M.M. Cloutier
| Special to Palm Beach Daily News
A high-end New York steakhouse restaurant menu with a French twist is set to debut in Palm Beach, but it will be served for two nights only.
The occasion unfolds at longtime Café Boulud, 301 Australian Ave., where the culinary team is collaborating with chefs from year-old New York’s chic La Tete d’Or steakhouse.
Result? Special menus — featuring high-quality steaks paired with special sauces and butters, plus seafood — Nov. 6 and 7 at Café Boulud.
Both Café Boulud and La Tete d’Or are led by renowned chef-restaurateur Daniel Boulud.
That means they share a certain Boulud ethos in common — cuisine rooted in tradition and employing “exceptional” seasonal ingredients — but what La Tete d’Or brings to Café Boulud in Palm Beach is what Boulud calls a “simple, universal pleasure.”
That would be “a great steak with a great sauce, but it needs to be executed with precision and needs to have soul,” Boulud said.
La Tete d’Or features not only great steaks, but seafood and more.
To reflect that, its culinary director Mitchell Lienhard will join Café Boulud’s executive chef Christopher Zabita to present a five-course wine-paired menu and an a la carte menu.
Lienhard, who attended high school in Palm Beach County before his culinary studies led to helming some of the country’s best restaurant kitchens, has been with La Tete d’Or since it debuted a year ago across from Madison Square Park in the Flatiron District.
Zabita said he’s “thrilled to welcome Lienhard and “his talented team from La Tête d’Or into our kitchen. Their approach to French cooking aligns beautifully with ours. Guests are in for something truly special.”
Along with Lienhard, others from Boulud’s New York team will be at Café Boulud: La Tete’s executive sous chef Pape Thiam, plus chefs Fabrizzio Salerni and Dan Williams of the corporate group that encompasses Boulud’s restaurants and other enterprises.
A five-course wine-paired La Tete menu will be served in Café Boulud’s private dining room while a special La Tete a la carte menu will be served in the main dining room.
In both cases, advance reservations are required.
Staring at 6:45 p.m. in the private dining room, an amuse bouche opens the multi-course wine-paired meal ($295 a person).
Dishes to follow include La Tete’s Caesar salad, Dover sole and prime rib featuring Wagyu crossbred beef from Scharbauer Ranch.
What make part of that special: The Caesars salad will be prepared and served tableside, as is the case with traditional Caesar salads.
La Tete’s vanilla berry-cassis sundae will be served for dessert along with petit fours.
Meanwhile, in Café Boulud’s dining room, the special a la carte La Tete d’Or menu will be available from 5:30 p.m. to 9:45 p.m.
Guests can choose from such starters as a half-dozen east or west-coast oysters ($28); a seafood plateau for two ($115); snapper crudo ($24); yellowfin tuna tartare ($26) and sweet-bread “nuggets” ($22).
An 8-ounce fillet mignon ($78), a 14-ounce Snake River Farms prime-grade New York strip ($94) and a 34-ounce dry-aged grain-fed porterhouse ($260) are among the steaks that will be featured.
Sauces and herbed or truffled steak butters are a la carte, as are certain side dishes, such as creamed spinach. Also a la carte: steak add-ons ranging from a lobster tail to seared foie gras.
Among other entrees on the a la carte menu: grilled Florida snapper ($42) with cauliflower puree and pinenut-raisin gremolata.
Pecan jaconde with praline, mousseline and maple-bourbon caramel; devil’s food cake with whipped ganache, chocolate `curls’ and cognac-chocolate sauce; and lemon tart with raspberry meringue are among the desserts ($19 each) on the a la carte menu.
For more information or to make a required advance reservation, call Café Boulud at 561-655-6060 or visit cafeboulud.com/palmbeach.
Dining and Cooking