Essential by Christophe (*, NYC)

Mostly loved my visit to Essential this week. Sat at the bar and chose the tasting menu (which wasn’t originally offered to me—i had to ask for it specifically, which I thought was weird but who knows). Everything was good—flavorful, well-made, and perhaps not breaking any ground in terms of creativity, but worth the time and money spent on it. I’ll confess I didn’t really love the turbot course, perhaps because it had a similar flavor profile to the better scallop course immediately preceding it. My favorite dish of the night was the langoustine, with red kuri pre-dessert a runner up.

Not sure I have much else to say. Good, enjoyable night.

I’m probably not going to race to go back, but I didn’t leave disappointed either.

One thing I might note for future diners is that it’s a very heavy meal, and I tonight the portion sizes of the wagyu and turbot were larger than at comparably priced tasting menus in the city. I left very very full

Dishes:

1.) Mushroom cappuccino

2.) madai sashimi

3.) langoustine in curry

4.) scallop with caviar

5.)Wagyu

6.) red kuri

7.) vacherin