Trip report: Convivio, Le Bernardin, Picholine and Lupa

[LulusMom]

I’m a little late in getting in this report, but I had a wonderful time in NYC, and had some great meals. My dinners were at Convivio, Le Bernardin, Picholine and Lupa.

Convivio: Had a nice crisp glass of white wine to start (Le Cigliate, Cantive Parro 2006) – nice touch of apple on a warm autumn day. I ordered some saffron aranchini to eat while I looked at the menu. These were just ok, at best … and I”ve never met aranchini I didn’t absolutely love, so I was worried about the rest of the meal. I went with the tasting menu. My first course was some sort of raw tuna with spicy peppers, scallion and a bit of pistachio. The nuts were a wonderful textural contrast, and this was a great course. Next up was gnocchi (or I think the menu called them civatini?) with tomato and basil. Very nice, well executed, but nothing to rave about (maybe I was too safe in my ordering). Next up was grilled octopus with fried cauliflower and vegetables. The octopus was just wonderful, lots of smoky flavor from the grill. The cauliflower didn’t really add much, and the vegetables seemed overly vinegary to me (which may be an issue on my part; I recently made a Mario Batali recipe for pumpkin and thought it was also overly vinegary). With this I had a Sardinian wine – Tanca Farra Cab. This was fairly barnyardy, but I liked it a lot, and it went really well with the octopus. Next came dessert. I have to admit that I’m a problem customer with desserts; I often find them overly fussy, one too many ingredients, etc. I decided to go with the pumpkin cake with cream cheese icing and caramel sauce and brown butter ice cream. This tasted much less sweet than it read, and was absolutely killer. Had a Knob Creek on the side and wobbled happily back to my room.

Le Bernardin: This was, hands down, the best meal of my trip, and one of the best meals I’ve ever had. Soon after taking my seat they brought me a free glass of champagne, a happy start. Next the amuse bouche: a cauliflower/lobster “shepherds pie” which was really more like a soup and was heavenly. Went with the tasting menu, and my first course was raw hamachi rolled around lettuce, mint and some other fresh herbs with a Vietnamese style vinaigrette. Fantastic. Ordered a glass of very floral Chablis to go with this (Champs Royaux, William Fevre 2007). Couldn’t imagine that things could get better, but my next course was sea urchin risotto with sea urchin foam. Totally different from the other course, but again perfect. My main was pan-fried monkfish grilled with black garlic (I don’t know what black garlic is, but I liked it) and a lemon sauce. Nice Moroccan spicing on this, and I had a glass of Napa Cab (Gustavo Thrace, 2004) that the sommelier recommended to go with it. The only off note on this (and this is being really picky) was the side of Israeli couscous which I thought was a little too limey. It had a sort of house-cleaning scent to it. Time for dessert. For all the perfection of the rest of the meal this menu’s dessert list was definitely too fussy sounding for me, so I ordered coconut sorbet. While waiting for that they brought me salted caramel cream in an eggshell. Holy cow, this was good. The sorbet was perfectly pleasant and was served with nice buttery cookies on the side.

Picholine: First let me thank a fellow Chowhound for generously giving me a $50 coupon to Picholine. So, a big hearty thank you to you, fellow Chowhound. This was my second favorite meal of the trip. I started with a Landmark chardonnay. This was nice, but served much too cold. I ordered a second glass before I’d gotten halfway down so that it wouldn’t be as cold the next time, and mentioned this to the waiter, who made no comment. I was served amuse bouche (I noticed that not everyone got the same things, so maybe it depends on what you order) after ordering: fried cheese square with dipping sauce; a trio of parsnips. The parsnips were nice, but the dipping sauce overwhelmed the cheese for me. The olive bread that they brought was wonderful – very crunchy and salty. My starter was a salt cod “cloud” over fingerling potatoes with trout caviar. This was the most wonderful salt infusion I’ve had in a long, long time. I mentioned how much I loved it when the licked clean bowl was taken away, and was brought a quail egg with roe wrapped in crisp bread – more heaven. My main was pan fried turbot over salsify and mushrooms. This sounds sort of “eh” but was perfect. Just the kind of thing you think a French housewife would make for a perfect dinner. I then got the warm caramel brioche, apple salad and salted caramel ice cream dessert. The brioche was out of this world. Unfortunately I didn’t taste the caramel or the salt in the ice cream (maybe because of all that salt earlier). I was brought a glass of Italian dessert wine to go with this, which was very nice of them, but I wasn’t finished yet. The cheese cart beckoned. I got a nocetto goat cheese from Italy, Flada – a creamy, slightly stinky cow cheese from Switzerland, and a gorgonzola from Italy. All were wonderful.

Lupa: At this point I was glad I didn’t have any more really big dinners planned. My blood was quickly thickening with all the rich food. Got a glass of jammy, sort of earthy red (my note says Saneto, but I’m not really sure). I started with roasted beets w/ pistachio butter and tuna with beans. Roasted beets pretty much your average roasted beets, didn’t get much sense of the pistachio or the butter. The tuna is made there (I assume this means roasted there), and had a nice touch of fennel seed. My preference would have been for a higher bean to tuna ratio, but I realize I’m likely in the minority on this. My main was a housemade pasta with duck ragu, and it was perfect. For dessert a pecorino from Sardinia and a glass of valpolicella. A good hearty, but not overly rich, meal.

[MMRuth]

Thanks so much for your report - still haven't been to Le Bernadin, and need to put it on the list, along with the 'new' Picholine, and, actually, Convivio - keep trying, but can't seem to get a reservation. Lupa is one of my favorite places ....

[LulusMom]

If you're willing to be incredibly square and eat very early, you can get a reservation at Convivio on Open Table. I think my reservation was for 6:45 (or 6:30??) on a Friday, and the place was packed. But yes, yes, go to Le Bernardin!

[rrems]

Maybe on short notice, Convivio is booked up, but I just checked Opentable for next week, and in addition to the early times, they have openings at 8:30 or 8:45 each day. And if you go at 9:00 or later, you get 1000 opentable points.

[JoanN]

What a beautifully written and wonderfully detailed report. I’ve never been to Le Bernardin and clearly must correct that omission. Thanks for letting us eat vicariously.

[LulusMom]

Definitely put Le Bernardin on your list for special occasion meals - it was pretty pricey, but I thought worth it.