Le Cirque 2007 (with chef Christophe Bellanca)

[Fat Guy]

I was dragged kicking and screaming to dinner at Le Cirque tonight. I went not because I was even the slightest bit curious, but rather to humor an out-of-town visitor to whom I wished to be kind. Poor yokel, I thought, he has such a malformed opinion of what constitutes a peak New York dining experience. Another guest and I commiserated before the meal: "Boy, John really wanted to go to Le Cirque, huh?" "Yeah, there was no talking him out of it."

The joke was on us. We had an amazingly good meal.

In December of 2006, Le Cirque dismissed its long-time chef, Pierre Schaedelin, who had been with the restaurant since 2000, when it was launched as Le Cirque 2000 in the New York Palace hotel. Last year, Le Cirque reopened in the Bloomberg building on 58th Street between Lexington and Third Avenues (actually the building runs through the block from 58th to 59th and the main Le Cirque entrance is mid-building, however the bar entrance is on 58th). The reviews and reports were uniformly mediocre. I don't know any knowledgeable person who thought Schaedelin was doing a particularly good job.

At the beginning of 2007, however, a new chef, Christophe Bellanca, took the helm at Le Cirque. Bellanca, who is French-born and of Sicilian and Spanish descent, worked at a long list of Michelin three- and two-star restaurants in France, and was most recently chef at L'Orangerie in Los Angeles.

To dispense with the necessary framing of any discussion of Le Cirque: yes, we received super-VIP/FOS treatment; yes, we were comped to high heaven; yes, Sirio hovered a lot, took us on a tour of the kitchen, etc.; yes we got good service and lots of it. So these impressions are of Le Cirque at its best.

Indeed, I wouldn't be surprised if the meal we ate was the best meal served at Le Cirque in 15 years, since Daniel Boulud left in 1992 to open his own restaurant. Our group was food-media-heavy and well-taken-care-of. Still, the fact that Le Cirque could produce a meal of this caliber -- a meal on par with what's being served at the handful of top restaurants in the city -- indicates that something serious is going on.

I had no expectations of the meal and wasn't planning to write about it, so I didn't take any notes. It wasn't until a little while into the meal that the gravity of the situation -- that I was having one of my best meals of the past year -- hit me.

Our tasting menu began with a platter of three dishes -- these were not amuses, but rather small appetizers -- that included (somewhat bizarrely) two frog-leg dishes and a tuna tartare. The tuna tartare, while not a revelation, struck me because it was just as good as the best tuna tartares I've had anywhere, made with pristine tuna with the occasional bit of coarse salt in the mix. The frog-leg dishes were both terrific. One I designated "frog chowder," though I'm sure it had a real name. It was bits of frog legs in a gloriously creamy white soup (perhaps even cheesy?), served in a clear glass. The other was a frog-leg croquette, on a bed of vegetables heavily laced with garlic. It's probably the most garlic I've ever had in a dish in a fancy restaurant, and I mean that in a positive sense: the kitchen is not afraid of flavor, and this was the right flavor for the dish.

But hey, any restaurant can pull off a few good appetizers. I thought for sure it would all be downhill from there.

The next dish, however, raised the bar. It was a simple, small portion of very soft, creamy scrambled eggs, with a dollop of caviar on top. It disappeared quickly. Three of us felt it was fantastic. One complained it was too mushy and not eggy enough. My position was that scrambled eggs are supposed to be mushy, and I imagine the addition of cream or butter and various other ingredients may have dulled some of the pure egginess but I was happy for the end result, which was better than eggy.

The next three dishes continued the escalation: Foie gras ravioli with black truffle, the first example of this dish I've had in the past several years (since maybe 1998 at Les Crayeres in Riems) that had a properly made, delicate pasta wrapper. The truffles, probably preserved in some sort of fat from winter, were quite flavorful. A zucchini-stuffed zucchini blossom, very correct and presented with minimal garnish (on, by the way, one of the old monkey plates -- we later found out they also do a version of this dish fried and stuffed with mozzarella and anchovies). And, perhaps the highlight of the evening, a single, airy langoustine fresh from the North Atlantic -- a Dublin Bay prawn, I believe.

The final two savory dishes were also excellent, though not as impressive as the ones before. A small filet of monkfish was beautifully cooked and almost lobster-like, but was diminished by a weirdly sweet sauce. Likewise, a very fine and properly cooked piece of duck breast had some weird sweet crunchy things on it -- it almost seemed like somebody had hijacked a Mr. Softee truck and poured a few of the colored sprinkles over the duck. Once those intruders were brushed aside, however, it was a wonderful dish. The slices of duck breast were on a bed of crushed potatoes and duck confit. A very rich reduction sauce was poured at the table, though unfortunately it didn't show up until we had already started eating the (we though strangely unsauced) dish.

Desserts at Le Cirque have always been first-rate, and the pastry kitchen put out what must have been most of the dessert menu for us. There were some classics, like the Le Cirque stove, and some new desserts like coconut rice pudding with pineapple sorbet, a tasting of four chocolate desserts, and a vacherin with yogurt-lime ice cream. No change in status: desserts at Le Cirque have always been first-rate.

The wine list is expensive, but we were able to find a few decent things in the $50 neighborhood.

The restaurant itself is quite beautiful, with a lot of glass and a soaring dining room -- you really couldn't ask for a better space. And it does seem that there has been an attitude change: the average age of the clientele was not anything near the 70 it seemed to be heading towards before; there were plenty of thirty-something business types in the room. Lots of female waitstaff in evidence, including our sommelier and our superb, relentlessly poised captain. The new location and new style of the place seem to be attracting a good number of younger professional types. And perhaps, if the food is nearly as good as it was for us tonight, it will keep them coming back.

[Nathan]

that's good news...

I find it interesting that two of the dishes you reference (in succession) sound similar to signature JG dishes: the frog legs with young garlic soup and the scrambled egg (served in the shell) with caviar.

[Fat Guy]

If you poured one of the frog leg dishes into the other, there would have been hints of Jean-George's dish, yeah. But I didn't experience either as JG-influenced, and my guess based on Bellanca's background is that any commonality with anything JG-like is because of common influences back in France. Many of JG's signatures can, after all, be traced back to general trends in contemporary French gastronomy. That's not to say JG isn't a brilliant innovator. But he doesn't get credit for scrambled eggs with caviar either!

[Nathan]

agreed.

[rooftop1000]

""Still, the fact that Le Cirque could produce a meal of this caliber -- a meal on par with what's being served at the handful of top restaurants in the city -- indicates that something serious is going on.""

I somehow find this a disturbing statement, the realization that Le Cirque had somehow become Tavern on the Green

Tracey

[ulterior epicure]

Gripe: The NYC Restaurant Week website has Le Cirque's RW menu posted (click here). The menu clearly states January 21-February 1. It does not except the weekends (some restaurants, like Aquavit Cafe, offer RW prices during that weekend, the 26th 27th).

I made a reservation on opentable.com for that Saturday (26th). I called the restaurant to confirm that their RW menu was correct and that the RW menu would be offered on the weekend. The woman told me:

1. The RW menu is not available on the weekend, and

2. The restaurant does not accept reservations online.

I told her that the restaurant apparently DOES accept reservations online because I had just made one - unless it was not the same Le Cirque. She then corrected herself by stating that what she meant was that the restaurant does not accept reservations for Restaurant Week, which is also inaccurate, as I see tables available all throughout that week. Then, she (mis?)corrected herself again by stating that opentables should give a warning that blocks Restaurant Week reservations.... um, how would opentable know whether or not you intend on taking advantage of RW? There was no notice given on opentable, nor on the Le Cirque website.

Edited to enable the link.

Edited January 15, 2008 by ulterior epicure (log)

[skiter53]

Gripe: The NYC Restaurant Week website has Le Cirque's RW menu posted (click here).  The menu clearly states January 21-February 1.  It does not except the weekends (some restaurants, like Aquavit Cafe, offer RW prices during that weekend, the 26th 27th).

I made a reservation on opentable.com for that Saturday (26th).  I called the restaurant to confirm that their RW menu was correct and that the RW menu would be offered on the weekend.  The woman told me:

1. The RW menu is not available on the weekend, and

2. The restaurant does not accept reservations online. 

I told her that the restaurant apparently DOES accept reservations online because I had just made one - unless it was not the same Le Cirque.  She then corrected herself by stating that what she meant was that the restaurant does not accept reservations for Restaurant Week, which is also inaccurate, as I see tables available all throughout that week. Then, she (mis?)corrected herself again by stating that opentables should give a warning that blocks Restaurant Week reservations....  um, how would opentable know whether or not you intend on taking advantage of RW?  There was no notice given on opentable, nor on the Le Cirque website.

Edited to enable the link.

←

So how was your RW meal? Not really sure if you ended up having one or not.

[ulterior epicure]

So how was your RW meal?  Not really sure if you ended up having one or not.

←

No, I did not.