Danube - View this location on map David Bouley does not do things in a small way. Using fin-de-siecle Vienna as a culinary source, and a repository of romantic images, he has created Danube, the most enchanting restaurant New York has seen in decades. The Vienna of Schnitzler, Freud and Musil shimmers with a seductive light, captured brilliantly in Danube's decor. This is an opium dream of lush fabrics, decadent colors and lustrous glazed surfaces, dominated by the large, unabashedly excessive Klimts on the walls. If ever a restaurant was made for a four-hour meal, Danube is it. After anchoring the menu with a handful of classics, he has conjured up his own private Austria or, in some cases, taken leave of the country altogether. More typically, Mr. Bouley has lightened, modernized and personalized traditional dishes, or invented new ones using traditional ingredients, often with stunning results. There are two thoroughly traditional desserts, both flawless: a Czech palacsintak, or crepe, and a Salzburger nockerl, a mound-shaped souffle; dusted in confectioners' sugar and served with raspberries. NYT review 30 Hudson St., New York, New York Restaurant

---