A cylindrical pike dumpling achieves sensations of airy lightness and buoyant texture to ‘how’d they do that’ magic trick effect. The quenelle de brochet au gratin ($32) is essential to Lyon, a staffer says. Created with chefs Guillaume Ginther and Jean François Bruel, both of whom previously worked at Daniel, the titular technique appears somewhat sparingly, but brilliantly. Le Gratin’s French menu is influenced more specifically by Lyon, Boulud’s hometown.
“Right now.” This, after not-so-secretly wondering if my order design was overly ambitious. “I would have all of that again,” my own, very expected someone said the other night, right after I’d ordered dessert. Plenty of restaurants get by on that alone, and for years, but Le Gratin’s food is also exceptional. Le Gratin, even while borrowing considerable style from that relatively recently vacated venue, from with a famed chef who could be simply cutting cookies by now, has the hard-to-come-by essence of being a place. But the unifying hallmark here is character. This quality comes on stronger a little later in the evening, though the operation is conceivably just as suitable for more festive-than-most business dinners or after-work drink rituals, and, given its location, you’re liable to spy the occasional tourist. This is where you’d visit in the midst of a secret, shared with someone unexpected, at what seems like an inopportune time that turns out to be the perfect moment, amplified by nice cocktails like the au soleil (gin, lemon, Grand Marnier, mint, Angostura) and the le début de la faim (rye, Bonal, Campari). Slightly fogged mirrors, dainty floral fixtures in handsome dark finishes, more blooms splashed across gleaming tiles that stop short of recalling grandmom’s bathroom and the high-set illuminated Roman numeral clock that divides the space between the front and the back are all familiar from before. Crescent leather booths up front in view of the blushing bar that fit four and feel luxuriously roomy for two, banquettes, and untethered tables all awash in mild amber hues are quick to fill. It feels more like a suite that can accommodate the shy side of 100. Le Gratin’s sidewalk-level room at The Beekman hotel was previously occupied by Augustine.
It’s one of those returns to normalcy that people keep wishstablishing: that an excellent restaurant can open without ever severing a single ribbon must mean that New York is back, baby. Then, its mere existence launched a smattering of ‘the way we whatever whenever’ internet word casseroles, and the dining public responded by snapping up La Pavillon’s $125 (now $135) three-course tasting reservations.īoulud’s Le Gratin had a more routine introduction to its Financial District address last month. The spendy spot’s fanfare was kind of quaint. It was among the hospitality industry’s splashiest early post-vaccine pandemic premieres-it landed a lovely location in a flashy new midtown skyscraper and elected officials attended a ribbon cutting ceremony for the occasion like it was some kind of midwestern supermarket, rather than the latest on a long list of a celebrity restaurateur’s Manhattan-and worldwide-ventures. Chef Daniel Boulud’s last NYC restaurant opening, Le Pavillon in May of 2021, seemed like a huge deal at the time.
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