33 Years Later, Le Bernardin is still the New York's Top Seafood Splurge

    Salmon, in its most popular form in New York, is distinctly unappealing. Adam Platt of New York magazine once referred to it as the "Cheerios of restaurant cuisine," before noting that it was "predictable" and "useless" to critics. In reality, the final time Pete Wells emphatically utilized the word salmon in one of his uncommon four-star audits was in 2012 when he composed up Le Bernardin, Eric Ripert, and Maguy Le Coze’s French fish royal residence within the Theater Locale. It was just a passing mention. I'll be a little longer.

    Do one thing to understand why Le Bernardin is still one of the city's most exciting and technically astute restaurants, a gem of a splurge that won't break the bank as much as other fine dining establishments: order the salmon.

    It's best served raw with Moroccan seasonings. Flawless rectangles of angle sit on the plate-like taps of creamsicle-colored butter. They soften on the tongue, discharging warming, musky notes of argan oil and cumin.

    Arrange it burned, with a Northern Indian flavor mix. Cuts of red-hued ocean trout — portion of the salmon family — about drop separated when pushed. They overflow fat, enrobing the mouth in a smooth. A dice of simmered tomatoes include acidic alleviation, whereas coriander and garlic confer a sharp intrigue.

    Arrange it in pot-au-feu. Chefs put the angle in a shallow pool of water and warm it for fair a number of minutes, scarcely firming up the meat. Tableside, a server encompasses it with a canal of veal and meat broth, at that point spoons dark truffle butter over it. A whisper of well-done substance acts as a counterpoint to the shaky pink filet; its sufficient oils channel a sizable chunk of salmon roe. A dosage of broth at that point brings a surge of substantial, hearty adjustment. Here, the magnificent angle is as lavish as wagyu.

    It’s enticing to type in “Le Bernardin has still got it,” but that’s what Michelin pronounces, without much setting, each harvest time when it grants another set of three stars to the eatery. The more complex reality is that Unused York fish has advanced within the 33 a long time since Maguy and her late brother, Gilbert, moved their Parisian eatery to Unused York. Specifically, there’s a hell of a parcel with more competition presently. Milos, with its jet-set lavraki and yacht-friendly rates, debuted in 1997. Marea opened in the midst of the financial crisis in 2009, and it now offers caviar in the midst of $100 million homes. In recent years, the exorbitant sushi economy has begun to take hold. A wealthy clientele seeking (endangered) bluefin in all its fatty types frequents a slew of tiny bars, many of them in trendy downtown locations.

    So, as the new decade approaches, how much culinary relevance can a Times Square-adjacent French restaurant boast? As it turns out, quite a bit.

    Le Bernardin's salmon alone could compete with any posh omakase restaurant. The menu focuses on environmentally conscious catches with a stunning array of textures and flavors. The mouthfeel of langoustines is somewhere between marrow and gelatin. Amberjack, or Hiramasa, bleeds luscious oils. The smooth, ropy mouthfeel of poached skate is similar to that of Cuban ropa vieja. Ripert and Eric Gestel, a long-serving lieutenant who was recently promoted to executive chef, haven't served bluefin in over a decade.

    Another bonus is that the menus are more affordable than those of the city's most renowned sushi restaurants, at $165 for four courses, $198 for a taste, and $228 for a longer lunch. The beverage program is also generous in nature. Aldo Sohm, the wine director, has a number of glasses under $20, including a flinty skin touch grüner veltliner (sound the air raid sirens, there's finally a natural wine at Le Bern), as well as a seven-pour pairing for $95.

    The room, which was updated in 2012, still sparkles. The back wall also has a tumultuous mural of the ocean, deep green and larger than my studio apartment. Patrons who appear to be dressed for a black-tie charity ball are pampered on leather banquettes. Even if patrons just obey the (absurd) rule of "jackets needed," they would wonder if they should have dressed up in a tux. With airy zalto stems and silver tastevins — shallow cups used to check the color and clarity of wine — a team of mostly female sommeliers glides across space, an outlier in this male-dominated industry.

    Waiters sprint to tables with sauce pots in hand. There's a lot of sauce; on any given day, there might be up to 30 different kinds. They are the cornerstone of any dish, conveying endless layers of aroma, acid, meatiness, and creaminess. They aren't so much a performative flourish as they are the cornerstone of any dish, conveying endless layers of aroma, acid, meatiness, and creaminess. As a result, the visual style leans more toward "rustic shallow soup" than "made for Instagram," but none of that matters until you start eating. As well as slurping.

    Vincent Robinson, a saucier who has worked here for over thirty years, is responsible for every hot broth. Despite the fact that saucing is a notoriously fickle feature of gastronomy — these delicate potions will collapse if you look at them the wrong way — Robinson works with the precision of a particle collider physicist.

    Take another hiramasa. It's far too rich on its own. Gestel adds tiny shrimp for sweetness and matsutake for a hint of pine, riffing on a light Japanese stew called nabe. Then, a tub of lemongrass dashi brings it all together, enhancing the seafaring flavor while reducing the oil.

    To detect the subtle coastal aromas in a peekytoe crab dish, one must focus, almost praying. It needs assistance, but not a great deal of it. So the kitchen adds a light shellfish sauce with a touch of fragrant coconut curry that only appears when you say the word fenugreek three times fast enough.

    Ripert has long been fascinated by Asia, but Le Bernardin has espoused nautical globalism rivaled only by the more relaxed Saint Julivert in the last decade. In 2019, that translated to India and North Africa getting sharp, salmon-y hat tips. It also denotes a transatlantic perspective on Spanish-speaking countries. The chefs sear the octopus to a bouncy crunch — nothing out of the ordinary. The flavor station then adds a swatch of poblano mole, a few cilantro shoots, and a pour of Spanish chorizo sauce. At first, the taste is soft, grassy, and nutty before transitioning to a deep smokiness. Aldo then comes over with a $15 glass of Navazos Niepoort, a non-fortified fino with a tongue-scrubbing yeastiness that cleans the palate.

    A young Le Bernardin offered sea urchin cooked in the shell with its own juices decades before neighborhood brasseries started placing it on a flatbread pizza. Craig Claiborne wrote in 1986, "It smacks of the sea." Le Bernardin continues to embrace powerful flavors thirty years later, sometimes dipping into depths of fire, oil, and funk not seen in even new tasting menu spots.

    Take the geoduck, which is popular in Cantonese seafood restaurants but uncommon in posh French eateries. The phallic shelled beast is sliced into paper-thin rounds by Le Bernardin. It arrived in August with only a few slices of cucumber and jalapeno. The mollusk snapped with a scallop-like sweetness before releasing a tang that reminded me of a fresh clam dipped in tidal foam. The chile then came in, jolting the palate with a capsaicin kick that was even by hot wing standards violent.

    A server brings over the surf and turf of the century near the end of the meal: a cube of wagyu and another of Hawaiian walu. The steak has a beefiness that reminds me of a Shake Shack burger, and the texture is similar to silken tofu. The walu, which is unusually firmer than its bovine equivalent, is rich in oils and charred on the grill; it's as tasty and nuanced as a slab of more regal tuna belly.

    If only the calamari had the same zing. The stuffed squid with romesco sauce didn't rise above a close, cheaper tapas bar dish. Nonetheless, the caviar atop tuna carpaccio has such a mild taste that you wouldn't know it was caviar if you ate it. On the four-course menu, where it costs an extra $50, the miss will be even more painful. And, though I've never had a bad a la carte dinner here, the laws of percentages dictate that a flop is felt more acutely over a shorter meal.

    Bear in mind that the waiters at Le Bernardin may have a retro formality that doesn't always match the modern cuisine or uber-cool wine service. The honorifics "monsieur" and "madame" are used so often — more often than anywhere else I've eaten in the Francophone world — that you half expect a singing tea kettle and dancing candelabra to accompany the desserts.

    Those sweets are as cartoonish as they should be.

    Taking influence from Albert Adria's trompe l'oeil works, pastry chef Thomas Raquel can deceive you into believing you're eating a real apple. There isn't any. Instead, Raquel uses brown butter mousse to cover an apple confit core before painting and glazing the sphere to make it appear like a miniature McIntosh. Cutting into fruit and discovering cream is a fantasy that every child should have at least once in their lives.

    The chocolate dome tastes like a Junior Mint, and the pate de fruit has so much tart passion fruit flavor that it could easily be mistaken for a Sour Patch Child. Of course, the lesson is that majestic dishes don't have to be stereotypically fancy or mild to achieve their pinnacle. You can get away with salmon on occasion.

Le Bernadin 

(212).554.1515 |  Website

155 West 51st Street, Manhattan, NY 10019