On the upper stretches of Manhattan Bonnefont Restaurant is nestled beneath The Cloisters Museum
Bonnefont Cafe
The last time I ate chef Nicole O’Brien’s cooking was on the northern boundary of Manhattan at her restaurant The Pandering Pig, with just 28 seats, a miniscule kitchen and a small menu (now closed). Now, six years later, she is in far more impressive quarters, the Bonnefont fieldstone cottage built in the 1930’s for John D. Rockefeller and designed by the Olmsted Brothers.
The bar and lounge leads too a spacious dining room and garden patio beyond.
Bonnefont
The structure is set within the landscaped greenery of Fort Tryon Park and the Cloisters Museum that looks out upon the broad expanse of the Hudson River. The restaurant’s name is taken from the exquisite Bonnefont Cloister and herb garden at magnificent The Cloisters up the hill. The structure features a cobblestone exterior, granite archways, and a slate roof held up by the oak trusses of the interior’s 14-foot ceilings––all landmarked, allowing O’Brien only to alter the dining room, which she has done with applaudable restraint. Tables are widely set apart, there is little artwork and there is a lovely shaded garden area where you may dine for the time being. The tables themselves have flowers and a lighted crystal globe. Only the meeting room-like black chairs seem out of place.
Nicole O’Brien was raised in Marin County, California, and brings a west coast style to French classic dishes.
Bonnefont Restaurant
I was luckily there for “Vinyl Wednesday” when the bartender, Logan Burns, plays his own stack of 1960s wax, which was the first restaurant playlist I’ve enjoyed in twenty years.
O’Brien, who grew up in Marin County, has always called her cooking “FreNoCal,” which sounds like a soft drink but is an amalgam of “French Northern California.” She had once pursued a successful career in the arts and film, then became a private chef for celebrity clientele whose tastes, she says, could be “eccentric.” At Bonnefont Café she has full freedom to cook as she wishes, and many of her best dishes have made the leap from her former restaurant’s menu. Prices are very reasonable, with main courses ranging from $18 to $38.
A lavish platter of charcuterie at Bonnefont Restaurant.
John Mariani
My family and I began with a very fine warm vichyssoise with additional shallots. Roasted Roman dates are stuffed with toasted pine, nuts, garlic, thyme, drizzled with honey. A liberal sampling of cheeses and sausages and salami came on a platter with slices of very good, crusty bread and butter.
The Bonnefont herbal salad is made with dill-strewn radishes and toasted sunflower and pumpkin seeds in a Sherry dressing.
Long-cooked beef bourguignonne and puree of potatoes.
Bonnefont Restaurant
One of the prized dishes from The Pampered Pig is her––coq au vin–– which O’Brien marinates for hours in red wine, slowly cooked to ideal tenderness and served over polenta with melted blue cheese. Another is her very winey boeuf a la bourguignon abundant with early autumn vegetables and brought steaming to the table.
Asian notes are the focus of noodles in coconut butter.
Bonnefont Restaurant
Unexpected was an abundant Asian-style bowl of noodles cooked in coconut butter with tangled carrots, zucchini, bell pepper, scallions and garlic and laced with peanut butter, soy, butter and coconut.
The only disappointment was a night’s special of grilled Montauk striped bass whose flesh tasted somewhat muddy. It came atop a potato-leek puree.
Mac and cheese is listed as a dish “pour les infants” but it just as appealing for adults.
John Mariani
The men also has a “Menu pour Les Enfants” that include a deliciously rich mac-and-cheese my grandchildren had to battle us adults for.
Desserts are wholly apt for the restaurant, like a dreamy chocolate nuage and a moist brownie with the ice cream scooped from the weekend ice cream shop below.
Chocolate “nuages” is indeed airy as a cloud.
Bonnefont Restaurant
Bonnefont Restaurant’s wine list is neither long nor very interesting, but prices are almost all under $100 per bottle and most labels available as half-bottles. But the selection of unusual liquors and small craft beers anchors the charming bar up front.
Bonnefont Restaurant is truly a retreat, just as the Cloisters were once for French nuns, only the food and wine are of a more liberal and savory style. To visit the Cloisters, which close at five PM, then dine here amidst the ever growing greenery in view of what Henry James called “America’s great romantic stream” is a unique experience in Manhattan, as far away from its hip-hooray and ballyhoo as it is possible to get.
BONNEFONT CAFÉ
1 Margaret Corbin Drive
212-740-2939
Open for dinner Wed.-Sun.; lunch Wed.-Fri.; Brunch Sat. & Sun.
Dining and Cooking