Bouley

[AvsKick21]

I was there for lunch recently so service may change some, but I didn't find it that snotty except for maybe their overuse of French.

I had the same thing happen at the end of the meal. After the pre-dessert was cleared, they brought out the main dessert (with 3 ice creams) and came with the pastry chef's dessert(which included an ice and a foam) and petit-fours in quick succession. It was unfortunate because I thought all of the desserts were quite good on the first taste, but the ones I got to last clearly deteriorated.

[BryanZ]

Nice pictures, UE. The red glow of the room does a lot for the images. The whole dessert thing is weird, though.

[ulterior epicure]

The red glow of the room does a lot for the images.

... and makes it hell for the photographer.

Thanks for the compliment.

I agree with AvsKick21, I would definitely been able to appreciate and enjoy them better had they been spaced apart on service. It's not like they needed my table - there were plenty of other tables available - not to mention the *stepchild yellow room,* which was completely empty.

[chefboy24]

going tonight for a celebration dinner

whats the difference between the two rooms

i've only eaten in the red room and only for lunch

[ulterior epicure]

going tonight for a celebration dinner

whats the difference between the two rooms

i've only eaten in the red room and only for lunch

←

Other than style and ambiance, I'm not sure there's much of a difference. I believe the same menu is offered in both rooms.

[BryanZ]

I thought the white room is used only for private events. Am I wrong?

[pups224]

I have been going to Bouley since he was in his former location. Meals there were always exquisite, coaxing wonderful flavors from prime ingredients.

The room was beautiful, with gorgeous fresh flowers.

Then he moved to his current location and underwent several reincarnations as ‘bakery’, then restaurant.

We went quite a few times for the prix fixe lunch which was still outstanding and a very good deal. The service was attentive and not obtrusive. Wine by the glass was very well selected.

So we went for the BF’s birthday last night. We were seated in the ‘white’ room which now has taken on the look of a whore house with pillows and oversized, tasseled lamps and vases, way too big for the wilting flower arrangements. The arrangement on the table was on its last legs.

The food. The amuse was a green apple aspic with a Roquefort foam. The gelee was so acrid and tasteless that the foam was a relief, not a compliment. We had the four course tasting menu.

I had the Phyllo Crusted Florida Shrimp. The seafood had been seared over such high heat that all I could taste was gas. This was not “breath of the wok” time. The broth had no herbal and no ocean in it and I thought of the days when I used to swoon moping up the broth with my bread. The BF had the Sashimi Quality Tuna, which was okay, nothing special.

I then had the Line-Caught Chatham Cod which was over cooked and again tasted of gas. It fell apart when I stuck my fork in it. The nage, which was supposed to have black truffle in it, was tasteless. My partner had the Return from Chiang Mai which was very good, albeit too cold.

Then to the mains. I had rack of lamb. One chop with an over cooked loin. Nice, again, nothing special. BF had Squab and Foie Gras which he said was ‘acceptable’.

Oh and the potatoes. We were half way through our main when we looked at each other and asked, where are those mashed potatoes? The arrived and were almost tasteless, heavy and gluey. Not those ethereal butter clouds that I remember.

Desert for both of us was the Hot Valrhona Chocolate Soufflé. In the past this had been my favorite desert. This time the soufflé had no structure and was mostly molten chocolate. The ice creams, which used to be outstanding were tasteless overwhelmed by all the chocolate goo. Desert was accompanied by a very nice passion fruit sorbet and petit fours, all coming at the same time.

The wine list was outrageously priced. We had a very nice Meursault for $150.00. I started with a glass of Greuner Veltliner, which in days of old had been wonderful. This one was sour, no depth.

Service was just okay. No one asked us how our meal was. They gave us another bottle of sparkling water without asking. Dinner was almost $500.00 including tax and tip. I felt totally ripped off. Not going there again. Oh, and the crowd was bridge and tunnel. The BF’s fault for having a birthday on a Saturday.

[olicollett]

Sounds like my experience a couple of weeks ago.. i'll write it up fully this weekend but the amuse i had was with roquefort ice cream and was one of the worst dishes i've ever had!! I could still taste it after my starter and did anything but cleanse my palate!

[davidbdesilva]

Interesting comments. We just had a weekend get-away (from Philly) in your fair city and ate at Bouley one night and EMP the other (see my review above). EMP was culinary perfection from start to finish and was easily the best meal we've ever had. The service was impeccable as well. Bouley, on the other hand, while very good, was a let down. The amuse was indeed not very nice at all. Service was snooty "you should be glad we're waiting on you" and not friendly at all. We will not return to Bouley, our $300 meal was definitely not worth it while the $350 we spent at EMP was worth every penny.

[Fat Guy]

I'm sure I've mentioned this before, and I say it to everybody who's planning to go to Bouley: Bouley is a pathologically inconsistent restaurant. There is no better restaurant than Bouley on a good night. But on other nights Bouley can be profoundly unimpressive. The restaurant is like a wonderful, gorgeous, brilliant lover who just happens to have a horrible mental illness like dissociative identity disorder. It's horrible because you can go for periods of time when everything is great, but then you show up one night and not only does the restaurant not know who you are (even though you've been in a decades-long relationship) but also the restaurant doesn't know who it is. But when Bouley is on, it's amazing. I would take a good night at Bouley over Eleven Madison Park every time. But, since there's no reliable way to ensure a good night at Bouley, it pretty much always makes sense to go to a different restaurant.

[davidbdesilva]

Well, I prefer my lovers without mental illnesses, especially dissociative disorders (I am a psychologist ironically). And, for $300 I especially don't want to take the chance that she'll be out of touch with reality when I'm at her place. I'll take a fantastic lover who is consistently fantastic anyday. If Bouley isn't in the groove on a Saturday night after Valentine's Day, when is it? It's hard for me to fathom a better meal at any restaurant in NYC than what we had at EMP. Daniel Humm creates artwork like I've never seen before and tastes like I've never tasted before. Don't get me wrong, our meal at Bouley was very good but based on it's reputation and cost, it should be far beyond very good. Bottom line for me: I would not return to Bouley; I would go back to EMP tomorrow if I could.

Edited February 19, 2008 by davidbdesilva (log)

[pups224]

I completely agree with FG, having been to EMP for a four hour tasting menu and to Bouley many times.

When Bouley is on, it's amazing. However, to drop that kind of money for a very disappointing meal with snooty service is a real shame.

Restaurants of this calibre can occaisionally have nights when they are not quite "on", however, the meal, wine and service was careless at best.

On top of that, Mr. Bouley does not have a restaurant empire with far flung places. On a Saturday night, the chef should be in the house (or let's hope he wasn't).

[DutchMuse]

From the tenor of the posts above, however, the "misses" sound far more legion than the "hits" at Bouley. That is a huge problem.

[Nathan]

actually, Saturday night in a Manhattan restaurant is often one of the least likely times for a chef to be in the house...but nevertheless, it's still no excuse for the inconsistency...

[dagordon]

Well, it seems that I should have read this thread before making a reservation at Bouley. We just returned from what was undeniably our single worst service experience in recent memory.

To a certain extent this makes me feel fortunate. We eat out a lot, as I suspect most reading this board do; and now that I reflect on the service aspect of the meals we've had, I realize that it has been, generally, excellent. Perhaps we're just lucky -- or, as I suspect, perhaps service is simply improving all around -- but it's really quite rare that we've had serious complaints about the service at a restaurant. Sure, there will be the occasional service blips, but rarely is it that we have gotten the sense that our server, let alone the entire FOH, just doesn't give a shit.

We had a 9:00 reservation and were seated at 9:15. We were given a wine list but it took a while for menus to appear.

At one point the lamp at one end of our table (a 5 top) went out. This was pretty noticeable, but it took quite a while for us to get someone's attention to come over and fix it. Moreover, even with the lamp fixed, my end of the table was excessively dark. I have young eyes, and I can't remember ever complaining about a place being too dark, but this was just ridiculous. It took a while to get someone's attention, and then we asked for a candle for our end of the table. Several minutes passed, and we asked someone else for one, and one was eventually provided.

It took quite a while for our appetizers to come out. They were fairly unexceptional. I should say that the amuse, a gazpacho with green apple sorbet and slow-cooked shrimp, was excellent. But my father said that his bluefin tuna dish was mediocre; I had the "panache" of three salads, in which the shrimp and scallops were overcooked and underseasoned, the foie "Napoleon" too sweet, and the mushrooms lacking flavor. The steamed egg dish could, I think, have been quite successful, but it was overwhelmed by what I swore was coconut (though this wasn't in the dish description).

The real problem was that we waited for approximately an hour and fifteen minutes for the mains to come out. At no point during this wait did anyone come to our table to apologize, let alone offer, say, a glass of champagne, or a salad, or another appetizer (all of which we would have declined, but at least the offer would have demonstrated that they cared). We were visibly tired and hungry. At one point my fiancée was essentially asleep on the table. No one came.

After over an hour we managed to get someone's attention and asked about our food; we were told that it was being plated, and no apology or explanation. We waited probably ten minutes more and decided to leave. My father asked for the check. Nothing happened. After five minutes or so the mains finally arrived, and we sent them back, reiterating that we wanted to leave.

We then waited over 5 minutes for the check to actually arrive. (I was urging that we should simply leave -- how long could we reasonably be expected to wait?) Now, the one thing that the restaurant could have done at this point to salvage the possibility that we would come back in the future would have been to comp what we had had so far. Of course they didn't.

By now it was probably 11:15. On the way out we told someone whom I presume was the maitre d' that our experience had been pathetic. Delays happen, I told him -- what matters is how you handle the situation. At the very least simply go to the table and apologize for the wait. If it were my restaurant I would, as I said, offer the table a round of champagne, or a salad; something. Just something to suggest that you're aware of the issue, and that you care. This isn't rocket science, I explained; this is basic customer service.

The gentleman's response was hilarious: he said that we didn't give them the opportunity to make the wait up to us. Normally, he said, they would have comped dessert; but we left before the mains. This guy just didn't get it. If a table is waiting for an hour and fifteen minutes in between courses, you have to do something while they're waiting -- even if it's just telling the table that dessert will be on the house. Unbelievable.

My father left no tip, which I don't think he has ever done before; and ordinarily we would not want to punish all of the servers for the errors of one or two, but in this case the problems seemed so systemic.

There is no way that we will return to this restaurant in, say, the next 15 years.

Snootiness is one thing; you can emanate a certain snootiness and still provide the fundamentals of customer service, still show that you care. This was more like sheer and utter cluelessness and indifference, again of a level totally and completely beyond anything we have experienced anywhere in recent memory.

[Nathan]

oy, that's simply awful.

[dagordon]

Oooh, I forgot to mention this -- and this may have been the funniest moment of the evening. It was I believe while we were waiting for our check, right after my fiancee and her mother had gotten up to get their coats and leave. The two women left, and immediately someone came over to the table and proceeded to fold their napkins into pretty shapes. We nearly fell off our chairs. It's as if making sure that the napkins are folded and pretty exhausts what they take to be their service responsibility.

I mentioned this in the Esca thread, but I'll repeat it here: we went to Esca for lunch that day and had a lovely meal. The rest of my party was extremely late to what was already one of Esca's last lunch reservations (which did have its benefits, as I had a "light snack" at the bar, of which my mother and fiancee remained ignorant, thus allowing me to sample more of the restaurant's menu than I otherwise would have been allowed to). The restaurant staff could not possibly have been nicer or more accommodating. I mean from the bartender to the hostess to the maitre d' to the waiter. The place just emanated hospitality. The point is that the contrast between lunch and dinner was just stunning.

[philadining]

I love this image of the staff refolding napkins as customers are leaving mid-meal due to being ignored. Almost a perfect example of rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

[oakapple]

I've been to Bouley about four times in the last 3-4 years, and I've never had an experience even remotely like that. However, Bouley is notoriously inconsistent, so I wouldn't put it past them to screw up as badly as you've described.

The other thing is: it tells you a lot about a restaurant to see how they respond when things are going badly. The delay in the kitchen isn't the front-of-house's fault. What is their fault is what they did about it. In a restaurant of this calibre, they should have noticed the long wait before you pointed it out to them.