracle, to manufacture a first critical success, talented young chefs like Greg Baxtrom, whose hit restaurant Olmsted is still drawing crowds out in Prospect Heights, tend to be faced with a variety of perilous follow-up options. There’s the prudent, non-expansionist “tend your garden” option (à la Gabrielle Hamilton at Prune), which will keep your regulars in the neighborhood happy but may not result in a financial windfall anytime soon. There’s the fast-casual scheme (upon which many a dream of culinary fortune has been shipwrecked) and the franchise-dealin-Vegas (or Manhattan) option (ditto). There’s the shoot-for-the-stars “World’s 50 Best Restaurants” alternative (also risky), or the more deliberate neighborhood-empire-building strategy pioneered by various chefs and restaurateurs (David Chang, Danny Meyer, Jody Williams and Rita Sodi) over the years in their different corners of the city.