Daniel Boulud’s French Showpiece with a Manhattan View, Le Pavillon | The New Yorker
"Set in One Vanderbilt, I found Le Pavillon to be Daniel Boulud’s attempt to create “an oasis of peace and harmony” amid Midtown’s bustle: a welcoming square bar (dubbed Bar Vandy) looks out over Grand Central, its taxi stand, and the Chrysler Building, while a blown-glass chandelier by Andy Paiko hangs from a cathedral ceiling and olive trees and verdant plants line the hushed dining room. The back corner can feel like a little Siberia—beige upholstery and semi-sheer curtains that can’t quite conceal the Chick-fil-A across Forty-second Street—but the warm, extremely attentive service and the cooking mostly make you forget that. Opened in May (three months late), the restaurant bills itself as “vegetable-forward and seafood-centric,” offering a prix-fixe format with a vast list of starters (twelve, none with meat), entrées (twelve, three with meat), and desserts (no meat, plus cheese); the three-course menu is $125. A slightly dour amuse-bouche of celery root, Concord grape, and a wisp of wasabi was an odd note, but the rest of the meal is often a study in technique: oysters Vanderbilt—plump John’s River oysters from Maine poached in a chowder with potatoes, leeks, crème fraîche, and hazelnuts, spooned into shells and topped with a crust of seaweed, parsley, butter, and more hazelnuts—out-Rockefellers Rockefeller in richness; an emulsion with a Vidalia-onion tart tastes like liquid Époisses; a clear mushroom broth lifts halibut layered with Martha’s Vineyard shiitakes; duck with plum sauce is paired with a roasted turnip stuffed with duck forcemeat as a modern canard aux navets; and a miniature potato gratin glazed in beef-stock reduction makes an ideal bite alongside an Angus strip loin. For dessert, be sure someone who’s good at sharing gets the Noisette Chocolat—the quintessential Boulud pièce de résistance, with controlled whimsy, precise geometry, silken mousse, flawless chocolate coating, a crumbly nutty praline croustillant, and a strong hit of salt." - Shauna Lyon
