Le Bernadin New York

Dinner
Visited on January 21, 2020
Rating: Three Michelin Macarons

This report is in English because of the many German reports of past visits here, here, here and here. This time I introduced a friend to the gourmet universum.

I missed the reservation deadline and could only book an early 5:30 pm dinner. No problem because the airplane touched down already around noon and everything else went perfectly (e.g. 10 minutes for immigration).

The problem with early reservations could be that they rush you through the meal. You will read about it later…

The menu choice I left with my friend because I do not decide about other people’s taste and/or wallet. My friend decided for the eight course chefs tasting menu.

We did not go for the wine pairing and decided instead for a bottle of Sancerre Crochet Croix 2018, which was so nice that it almost did not last until the main course.

As a start two étagères with tasty amuses bouches were brought to the table.

The first course of the menu: An absolute luxurious course, which in the prix fixe menu has a supplement. Fantastic quality of the tuna, great combination with the crispiness of the lemon crème fraîche filled black pepper roll underneath. The tuna had very good olive oil and lemon juice on it.

And the luxury continued. The superb quality of the langoustine was far away from the slimy consistency that you get at some other places. A very well prepared dashi broth and the salad with the Enoki mushrooms added umami taste to it.

Crunchy crab cake, tender crabmeat and again a very well balanced sauce made this a very tasty dish.

This time the Dover sole was perfect not overdone as I experienced it with my first visit in Le Bernadin 2018. It goes very well together with the roasted almonds.

My all time favorite in this restaurant because of taste, consistency and combination with all the other components. This time it came with broth and sauce. The sauce was a truffle sauce. The jar with more sauce remained at the table and no drop made it back to the kitchen.

My star on this plate? It was the red wine rosemary sauce. Same procedure as for the salmon: barely any sauce made it back to the kitchen. The lobster was of course of superb quality and perfectly cooked.

Until now the timing of serving the courses was absolutely OK.

And now started was left me leaving the restaurant a little bit displeased. Since we ordered the red wine from the wine pairing for this course our glasses were still half-full after finishing the course.

Now they served the pre-dessert very quickly and it did not fit at all with the remaining Châteauneuf- du-Pape. We could not wait with the dessert because part of it was a sorbet, which would melt away.

I explained my displeasure about this but the waiter had only excuses non-valid for us.

OK, but not overwhelming giving the fact that the restaurant offers such great desserts like the apple or the golden hazelnut sphere.

Since I am not so fan of Meringue I did not like this dessert so much.

Then the next disappointment: My question for the famous egg was answered with the statement that the policy has changed and we had to pay for it extra. No thank you. Last time in October, I got this for lunch and for dinner. Given the faux pas they did with the pre-dessert offering the egg for free would have been a professional treatment of the situation.

The mignardises were all very good.

This dinner had a duration of three hours.

Conclusion:

The quality of the food in Le Bernadin in my opinion absolutely justifies the rating in the Michelin guide. Taste, presentation and combination of the courses is impeccable. For me this time I did not like the desserts too much. Could also be that my mood at this phase of the dinner negatively influenced my perception.

There is no doubt that it is worth returning to Le Bernadin.