Le Bernardin (New York, NY) [2]

Le Bernardin
155 W 51st St
New York, NY 10019
Dining date: 9/26/16

I’ve been to Le Bernardin once, dining on the chefs tasting menu in the main dining room. This time, I came to try more of Eric Ripert’s seafood-centric cuisine in the bar/lounge area.

The restaurant serves the full menu in the lounge, as well as a ‘City Harvest menu’ for lunch. This fixed menu offers three courses (two options for each) for $49, with $5 of that going to a local organization called City Harvest (which helps feed the city’s underprivileged). Given that $49 could be the price of just one entree in the main dining room, this seemed like a great price point to drop in for lunch on a few courses.

Salmon organic salmon, candy-striped beets, pumpernickel croutons, horseradish sauce

Slices of rich salmon were paired with some fruit-forward olive oil and horseradish cream. Pumpernickel toast added just a bit of texture to the dish.

Merluza sauteed merluza, grilled eggplant, herbes de provence-red wine sauce

This fish had crisp edges and a moist flesh – it was really delicious. Creamy eggplant and a red wine jus provided more savory depth. This dish really helped re-affirm, to me, why this is one of the best seafood restaurants in the city.

Mango mango parfait, hazelnut dacquoise, thai basil-mango emulsion

This was a great dessert featuring wonderful mango flavor within the parfait, and some bright herb flavor within the Thai basil-mango emulsion. Really nice combination of flavors.

This lunch deal was a relative steal for Le Bernardin. I thought the meal was quite strong and would totally come back for this three courser again.