I was lucky enough to dine at Eleven Madison Park at possibly the height (so far) of their acclaim - it was the night they became the first restaurant in the world to jump from one to three Michelin Stars. A few weeks ago it was also elevated to rank 10 in the world on Restaurant Magazine's 2012 list.
I picked this as my choice of fine dining options for NYC based upon it being the only restaurant that provided a different experience - all the rest seem to be variations on typical French fine cuisine. Eleven Madison Park has the exciting menu concept of picking a few ingredients and the restaurant will create a series of dishes. It is to be noted that the tasting menu negates this concept, but nonetheless I'm not disappointed in my choice.
Sadly all the detailed notes I had written on the night were obliviated when a Facebook album was deleted via iPhoto. However the photos remain and the memories of the experience still linger.
The main things that stood out were:
- not all dishes were delicious; some were a bit strange (the tomato tea, cucumber salad), but at least they were creative;
- the ingredients were the finest collection I've eaten together - matsutake mushrooms, white truffles, black truffles, caviar, sea urchin roe, thick slabs of foie gras...;
- the white truffle supplement of USD95 per person seems excessive, but my first experience with the explosive flavour was gourmet-life changing;
- the service and hospitality is impeccable (notice all the waiters only walk in one direction around the room) and being invited to the kitchen to watch and be served a liquid nitrogen cocktail was a fine touch;
- at the end they gave my partner a nice jar filled with housemade granola.
Keep in mind to total bill for 2 with white truffle supplement and 2 glasses of wine was USD600. Added tip was USD120. This is not a cheap meal!
Next time I would order the tasting menu again. Although I want to pick from their matrix of ingredients for fun, the experience of the full courses is worth the money and all for the lust of food.
02-2016
Luck would have it that I decided to clear some space on my phone. I opened the deleted section of my phone's notes and found entries dating back to 2010. An entry popped up that made me smile "Eleven Madison Park" from 2011. All was not lost after all. Even though I can't quite remember dish for dish (with a couple of noticeable exceptions), at least this is something:
- Beetroot & goat cheese lollipop
- Tomato tea & parmesan
- Scallop ceviche & yuzu
- Raw tuna & black pepper on rice cracker
- Goat cheese croquette with vinaigrette
- Apple, sea urchin caviar, foie gras & dill
- Long island style clam chowder in a pot, clam with basil, clam with caviar, corn
- NYC flour bread with goat milk butter with dill, sheep & crispy faro milk butter and fleur de sal
- Cucumber with buttermilk dressing mustard seeds
- Foie gras terrine with pickled onion, plum & almonds
- Artichoke, sweet bread, truffle & jus
- Poached lobster, matsutake mushrooms, jus topped with fresh white truffle slices (probably the greatest dish of all time)
- Pork, butterscotch palms, scallion jus & plum
- Gooseberry EVOO, melon, peach & ricotta
- Egg cream drink, milk syrup, malt milk, EVOO & seltzer water
- Chocolate sponge, coffee cream, & hazelnut icecream
- Petit four
- Liquid nitrogen passionfruit cocktail
01-2017
One day clearing out old travel documents stored for eternity, I came across the original menu from that night...
