Per Se

We ate here while visiting New York in mid-January. I called. They answered immediately. We got a table. Easy peasy. You guys are so efficient!

When we arrived a bit early we were shown to our table on the mezz-level. I think you have to dine in the day for the view to become apparent but I wasn't there for the view.

I felt a bit put out by the one-choice menu but asked sweetly if it was a problem to swap the first two courses to the vegetarian option. Not a problem, crisis averted. The thought of eating oysters and then foie gras really didn't appeal to my princess sensibilities. So, the amuse-bouches of a 'cornet' and what we lovingly call 'cheesy puffs' arrived. These were great and had me wanting more.

The fish course had the most perfectly cooked skin I have ever tasted. Mostly, its just a bit 'fish skin' tasting and that in itself isn't pleasant.

The mains were just sublime but the best bit was the dessert which was a bit like an ice-cream snickers bar with saled caramel sauces. Perfect. I could have had two, easily.

We didn't have too much wine but I treated myself to a Banyuls to go with dessert. It was the most chocolatey tasting wine I've had. It really finished off the whole meal brilliantly.

The service was fab and the sommelier we spoke to was very chatty in a good way and was very interested in telling us about the wine and the wine regions that the restaurant used.

All in, I think the bill was $675, with $500 being for the food. Per Se is definitely worth every penny and I can't wait to try the French Laundry very soon.
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Mrs Cowell
Sunday, March 04, 2007

OK, let's start by insipidly stating the obvious: an evening at Per Se is indubitably more than a mere dining experience. Despite the puritanically capitalistic location, in the Time Warner Center, Thomas Keller has created a truly unique, must-go restaurant, which fully deserves two thumbs way way way up.

I had the good fortune of celebrating New Year's Eve here and, without any shred of doubt whatsoever, it has been, to put it in the pessimistic terms I have grown accustomed to, the least disappointing end of year one could possibly envisage.

To be objectively fair, the overall experience is not entirely faultless. It seems, in fact, that Keller has ingeniously put to use the booking procedure first concocted by Flambée, the widely renowned, perennially booked restaurant in Dante's Inferno. You call, you wait for 20 minutes that feel like 2000, during which a Sybllan (as in Sybil Fawlty) voice most unpleasantly reminds you that they "REceive a LARge volUME of calls for (their) SIXtEEN tabLE ResTauraNT". Once you get to an operator, and in the most unlikely event that Heaven actually does have a table available for your chosen evening, you have to provide your credit card details. The Angel Gabriel then faxes you a form for you to fill, whereby you agree to the immediate charge of a deposit amounting to the entire cost of the meal. You are also reminded that if your head suddenly falls off and you wish to cancel the booking, the deposit will be fully refunded only if the cancellation is made at least 72 hours prior to the time of the reservation. If not, well, shame. Oh, and you also have to remember to confirm the reservation before the 72 hours, otherwise, well, once again, shame. In a rather amusing paradoxical exercise, it seems that only an unemployed would actually have sufficient spare time to make a booking at Per Se. I don't know whether this was a charade orchestrated especially for New Year's Eve or whether it constitutes standard procedure, but, in my meandering experience, only one restaurant can be vested with the dubious honour of having a more Draconian reservation system: Ramsay's place in Royal Hospital Road. Speaking of whom, beware New Yorkers, as if another series of Hell’s Kitchen America was not quite sufficient, it seems that the Scotsman is set to open a branch of McGordon’s in the Big Apple at some point in the not-so-distant future.

Anyway, enough senseless detours. Let's get to the important stuff: Per Se. First, the waiters, despite being mostly (and surprisingly so) American, are blessed with the sort of attentiveness that, generally, you can only find in Europe. And although the atmosphere is formal enough so as to justify the extravagant prices, it simultaneously retains that sort of subdued friendliness that, generally, you cannot find in Europe.

Second, and here comes the really important stuff, the food at Per Se is truly exceptional. On my visit, there was a special "luxury" menu of 11 courses for 600 USD, but I believe the usual, daily changing menus do not differ excessively apart, of course, from the prices - with 9 courses at 210 USD it looks like damn bargain by comparison. Yet, the experience was a true rollercoaster of flavours starting from a sabayone of pearl tapioca with Island Creek oysters and Ossetra caviar (Keller's trademark treat) to a risotto carnaroli with Castelmagno cheese and white truffles from Alba (generously shaved by a maitre’d in front of your very eyes), and an exquisite dish of Nova Scotia lobster with a ragout of lentils, glazed chestnuts and an applewood smoked bacon chip. Also of particular distinction were an appetizer of scrambled hen egg with shaved black winter truffles and a cheese dish of vacherin layered onto a truffle pain perdu, celery branch, celeriac and candied hazelnuts. At this point I can’t help but gloat about the wonderfully faithful descriptions I have so magnanimously provided for the delights I had the good fortune of sampling, something I have never previously managed to accomplish in my very limited, very very amateurish and very very very unsuccessful history as a restaurant critic. Quite reluctantly, I do have to concede that a copy of the menu does come quite handy in this sort of circumstances.

I should also emphasise that although the prospect of an 11 course long tasting menu may appear severely daunting to those of us who are not blessed with a Creosotic appetite, the wise sizing of the portions and, perhaps more importantly, the even wiser timing of the (very long) procession of culinary miracles actually render the whole experience most pleasurable indeed. Well, as pleasurable as paying 600 dollars per head (+ tax + beverages) for a meal can possibly get.

Before I made the reservation, I snooped around for alternative options at other famed eateries. At Alan Ducasse’s place at the Essex House, the gala menu amounted to 420 USD (plus beverages, taxes and service) and at Daniel, I think it was 450 USD (plus beverages, taxes and service). Per Se was therefore marginally more expensive - though the service was already included (and I believe is also included in the 210 USD daily tasting menus) - but, and please take this with all the authority of someone who has never been to neither Daniel nor Alan Ducasse, it was worth every single extra penny.

Also note that this week’s issue of New York magazine (January 9, 2006) includes a, needless to say, arbitrary ranking of the 101 best restaurants in town. Five stars were awarded to Le Bernardin and Masa – the murderously expensive Japanese joint – whereas Per Se comes in third as the first four-star restaurant, thus preceding Jean Georges, Daniel, Bouley, Ducasse and so on. What that means is, in the end, entirely irrelevant. Per Se is truly extraordinary and, simply put, you just must eat there. If you can. And if you can’t, mortgage your house. If you don’t own a house, sell your kidney. If you only have one kidney, well, you’ll just have to think of something else then.
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Otnemem
Thursday, January 12, 2006