I've been trying to find the time to write this blog post dedicated to perhaps the best meal of my life. Internally, I struggled for some time trying to decide whether I could label it such, thinking back with various degrees of nostalgia to Vue de Monde where I had enjoyed a lovely eye-opening (and wallet-hurting) lunch with the husband 2 years ago to celebrate passing his exams. However, putting aside the different settings (I was in New York alone, carrying my laptop bag and wearing heels with pinched toes), it was a difficult and very close decision but I daresay Eleven Madison still came out on top for me.
Eleven Madison ranked
No. 24 on the San Pellegrino list of the World's Best 50 Restaurants this year, which I only found out after I had eaten there. I can only attribute discovering it to the power of Google, after typing in "Manhattan restaurants". (Afternote: Vue de Monde didn't make it to the top 100 - which I believe might have been an unfair decision since
St John checked in at No. 41 and I felt this didn't quite do VDM justice.)
I took the subway to Madison Avenue and it was a short walk away from the Park.
At the junction of 24th St and Madison Avenue. It was a beautiful day.
The restaurant was at the first storey of this building.
They let you choose 4 courses from a 4x4 menu grid of singular foods - the first line indicates the first course, and so on. You declare what you like and what you don't like, and the rest is up to the chef.
Since I was eating alone, I was extremely impressed with my seat - I was seated close to, but not against the window, which gave me the perfect view of the restaurant. This shot was snapped very surrepticiously with my iPhone since I didn't want to look too suaku (I'm not sure if I succeeded since I was taking photos at every course). I loved the interior - a high, lofty space filled with natural light with fresh flowers that accentuated the brown tones of the tables and chairs.
The service was amazing. The servers were on standby at the side, not in-your-face but alert and looking out for any indication that help was needed.
Some cheese puffs to nibble on while the food was being prepared. The first surprise.
I ordered a 2010 Sancerre to go with the food. Everyone else in the restaurant but me started with champagne. This was a lovely crisp light white with very fruity flavours. I enjoyed it immensely.
The second surprise. A tomato tea/broth with a thyme stirrer. It was lovely - the liquid was slightly tangy, full of natural tomato sweetness, lightly accentuated by the flavour of the herbs.
The third surprise: a really thin parmesan and pepper (as in chilli) crisp.
Thin, delicate and extremely light and crispy.
The fourth surprise: A goat cheese lollipop coated with beet, goat cheese croutons and goat cheese butter. I am hardly a goat cheese fan (in fact, I usually detest it), but this was so pretty that I could not resist eating it up. To my surprise, it wasn't smelly and I enjoyed every last bit.
The lollipop came served in a bed of wheatgrass - I was asked to pluck it out - and the waiter whisked it away so quickly I couldn't even react. So I sneaked a photo of the lollipop bed at the next table.
This was what it looked like on the inside of the beet.
The fifth, and in my opinion, the best surprise: A sturgeon sabayon with chive oil and sturgeon cubes served in a perfectly cut eggshell. If I were to return to Eleven Madison for one dish, it would be this. The flavour of the sturgeon (my guess is that it was smoked) infused the creamy sabayon was mind blindingly perfect when coupled with the chive oil. The sturgeon cubes were right at the bottom of the shell, which I dug out with a teaspoon. This was PERFECT. WONDERFUL. AMAZING.
The bread rolls, moist and warm.
On the left - Goat's milk buttter from California. On the right - cow's milk butter from Vermont. And sea salt. To go with the bread. AND MY FIRST COURSE HAD STILL NOT MADE ITS APPEARANCE. I was ready to melt into my chair in estascy.
Course One: Octopus. This was introduced to me as slow-poached octopus with boiled baby potatoes, paprika and lemon (or that was as much as I could catch).
This was so beautifully composed I didn't even want to start eating it. The octopus was extremely tender. The potatoes were sweet and soft. And the lemon pieces, surprisingly, were sweet as well. The base sauce was similar to a mayonnaise, but I really had no idea what it was, since the paprika was the dominant flavour.
Course Two: Lobster. This was breathtakingly beautiful.
The lobster was served with an open lagsane sheet with a lobster oil bisque that was spooned over my plate at the table, and zucchini cream, with pieces of zucchini and squash. This was very close to perfect both in terms of appearance and flavour. I licked up every last drop.
Course Three: Lamb. Loin of lamb lightly grilled and served with sheep's milk yogurt, lamb sweetbread and lamb jus. Perfectly tender. The sweetbread (more about what it really is in a later post) was crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside.
The sixth surprise: the waiter wheeled a trolley over and said he was going to make me a 1950s classic New Yorker egg cream drink.
He mixed vanilla bean cream and chocolate together in a glass.
Followed by a few drops of olive oil.
And lastly, the seltzer water. It was very refreshing - a combination of fizzy sweet and salty.
A cafe latte to end off - perhaps the most ordinary thing on my table the entire meal : )
Course Four: Chocolate. Chocolate gianduja, hazelnut, caramel, salted peanut and almond brittle, in the form of a foam cigar, ice cream, soft mousse-like bar and honeycomb. I was too tired to marvel. I just ate.
Petit fours to end off - an earl grey and chocolate macaron, camomile shortbread and peach jelly.
Contact details can be found from the restaurant website below. I made reservations through http://www.opentable.com/. I couldn't get a weekend reservation with 2-3 weeks' notice, so some planning ahead is required.
Website: http://www.elevenmadisonpark.com/
