Le Bernardin is a three Michelin Star restaurant in New York City that primarily deals with seafood. The head chef is Eric Ripert, who is very well known in the higher end spectrum of the culinary world. We actually saw him on the floor with a mask on talking to some of the wait staff. This particular occasion was for a birthday celebration. Our reservation was at 5 PM, and it had to be reserved a month in advance. The spinning doors don’t actually open till 5 PM sharp, so there wasn’t too much of a benefit to arrive before.
There were different tasting menus in the dining room: a 4 course, a vegetarian, and the Chef’s tasting. In the 4 course, you can pick each of your courses from several options. However if you did the Chef’s tasting, the whole table must participate. Of course, we went for the Chef’s tasting because who knows when we would come back again!
Ambiance
When we entered as the first guests, you could hear trendy elevator-ish music play over the speakers. The lighting of the dining room is not as bright especially since they had the window shades down. The wait staff for the most part were dressed in all black, and a couple had medallions around their neck. Once the tables began filling, the music was drowned by the loudness of diners talking around.
The prior day, NYC allowed indoor dining to resume pre-covid capacity. Despite this, there was still suffiicent space between tables. The wait staff did wear masks, and the other tables had a good separation such that I never felt my privacy was invaded.
Service was impeccable. Not once did I need to ask for a refill of my water, and the staff did a good job gauging when we would’ve liked more bread or when we’re ready for the course. The timing was simply excellent.
Food
The Summer Wind (left) was Avua Cachaça, pineapple, coconut rhum, rothman and winter orchard cherry, and lime. This was definitely much more sweet than my cocktail, so my partner definitely enjoyed it.
The MLC (right) was vida mezcal joven, lime, makrut lime leaf agave, and makrut scented salt. This was basically similar to a smokey lime margarita. It reminded me a lot of limeade too with the right amount of sweetness to smoke to it.
The amuse bouche consisted of salmon tartare, chawanmushi, and cucumber with lobster. Everything tasted super fresh and was seasoned perfectly. The chawanmushi did not come out hot, but the texture and flavor were pretty on point. The cucumber shot with lobster was pretty good. Surprisingly, they gave you large chunks of lobster.
The bread was served throughout the night, and I am sure you also didn’t have to wait for the to come by to ask for more. Here we have a baguette and olive bread with the butter in view. The baguette had the perfect crisp, and the olive bread was very delicious as it was crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. The butter had a very distinct flavor that made it deliciously delightful. It was also very soft and creamy, which made it an excellent spread. Throughout the night, they were very generous with refilling the butter.
And here we have another multigrain bread and a brioche. The brioche was very soft and was slightly sweet. The multigrain bread had a crispy exterior similar to the baguette above.
The tuna course had layers of thinly pounded yellow fin tuna, with foie gras and and a toasted baguette underneath. It was topped with chives and extra virgin olive oil. The tuna was very thin and tasted fresh. Coupled with the foie gras and baguette, it was a complementary medley of flavors together. The foie gras wasn’t particularly strong, but it definitely gave it a nice flavor.
The king fish caviar came with 3 slices of king fish (king mackerel) “sashimi”, topped with osetra caviar and light marinière sauce. They gave you 2 slices of bread to put the fish on. The fish itself was so soft and buttery but still held its form when picked up. The caviar when it pops was not salty at all and gave it a nice umami. The light sauce was just the perfect tertiary layer to this. I’ve always enjoyed it with mussels, so it’s no surprise that this would be good here. It’s typically a butter white wine reduction sauce with different seasonings (garlic, shallots, etc) depending on the chef.
Half way through I ordered a glass of Chablis which was fantastic and highly recommended. It had the right crispy notes to add to the rest of my meal.
The langoustine was served with some sort of tomato based red sauce and leek. The menu says charred scallions and sea urchin sauce, but I don’t remember any of those flavors at all. The langoustine was very tender and had plenty of taste in it. Despite the sauce being good, I felt it was a little generic.
The dover sole was sauteed and served with toasted almonds, wild mushroom, and soy-lime emulsion. The sole had a subtle crisp to it as if it was pan fried in a light batter. It was very fresh, and coupled with the soy lime emulsion, it was fantastic. The emulsion by itself was definitely salty with those distinct soy sauce and lime tints. The dover’s dredge definitely did a great job soaking up those flavors and giving it a nice result. The mushrooms were tender, but as you probably already know I am not a fan of them in general.
Due to lobster allergy, my partner was served salmon which was farm raised salmon in a white garlic, peas, and asparagus sauce. This was actually really good. The salmon tasted like it was sous vide, so it was super tender and extremely fluffy. I was not expecting that at all. The sauce was pretty unique and was a very flavorful. The white garlic not only has that subtle garlic flavors we’d come to expect, but it also had some sweetness too.
The lobster was served poached with stuffed baby squash blossom and guajillo-dry sherry “mole” sauce. The lobster was cooked perfectly. Each bite was just pure heaven of softness and lobster flavor. The squashed blossom was very interesting. When you open it, it was densely stuffed with lobster pieces. The one criticism I have for this is I was not a huge fan of their “mole” sauce. The first thought that came to me was that it reminded me strongly of a tomato based bouillabaisse sauce which was not what I was expecting. I think they should’ve opted for a different base in this considering how this was to be one of the highlights of the night.
The halibut was steamed and served with maiteke mushroom in a bone marrow red wine bordelaise sauce. The fish was cooked wonderfully. It was tender, chunky, and just soft and pleasant to the taste. My partner wasn’t too much of a fan of the red wine borderlaise as a sauce with a white fish, but I actually enjoyed it! Then again, I’m the kind of person that will drink white wine with red meats. The sauce itself was fatty, due to the bone marrow, but had a nice rounding semi-sweet note on top of the fish.
The rhubarb was the dessert “palette cleansing” course and was served with blackberry-rhubarb compote, yogurt sorbet, and topped with a hibiscus tuile. Just like most cold rhubarb desserts, this was tart but definitely tasted great with the yogurt sorbet. The hibiscus tuile added a nice crunch to it.
The tropical fruit was an exotic fruit “pavlova” served with coconut sorbet and lemongrass kaffir lime sauce. The outside shell was actually pretty hard like a meringue, but once you break it, there’s a mixture of coconut sorbet and other fruits in it. Just like the rhubarb dessert, it’s pleasant that this was not a “chocolate” type dessert.
The chocolate cake was served as a birthday slice. I don’t remember all the ingredients, but basically the innards were alternating layers of a mousse like consistency and chocolate cake. The cake itself was perfectly balanced in terms of sweetness. The white drops were similar to wet marshmallow icing consistency. There wasn’t anything particularly astounding about this, but it was very good especially for being complimentary.
At the end, they gave you 4 small bites before bringing the check.
The chocolate coffee with pocket liqueur (top left) tasted exactly what you would expect. It’s a chocolate candy with oozing coffee sweetness inside of it.
The lemon blueberry cake bread (top right) was a soft and very flavored lemon blueberry cake bread.
The brown butter macaron (bottom right) was very rich for such a small bite. The brown butter was overly dominant, so it wasn’t quite for me. I’m sure others would appreciate it.
The raspberry gummy (bottom left) was soft, easily chewable, and tart with very strong rasbperry notes.
Final Verdict
I am well cared for by my partner especially for having this incurable infrequent desire for posh cuisines. Of all the 2 star and beyond Michelin restaurants we have been to, this one ranks as one of our favorite especially with the seafood theme. I thought we would be hungry at the end, but rest assured, we were very satisfied. There were a few dishes that were just OK, but the whole package was nothing short of sublime.
Yelp Jabs
I would say the only downside was that I wish there was a little variety. I know the chef specializes in fish/seafood, but by the end of the meal we had enough fish dishes and wish we knew we could request a meat dish or pasta dish.
Does this sound like an oxymoron? The Elitist says they knew to expect fish/seafood, but they wished there was a meat or pasta dish. That’s like saying you wish there was steak at a vegetarian restaurant.
Our servers were nice but they could have checked how we were enjoying our meal rather than waiting until the end.
So this Yelper wanted the servers to check how things were after each and every course. As a guest, I would be extremely annoyed considering how many courses there are. The smarter thing to do could have been either flagging down a waiter adhoc to give them the feedback or wait for the next course and give them that feedback then. I figured it’s nearly impossible for each and every dish to compliment my palette, so it would take a lot for me to complain to the wait staff.