wd-50 2004 - 2007

[Sethro]

If there's one component I would like some light shed upon, it's the raisin consome. I mean, it's midnight blackish-purple and delicately sweet. Raisins, being dried, just don't give off very much color, and if you puree them, the color they produce is an unpleasant redish-grey. Additionally, no matter how well you soak or rinse raisins, they're just sweet as hell.

Somehow, despite all this, the raisin consome prevails. I wish I knew how.

[raxelita]

Another Q. Their online wine list is fairly brief, compact. Do they have a floor sommelier, or do the captains handle wine? I don't think I've read anything on this thread referring to wine service yet.

edited to add:

And do people feel the list stands up to the food? What are responses to this type of list at one of the finer eating experiences in town?

Edited September 17, 2005 by raxelita (log)

[docsconz]

My experiences with wine at WD-50 have been outstanding. While the list may not be the most extensive in town it is well focused and matches well with the food. If I remember correctly (and I may not), Dewey Dufresne, Wylie's dad handles the bulk of the wine chores.

[greensNbeans]

Sethro - I too would like to know the nature of all their consumes. Wylie and Sam are keeping the rest of the culinary world on their toes, and I love it! Yall (sorry Im from Texas) are really inspirational! Thanks for it all! Go Irish!

[tupac17616]

All I can say is...this place is special. Having told myself for so long that this was a restaurant I needed to try, I finally made it there last Sunday night. A friend and I did the Chef's Tasting Menu. Absolutely wonderful. The different textures. The different flavors. I find it impossible to believe that anyone who goes to this restaurant with an open mind would not enjoy themselves and end up with both a tasty and thought-provoking experience. I will be back. Soon.

[cachan]

I was in New York city last week so I visited this place, I did not have the tasting menu as I did not feel that I could manage it, but it looked very much like the experimental cuisine of The Fat Duck and the waiter told me that the two chefs know each other.

I had the shrimp noodles and then the ocean trout with quinoa and toast oil and then went for the dessert tasting menu where I experienced the celery sorbet, roasted corn sorbet, coffee soil, and toffee paper.

The shrimp noodles reminded me of the fish balls in Chinese cuisine which are also flexible and spongy in texture, I would guess or imagine that maybe the raw flesh (fish or shrimp) is mashed up and mixed with something to bind it and then boiled. A very interesting idea, and not too shrimpy.

[docsconz]

The shrimp noodles reminded me of the fish balls in Chinese cuisine which are also flexible and spongy in texture, I would guess or imagine that maybe the raw flesh (fish or shrimp) is mashed up and mixed with something to bind it and then boiled.

There is a topic discussing their production here.

A very interesting idea, and not too shrimpy.

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Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I haven't yet tried this dish and I very much want to.

[Sethro]

Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I haven't yet tried this dish and I very much want to.

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It's actually one of the few dishes I've tried at WD-50 that I'm not crazy about. The shrimp noodle itself has a very peculiar texture that I can only describe as "squeaky", and the cooking process (boiling, I would assume, but who knows) removes most of the fresh shrimp taste that I love. I can see how some people would flip for it, but its just not up my alley.

What is most definetely up my alley is the smear of chorizo emulsion that graces the plate! The color and flavor are as bold and bursting as in any sauce you'll ever see. It is a smokey, tangy work of wonder. I would actually consider ordering he dish again just for the sauce.

[hapacooking]

I ate there in late August on Friday evening. Wylie was there. I thought the meal was mind-blowing however my wife wasnt as excited. It was a bit too experimental for her taste buds.

The shrimp noodles were fantastic along with the chorizo smear. Yum Yum!

The roasted Foie Gras was another clear winner. Outstanding texture and flavor.

I was also blown away by the Duck Breast with Polenta and Huitlacoche Paper. How does he make that paper?

The Crispy Peanut Butter was also very very tasty but have no idea how he made it.

The Roasted Corn Sorbet with Coffee Soil did not agree with my palate neither did the Carmelized Banana dessert. Other than those two desserts, the meal was probably one of the best I have had in NYC.

Service was super and very accomodating. I will be back!

Wylie, when is the cookbook going to be released- I have cash in hand.

[greensNbeans]

I ate there in late August on Friday evening. Wylie was there.  I thought the meal was mind-blowing however my wife wasnt as excited. It was a bit too experimental for her taste buds.

The shrimp noodles were fantastic along with the chorizo smear. Yum Yum!

The roasted Foie Gras was another clear winner. Outstanding texture and flavor.

I was also blown away by the Duck Breast with Polenta and Huitlacoche Paper. How does he make that paper?

The Crispy Peanut Butter was also very very tasty but have no idea how he made it.

The Roasted Corn Sorbet with Coffee Soil did not agree with my palate neither did the Carmelized Banana dessert. Other than those two desserts, the meal was probably one of the best I have had in NYC.

Service was super and very accomodating. I will be back!

Wylie, when is the cookbook going to be released- I have cash in hand.

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paper is made from egg whites and dried in low temp oven

[hapacooking]

I ate there in late August on Friday evening. Wylie was there.  I thought the meal was mind-blowing however my wife wasnt as excited. It was a bit too experimental for her taste buds.

The shrimp noodles were fantastic along with the chorizo smear. Yum Yum!

The roasted Foie Gras was another clear winner. Outstanding texture and flavor.

I was also blown away by the Duck Breast with Polenta and Huitlacoche Paper. How does he make that paper?

The Crispy Peanut Butter was also very very tasty but have no idea how he made it.

The Roasted Corn Sorbet with Coffee Soil did not agree with my palate neither did the Carmelized Banana dessert. Other than those two desserts, the meal was probably one of the best I have had in NYC.

Service was super and very accomodating. I will be back!

Wylie, when is the cookbook going to be released- I have cash in hand.

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paper is made from egg whites and dried in low temp oven

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How does he get it so thin?

[Sethro]

How does he get it so thin?

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It's usually either spread with an offset spatula on one silpat and then topped with another, or just sandwiched between two silpats and rolled out. I'm not sure if that's what Sam and Wylie do, but that's the usual way.

[greensNbeans]

How does he get it so thin?

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It's usually either spread with an offset spatula on one silpat and then topped with another, or just sandwiched between two silpats and rolled out. I'm not sure if that's what Sam and Wylie do, but that's the usual way.

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That is the way I do it - you can see a version of my refried bean paper that garnishes an amuse called "heuvos rancheros" on my profile picture.

[greensNbeans]

Anybody seen the menu item : Hanger Tartare with bearnaise ice cream

What happened to the new photos that were on the website? I really hope they post new ones!

[hapacooking]

Wylie's technique for making the Shrimp Noodle dish can be found in the latest issue of Food Arts with Heston. BTW the enzyme he uses to bind the shrimp is called Activa and can be found at ajinomto-usa.com

[James Kessler]

If anyone from WD-50 reads this, could I request a copy of the tasting menu with wine pairings from Friday, September 30th? (last night.)

I dined with two friends and we all had the tasting menu with wine. Outstanding, hands down. One of the my most memorable meals ever. I meant to ask before I left for a copy of the menu, but forgot.

I would appreciate it if anyone who has access to it could pass it along to me. Thanks very much!

Edited October 2, 2005 by James Kessler (log)

[M.X.Hassett]

I had dinner there sunday night. I had the chefs tasting menu at the bar, Juice the bartender is great and has been there since they opened. There is not much I can add about the food that has not already been said. It is great and had me thinking about flavor and texture interaction. To add a note on the service, when they brought out the dessert there was an extra with a birthday candle, very nice touch. I then had the full tour of the kitchen already broken down for the night. This is a great place to eat on your own at the bar. Just a note WD is not in the kitchen on sundays, whoever there sous is does an exellent job.

I will add more tasting notes once I get a copy of the menu, I left mine at Pegu.

Edit: I was also offered a glass of John Commandaria, a port like drink(14%) from cyprus.

Edit2: Bar tip: Something I learned from the barkeep is that they wipe all of the glassware with a towel dampened with vodka, which is how they get such a shine on the glasses

Edited October 5, 2005 by M.X.Hassett (log)

[Rogelio]

It's said here that chef Pepe Rodriguez Rey from El Bohio in Spain was cooking at WD-50 at the end of August. Did any of you attended to this event?

It says also that Ca Sento's Raul Alexandre will be soon cooking there. Just in case that you would like to attend to this valencian cooking night.

[cupcakequeen]

have they put out a fall menu yet?

[BryanZ]

It is my understanding that the menu is constantly evolving to include new dishes.

[cupcakequeen]

it is constantly evolving, but the menu on the website says "summer" and the desserts haven't changed for a couple months & i know they were discussing changing them when i visited. just curious if anyone's been there lately.

[gaf]

Cupcake Queen - this is from yesterday.

Just Desserts New York City Entry #22

The relationship between a head chef and a pastry chef is rarely between equals. That we speak of "chef" and "pastry chef" displays a hierarchy by virtue of the extra descriptor alone. Virtuous diners skip dessert, seeing the denouement as a needless excrescence, and because desserts are typically served cold, they are often seen as less a performance than the hot dishes they follow. In my observations, pastry chefs, even if they prepare far more than pastries, pies, and cakes, do not work during the evening, preparing their morsels earlier in the day, home to sup quietly with the family. Not laboring in the kitchen inferno, they are not truly part of the trade. All too many restaurants, even some who advertise their stars, outsource the production of sweets. Made in Bangalore.

The relatively low status of the masters of dessert is evident by a simple thought experiment in this age of celebrity chefs. Most food savvy New Yorkers can rattle off the names of a dozen or more great chefs, but how many of these are pastry chefs? (Chicagoans may justly name Gale Gand whose magic outshines that of her husband Rick Tramonto at Tru). How many pastry chefs have restaurants named after them with the entree chef as second fiddle? Someone will certainly come up with such an example to which I will smugly add the line on which every mistaken loser relies, "That's the exception that proves the rule."

And yet the brilliant pastry chef can rescue a meal from the muddle that the chef has left.

In entering WD-50 I expected that my task would be to compare this outpost of "agape cuisine" with those standouts that have made the Second City the First City of cutting-edge dining. Leaving I knew that my story was of sweet closings.

WD-50 is a restaurant that is often compared to Alinea, Moto, and Avenues in Chicago (and El Bulli and the Fat Duck in Europe). This 60 seat Lower East Side "eclectic new American" has received much buzz, but a fair measure of disappointment. In considering my twelve course tasting menu ($95), it is not hard to see why. Wylie Dufresne seems to lack a sense of harmony that Chefs Achatz, Cantu, and Bowles share at their best, even while teasing and tormenting. These men are former students at the stoves of Charlie Trotter, and his academy left its mark. Trotter insists that his cooks and his diners think about their meals, and each chef has adopted this view in various ways, treating each food as an exercise in philosophy.

Chef Dufresne comes to his craft from other stoves, trained by Jean-Georges Vongerichten, whose cuisine is characterized by powerful flavors and challenging combinations, but not by a challenge to ideas of dining. Chef Dufresne carries this style one step further, but eating at WD-50, one feels that one is attending to a working cook, not a theorist.

It is appropriate (and surely desirable) when that cook has a palate that surprises and delights, melding different tastes into one. Others can write with words, while chefs must write with herbs, spices, meat, and mash: the poetry of the plate. However, in the eight dishes selected by Chef Dufresne for the Tasting Menu the tones were off. (The chef was not in the kitchen the night that we dined at WD-50, but the problems were not with the execution, but with the conceptions).

The problem in almost every Dufresne dish was that one flavor - and a jarring one - dominated the plate. The fact that the taste is unsettling, coupled with some instances of technocuisine, allows WD-50 to be classed under the El Bulli umbrella. The trick to have a satisfying meal at WD-50 is to take charge of one's plate, exiling the offending ingredient. Chef Dufresne needs to tame his creative urges, tasting his dishes as his customers might. Only then will he distinguish harmony from dissonance.

We began with a lovely pistachio soup with sour cherries, and a touch of garlic and lemon thyme. This would have been an ethereal starter. The cherries and thyme were quite sufficient to add the spark to the mild soup. Chef, drop that skillet. Yet, sitting in this innocent soup was a lump of marinated sardine. I have nothing against sardines - and used to eat them from the can and enjoyed a treatment on this workingman's fish at Prune. Dufresne's marinated sardine was well-prepared, it just belonged in an alternative universe. No pistachio, cherry, or thyme can win a battle with marinated fish. The answer was of course triage, creating two dishes from one.

This opening seemed an eccentricity of the chef, and diners find quirks in other temples of agape. However, the second dish had a similar problem. We were presented with a glowing pink puck of foie gras mousse, huddled at the edge of a large plate, perched on shamrock pixie dust, described as dehydrated green pea "soil." Our server advised use to cut the cylinder. Shades of Moto! Out spilled crimson beet liquor: Lucifer's boiled egg. This was Chef Dufresne's most explicit bow to Chicago's gang of three. I felt that the beet jus didn't fully bring out the flavor of the mousse (the candied olives helped). Here the problem was the soil. Let us give the chef points for cute, but deduct for a mix that was more salt than sweet pea. Pushing the soil to the side, the remainder could be savored, but, unless this represented an error of preparation, someone should have noticed the clash.

Third was Dufresne's canonical "Shrimp cannelloni," neighboring a bright orange chorizo smear and selected micro Thai basil. Shrimp cannelloni is "pasta" of extruded shrimp. Although cleverness can get wearying, the shrimp, basil and chorizo made a disarming match. The problem here was a hidden ingredient: preserved lemon. Once again, this one ingredient so dominated the plate that one had to rely upon the childish technique of making sure that different foods didn't touch. Without that preserved lemon - or by eating it as a mid-course amuse - I could come to appreciate the conception that went into a Mexican mix of sausage and prawn.

Our first meat dish was "picked beef tongue, fried mayo, onion streusel, and tomato molasses." The tongue was thinly sliced, an amiable lunchmeat, lacking the meatiness that I expected. The fried mayo, little dice of breaded Hellman's - another bow to adorable cuisine - nicely paired with the tongue. My disappointment here was a tomato molasses that smacked of prune and coffee aromas. Once again - my repetitions are becoming tiring - by exiling the molasses, the tongue could be enjoyed. (WD-50 does not serve bread, only crackly sesame flatbread, but I would have appreciated a roll to mop the piquant sauce).

A second dish that captures a sense of amazement was the "carrot-coconut sunnyside up." Here Chef Dufresne pays homage to the humble fried egg. A carrot yolk, seasoned with olive oil, is surrounded by cardamon coconut milk albumen. This dish is primarily notable for its trompe l'oiel texture (trompe les doigt?). Poking the creation one might imagine breakfast at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe. The dish tasted less impressive than it looked. The carrot dominated, although neither component was memorable. That the chef imaged the dish was sufficient without having to consume more than a bite or two.

"Hamachi with sausage flakes, plantain gnocchi, nasturtium smear, coffee-infused water chestnuts" was a more satisfying main course. While the intense coffee could have dominated, the Hamachi fillet held up well. The plantain was too mild, but eating the gnocchi as a separate mouthful allowed an appreciation of the tropics.

The carrot confit, hibiscus sorbet, and crispy lamb belly was a strange selection. Chef Dufresne prepared the lamb as bacon. What might have been an original and amusing encounter with a novel taste was lost in its preparation, less impressive than Alinea's bacon on a trapeze. A so-what moment. Here a too-sour hibiscus sorbet that destroyed the sweet-savory flavor that the carrot confit might have added to the belly. With the belly unimpressive and the hibiscus in its own world, I was left to commiserate with the finely-made confit.

Our final main course was a beautifully presented plate squab breast, crispy squab skin, sweet potato jus, and golden beets encrusted in ruby beet chips. The jutting crispy squab skin paid tribute to Albert Portale's architectural cuisine without requiring a building permit. While I found the beet in beet a little precious (although the contrasting textures of sharp and smooth were pleasing), the squab was succulent, and the potato jus added to the gamy flavor, sweetening without losing wildness. This was a dishes that I endorse without qualification.

At this moment, despite the success of the squab I was troubled. The meal did not compare with meals at Moto, Alinea, and Avenues. Would my Gotham friends see me as a hopeless Second City rube? Perhaps the New York Department of Health doesn't permit philosophers in the kitchen.

The miracle of Pastry Chef Sam Mason squelched a well-honed prairie suspicion. The quintet of desserts proved that some startling unions are blessed. (Four desserts are usually served, after pleading caffeine sensitivity, I was sent an alternative).

Often the more creative a chef, the more s/he hopes to capture the flavors of childhood. Some succeed, but occasionally one is glad that our toys have been put aside. Chef Mason served a plate of celery sorbet, peanut butter crispies, and pickled raisons. Ants on a log: a stalk of celery, smeared with Jif, plumbed with raisons. This is every mother's healthy snack. Mason transformed each ingredient, everything but the memory. And how they were transformed: the celery became sorbet, the peanut butter, cereal, and the raisons, pickles. What was a childhood compromise becomes an ageless delight.

When one sees "rice and beans" on a contemporary menu, one knows that the rice and beans will be steeped in irony. Here rice was a luscious, light, luxurious sorbet surrounded by an azuki bean jelly and lines of emerald bright cilantro puree. Both the beans and the cilantro deepened the cool, mild rice. This is how tastes should be combined: the sweet starch of the azukis played off the herbaceous coriander. Bravo.

I begged for Chef Mason's parsnip cake, served with carrot cream and carrot paper (a crispy carrot skin or the thinnest vegetable flatbread imaginable). Every cake deserves a scoop, and the chef's choice was a luscious coconut cream cheese sorbet. Although most non-chocolate desserts have a puckery fruit base, this wily cake was constructed in tones of dairy and roots. It was not the most colorful dish on the menu; its color was in its taste.

My companion was served the milk-chocolate-hazelnut parfait cake with an orange reduction. Once again I begged (I'm rather good at this), and was rewarded with a forkful of mastery. Chocolate, nuts, and orange are made for each other, and this pastry proved the rule.

As we reached the end of the meal, we wondered about the "cocoa cotton balls." WD-50 is not Moto, so our closing amuse was not a Mississippi boll (with weevil sprinkles?), but a delicious truffle filled with what was a cross between cotton candy and a malted milk ball. It was the fitting end to a string of desserts that I wryly dub my favorite recent meal.

Chef Dufresne is a cook with guts. I admire that. He is willing to stretch boundaries, to puzzle, and to offend. And his style of presentation with separated ingredients and not stewed together permits diners to work with and around his presumptions. Perhaps his cuisine will provoke glorious amazement if he can imagine his meals on his diner's tongues.

Chef Mason, a native Floridian, is an artist of another sphere. Should I be offered the opportunity to invest in an imagined hotspot - Mason's Dixie? - I would sell a kidney, confident that he could whip up another on pain perdu.

WD-50

50 Clinton Street

Manhattan (Lower East Side)

212-477-2900

Vealcheeks

[docsconz]

A brief moderator's note: although the above review has the appearance of possible copyright issues, it is written by the poster and taken by him directly from his blog. While this probably does not need to be pointed out here, I thought it best to do so to avoid any potential further questions or issues.

By the way, very nice review. Thanks for sharing it with us. My personal feeling echoes yours. Both Wylie and Sam are tremendous talents who complement each other fantastically.

[dRock]

A brief moderator's note: although the above review has the appearance of possible copyright issues, it is written by the poster and taken by him directly from his blog. While this probably does not need to be pointed out here, I thought it best to do so to avoid any potential further questions or issues.

By the way, very nice review. Thanks for sharing it with us. My personal feeling echoes yours. Both Wylie and Sam are tremendous talents who complement each other fantastically.

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I heard through the grapevein the Wd-50 may be having problems and there is a possibility they may close. Is there any truth to this? I did call on a wednesday for a reservation for thursday and they had any time available. Does anyone know if things a going well over there or are these things i am hearing just rumors.

[docsconz]

I don't think that the restaurant has ever been a money machine, but I hope this is nothing more than a rumor.