Le Bernardin Review

Intro
Le Bernardin- Recommended
51st St, New York 10014
Btwn 6^th Ave and 7^th Ave
Phone: 212-741-4695

The fiancée took me out to Le Bernardin for my birthday – completing my journey of old school NY Times 4 star restaurants (Daniel, Jean Georges, Bouley being the others). Usually, I would have had a ridiculous amount of anticipation for this restaurant, but I’ve been so swamped at work that I didn’t have much time to think about it. Still, even without the high expectations for the meal, the restaurant was a bit of a disappointment. I still had a great time and was blown away by many a dish, but as you'll read later something drags the overall review down. Overall, I give the restaurant an 87/100.

My Menu
Chef’s Tasting Menu

1) Amuse – New England Clam Chowder (not on menu) **
2) Fluke *
White Soy-Yuzu Marinated Fluke; Seaweed Spiced “Rice Crispies”
3) Calamari ***
Sautéed Calamari Filled with Sweet Prawns and Wood Ear Mushroom, Calamari Consomme
4) Spiny Lobster ***
Warm Lobster Carpaccio; Young Ginger-Matsutake Mushroom Salad; Vanilla-Citrus Oil
5) Wild Salmon *
Barely Cooked Wild Alaskan Salmon; Daikon and Enoki Salad; Baby Leek-Wasabi Sauce
6) Dover Sole **
Dover Sole; Shiso-Matsutake Salad; Lemon-Miso Broth
7) Escolar ***
White Tuna Poached in Extra Virgin Olive Oil; Sea Beans and Potato Crisps; Light Red Wine Bearnaise
8) Cheeses – Avoid!!!
9) Greengage Plum *
Caramelized Greengage Plums, Rhubarb Compote, Blood Orange Cream, Creme Fraiche Sorbet
10) Warm Chocolate – Avoid!!!
Warm Amedi Chuao chocolate, Malted Rum Milk Chocolate Ice Cream
11) (not on menu) Mango Cake **
12) (not on menu) Chocolate Pot De Creme **

I’m gonna rock out a new rating system alla Porthos, so this is my scale

* Good
** Great
*** What the F – in a good way

Dish Comments
1) A nice play on New England clam chowder. Great broth, tender lobster, and perfectly cooked potatoes. Great way to start the meal.
2) Nice delicate preparation of the fluke. The fish had great texture and was slightly sweet – nice contrast with the bright yuzu. This dish is a bit of a letdown, but I think any raw fish preparation will always make me compare it to Sushi Yasuda…nothing outside of Japan will top that in my opine.
3) My first what the f moment of the night that said you are at Le Bernardin. The body of the calamari was incredibly tender, sweet and filled with even sweeter prawns that had a shredded texture. The tentacles were lightly battered and fried to perfection - the best fried calamari I've had.
4) Don’t know how, but this dish was much better than the calamari. The best lobster dish I’ve ever had. Very sweet lobster meat that had the perfect texture. The vanilla-citrus oil, ginger, and mushrooms made the meat seem even sweeter – a phenomenal combination. Raw mushrooms tasted great combined with everything else and I never thought I'd be so happy eating raw mushrooms at a crazy expensive place.
5) Salmon that was only warmed through on one side and served with raw garlic chives and raw snow pea shoots – very Chinese ingredients. Good stuff, but a bit of a letdown after the previous homerun. Texture was great and the flavor was nice. The raw chives and snow pea shoots had a slightly spicy, sweet thing going on.
6) Perfectly cooked Dover Sole with a super intense miso and mushroom broth. Great flavors and texture.
7) This was a complete shock to me. Again, another what the f moment as I was contemplating why everything isn’t poached in olive oil. Taking a nice rich piece of tuna and making it even richer by poaching it in olive oil was brilliant. Combine that with the light and flavorful red wine béarnaise (first for me) and probably the best potato chip I’ve ever had…this may have been the winner of the night.
8) Cheeses were pretty disappointing. The cheeses were a goat, some tuscan cheese, cheddar, and a blue. Goat and the tuscan cheese were average and not worth describing. The cheddar was great and the blue was ok. Surprising that the cheese were overall average for a place like this.
9) Seared plum from New Zealand that supposedly is only available 1 month out of the entire year (I guess kinda like the Macanaw peaches for you Seinfeld heads). The plum by itself is slightly sweet and has a great texture, but it’s pretty tasty combined with the great blood orange cream and the amazing crème fraiche sorbet.
10) This dish totally brought me back down to Earth. Chocolate soufflé was way to dense and heavy and it didn’t even soufflé really. The tops were cracked and the soufflé was totally deflated. Flavors were OK, but this was just a shock that a restaurant this caliber would serve a deflated soufflé. A what the f in a bad way.
11) For my birthday cake, they made an amazing mango cake that was insanely light and fluffy – kinda like a Chinese cake. The cream inside the cake exploded with fruit flavor and the sorbet on top added a nice tartness – I believe it was passion fruit. A big comeback after the bad chocolate souffle.
12) Final dish was the chocolate pot de crème in the egg shell. Good to finish with a homerun. The fluffed up cream on top was so airy and light. The chocolate underneath was perfect and the slight topping of maple syrup was such a pleasant surprise.

Overall Restaurant Experience (87/100)

• Food 9.0/10 – They truly are masters here and some of the dishes here I don’t think you can get anywhere else in the US. The food is beautifully presented and smells phenomenal. Almost every single dish has sauce that is poured by the server...kinda funny. Scores would have been higher were it not for the bad cheese and dessert plates.
  
• Service 7.5/10 – Ok, so for a 4 star NY Times restaurant that is 400+, the service here is bad…at least in my opine. When we sat, it took 10 minutes before anyone gave us a menu – and we had to flag someone down to get it. Then, the sommelier took another 15 minutes to show up to our table and was very difficult to get a hold of all night (there were 3-4 sommeliers there too). These things are unacceptable at a place like this. When I spend this much money, I expect to be treated like the other 4 star restaurants in the city (e.g. Daniel and Jean Georges). Another nitpicky thing – they didn’t clean the crumbs on the table that frequently. Only 2x during the 12 courses…don’t mean to be picky, but again at Daniel and other places they’ll do that after every course. Also, the fiancée asked the reservationists to do a cake for my birthday. They didn’t until she asked them towards the end of the bill – they forgot. The redeeming factor is the food does come out at a good pace and our waiter was extremely nice. He seemed to really know his food and was proud to describe the dishes and ask how the food was. Also, the sommelier we had was a true master. The wines that he recommended were phenomenal and I don’t think I’ve ever had a better wine pairing with food…ever.
• Atmosphere 7.5/10 – Very stuffy place packed with the super rich. Place had the Japanese look with the blond wood with huge paintings on the wall. Crowds consisted of families, older couples, and large groups that get very loud. Tables were way too close to each other and we could overhear everyone’s conversation. Funny one – couple with their 14 year old son there and he was asking why they don’t get regular water instead of bottled water. Rich lady said because that would ruin the meal, you don’t want to be like one of those people. Ha! Definitely not my type of crowd or place. The fiancee booked the restaurant 1 month in advance. Got there at 7pm on Thursday and was seated promptly.
• Price 7.0/10 – Ok. For the food the price I think is completely worth it. Again, you’re getting the quality of food that you can’t get at most other restaurants. However, the service completely dragged things down and I 100% do not think it’s worth the price overall. About $600 for 2 including 8+ glasses of wine.

Closing Comments
Amazing food, but the overall experience was not of a 4 star restaurant. Out of all the restaurants I’ve been to in NY only Daniel and Jean Georges are deserving of the 4 star distinction. Bouley is 0 stars in my opinion. Le Bernardin would be a 3 star for me. That said, I would definitely come back for the 4 course $107 tasting menu – the same items on the chef’s tasting was available on the 4 course menu. When you spend less money, you go with less expectations, so the service would not bother me as much next time.