Luthun

Luthun is a restaurant that draws upon Chef Nahid Ahmed’s inspirations from traveling around the world and embracing his Indian Bengali heritage. He has spent time working in many kitchens around the world, and this is his restaurant. The reason I picked this restaurant was due to many reviewers saying the food is very good, arguably much better than some Michelin starred restaurants in the city. Also, making reservations was quite easy and not pretentiously bothersome. We made a reservation for 6:30 PM on a Friday night, and the meal lasted roughly 2.5 hours.

Ambiance & Service

The ambiance felt like an East Village restaurant. The restaurant itself is small, and the air conditioners are cranking out the air in such a small place. The flow of the restaurant will not be great, but that’s part of the charm of the restaurant. Inside, there’s a counter top and a dining area with tables. We were seated in a table, and it felt fine. The noise level is a bit loud because of the acoustics, but you can have a conversations with your party.

The maitre’d and most of the service was very good. You’re not going to get pristine plate cleanup and service, but it’s good enough. The one part that was a bit off was the pairing service. Our sommelier seemed to be off unison with the rest of the staff. Some of our pairings came after our food, and it seemed he was a little frantic. Regardless, most of this was tolerable because overall the hospitality was excellent.

Food

The tasting menu was $180 per person, with three possible beverage pairings: $135 for classic, $215 for reserve, and $95 for zero proof. We opted for the classic and zero proof.

As a starter, they gave a Mata Vermouth Blanco Reserva which is an artisanal Spanish vermouth coming from Bierzo, Spain. It was very smooth and herbal. It had notes of star anise, mint, and thyme in it.

The Karl Haidle “Naturwein” came from Sämling 2530 (Kerner) grapes, Wurttemberg, Germany 2021. This was a biodynamic, skin-contact white wine with vibrant citrus notes and waxy minerality. This has notes of white flowers and herbal notes.

The United Ferments Wen Shan Bao Zhong was for the next 2 courses. This was an oxidized oolong tea with notes of orchid, honeysuckle, and fresh marzipan. It was very delicious to drink.

The first course is Memories, which includes fushka and a chilled vegetable tea. The fushka is a Bengali street food made of crispy hollow, fried dough. It’s stuffed with poblano, English peas, pistachio, and a pipette of Mandarin aguachile. They ask that you squeeze the pipette right before eating it all in one bite. This was amazingly good. The chilled vegetable tea had different leafy aromatics in it, and it tasted like fermented juices.

The Eudes Bianco di Monte comes from Carricante grapes, Etna, Italy. This organic Italian white was produced on the volcanic slopes, and it has a distinct mineral-driven profile and freshness. I thought this one was decent.

The second course is Oceania, which comes with toro, fat bastard oyster, hiramasa (Amberjack), and allium ponzu. Allium ponzu is a sauce that combines citrus ponzu with a lot of onion flavors. This was all very good and refreshing.

The Graft Cider Birds of Paradise Yuzu, Lime, Ginger beer was a fermented hard cider that has this zesty, ginger, somewhat velvety texture to it. I thought it’d be closer to a pilsner, but it definitely tasted heavier.

I don’t recall what this was, but he mentioned there was some burnt pineapple.

On their zero proof menu, there was an item called “432 E. 13th” which comes with charred pineapple, all spice, with tonic.

Regardless, I found this drink to just be OK. The flavors are all very subtle as if they are watered down.

The third course was the Dat Viet, which was Vietnamese flavored taco with tempura swordfish belly, wiri wiri salsa, and Nuroc Cham caramel. My first thought biting into this was a Vietnamese spring roll. It has very similar flavors, but what was nice was that the swordfish meat was dense and plentiful. The tortilla was actually pretty good, and the wiri wiri salsa wasn’t too spicy. With the Nuroc Cham caramel, you get this nice savory heat and smoky flavor.

The Hisa Joannes Protner comes from Riesling grapes, Stajerska, Slovenia 2020. This riesling is unlike German rieslings because it was less sweet and had very ripe citrus and stone fruit flavors with a bit of chamomile notes to it.

This housemade non-alcoholic was not memorable. I vaguely remember this tasting like a watered down lemon.

The fourth course was the Italia, which was poularde tortellini, pomodoro butter, goat cheese caramel, and finger lime. The tortellini skin was very bouncy, perfectly thick, and delicious. The pomodoro butter had some delicious flavors to it because of the tomato and onion reduction. The goat cheese caramel was surprisingly not gamy at all, and everything was very delectable.

The Domaine Tatsis comes from Negoska grapes, rose barrel aged, Macedonia, Greece 2016. This rose was interesting because it appears like it’s unfiltered, and it is deeper in thickness to it. It has some aromas of red berries, rose petals, and zest to it.

The United Ferments Soba has immense buckwheat and grain flavors with some notes of pear and persimmon. It was very good.

The fifth course was the Light of the South, which was a laksa, cod cheek, pop corn cream, and kaffir lime snow. The cod cheek was absolutely divine. The whole course was interesting because there’s some freeze dried snow on top, but it really adds density and flavors to the whole course. The broth reminded me of Southeast Asian soup with coconut and tamarind. Everything was cooked beautifully with umami.

The Val des Rios Blanc comes from a variety of grapes, Rhone Valley, France 2022. The grapes are a mix of roussanne, grenache blanc, and viognier. This has a creamy palate with mineral, citrus, and floral notes. In my notes, I wrote down that this one was one of the more favorable wines that I had this evening.

This one was pretty good, but I don’t remember what was in it. I remember it was bubbly, and it had subtle citrus flavors in it. The menu has an item called “Scarlet Yuzu” which has scarlet glow, yuzu, and club soda, but I am not entirely sure.

The sixth course was Land of the Rising Sun, which came with Ora King Salmon, chicken soy, maitake emulsion, and caramelized ramps. The king salmon was so tasty and buttery. It was meticulously prepared, so it came out very tender. The chicken soy sauce was quite interesting because it added this needed umami to complement the rich, fatty tastes of the salmon. This course is the epitome of why people rave about this restaurant. The entire dish was very thoughtful in harmony and preparation, and it really showed.

The P.S. Garcia Bravado comes from a variety of grapes, Valle del Itata, Chile 2018. The grapes are a mix of syrah, carignan, petit verdot, mourvedre, and grenache. That has some rich dark fruit flavors and spice, but I did not find this to be super appealing for some reason. I felt the notes were kind of all over, but maybe I need to get used to drinking more blended Chilean red wines.

The United Ferments Lapsang Souchoung was a very smokey and grainy flavored drink. This probably would not be favorable for anyone that dislikes peaty flavors, but for me, I loved it.

The seventh course was the Mexicana, which was BBQ monkfish, manchamanteles mole, green blueberry salsa, and foie gras honey. I have to say that the appearance of this was very deceptive to how it tasted. On the side, they gave us some freshly made tortillas to wrap the monkfish and sauces together. As a fish taco, this was surprisingly very good. On the left, the long thing seemed to be eggplant encrusted in corn meal, but I’m not entirely sure. Regardless, I thought this was a very inspirational and inventive entree course. The monkfish was very meaty and delicious.

The TR Édes comes from Tokaj, Hungary. I had a sip, and all I thought was this was a slightly less-sweet dessert wine.

This one had some citrus flavors to it, and didn’t have a lot of red fruit flavors.

The dessert course was called Sweet Treat, which came with semolina kesari, passion fruit leche, and frozen meringue. This reminded me of a pudding with a blend of flavors from many cultures. The passion fruit provided that needed tartness to make the flavors dynamic and wonderful to taste.

Overall Impression

Luthun definitely lives up to the hype that the internet raves about. The food was absolutely sublime in both preparation and taste. I have heard the Chef could care less about the Michelin Star, but comparably this restaurant serves better food than many Michelin Star restaurants. You can tell there are meticulous ingredients and preparation in all the courses. The one thing that was not as good was the beverage pairing. Some of the selections were OK, but the non-alcoholic just didn’t work for us. Perhaps this can be something they could improve, but regardless, Luthun exemplifies what I consider great food.

Yelp & Google Jabs

A very underwhelming tasting dinner and I would not recommend this to anyone. We came here for date night and found the dishes to be lacking in flavor…with either too much starch or too many bubbles

This Yelper wrote this back in 2023, so fast forward 3 years, and I can say the food definitely has flavor. If you feel it lacks flavor, then your palette is covered in cigarettes.

However, I wanted to highlight that the rating is not representative of the food, but representative of the chef and his abysmal behavior

There are some older posts expressing this behavior, but I personally didn’t see it when I was there.

Revisions

1. Jun 26, 2026 - Initial revision.