We had a great time in the City. The one thing that we scheduled was a visit to Aquavit (why .org, I have no idea. They definately aren’t a charity…), and the meal was even more amazing than we imagined it would be. We blew half of our budget for the entire trip on one dinner, but it was well worth it. The restaurant is the first really successful Swedish restaurant in the US, and the chef is Marcus Samuelsson, a black Swede who has won numerous awards for his creative cooking. For the curious, here’s roughly what we ate and drank (bear in mind I can’t do justice to describing the presentation, which is an integral part of the whole experience, and was incredible).
Since the restaurant is named after aquavit, a fruit-infused vodka, I had to try a shot. The Wife had a magnificent non-alcoholic strawberry lemonade. I chose berry-lime-ginger aquavit. It was very nice; not quite as strong as drinking vodka straight, with fruit flavors that were not overpoweringly sweet but complimented the vodka and each other beautifully. I’d take it over a dry martini any day, even if it doesn’t have the health benefits it is named after. Here’s the food; keep in mind everything was pretty small, but at the end, we were very full:
- skewer of cherry tomato and cucumber with halibut salad and anchovy mousse
- raw oyster on a half shell with mango sorbet and caviar (they brought The Wife something different)
- smoked salmon with cream sorbet, caviar, black mustard, and salmon roe
That all came before the official first course, by the way. The actual courses were:
- raw tuna (seared scallops for The Wife) and pickled herring on potato mousse, with baby basil, chanterelle mushrooms, cubes of yellow watermelon and a cherry tomato (peeled of course). This was interesting; I don’t usually like herring, and I don’t usually eat raw fish, but I enjoyed both of them.
- lobster tail with Some Incredible Seasonings, porcini mushroom cream, with spinach sauce and potato gratin. I will never have lobster that good again, I’m quite sure.
- foie gras with medallions of duck on cucumber cubes, with a honey-peppercorn glaze. Lots of foie gras; inside a pastry-mini-pot-pie shell.
- medallions of NY strip steak on a mango-caper bed, with date sauce. This was the least impressive to me, I think. It was good, but the quality of the steak was not phenomenal, and the date sauce could have been more flavorful.
- a white cheese (swiss?) with peppercorns, a sweet black olive flan, and a ball of rosemary bread. Excellent. The flavors were amazingly complementary. I have never had a black olive flan before…
- raspberry tart served with chocolate mousse and a citrus-vanilla bean reduction glaze. Mmm.
- guava panna cotta with lightly carmelized yellow watermelon, ginger sorbet. I like a chef who serves two desserts; I didn’t know we were going to get three:
- bonus dessert (one to share): apparently a goat-cheese sorbet tower (but not at all goat-y) with amazing passionfruit filling, with blueberry sorbet on top. He calls it an Arctic Circle. It may have been the best of the three.
- After-dinner treats: chocolate covered fava beans, fresh marshmallows, and guava gelee. The guava gelee stole that show. It was like candy is supposed to be; more fruit than sugar, but sticky and sweet.
The dinner was accompanied by a choice of 6 breads. I stuck to the rustic Italian bread, as it is my favorite traditional dinner bread. This was the best I have eaten anywhere. We drank Swedish sparkling water, and finished up with chamomile tea for The Wife and a cappuccino for me (strangely, the tea cost more than the cappuccino…)
I can’t say enough about the service. I have been to a good number of nice restaurants, but the service at Aquavit exceeded anything I’ve ever experienced. When we arrived and were seated by the maitre’d, he let us know that the table was ours for the night, and we could take our time, “I’m here until 3AM” (we arrived at 6!). When a guest left the room for the restroom, her napkin was folded and placed over the chair arm, and a waiter was there when she returned to pull out the chair. They were excellent at reading the pacing we wanted to take through the meal, and never made us feel rushed. We didn’t leave until after 9:30, I think.
The architecture was not phenomenal. The access to the restaurant is the lower level of Nelson Rockefeller’s old house; but the seating area itself is a level below in a sort of late-80s office atrium. It is a pleasant space, but nothing really special; however, there is a two-story waterfall along the wall at one end of the atrium that really made the space. It is a copper wall, maybe 20′ high by 30′ wide, with a sheet of water cascading over the entire wall. We sat near it, and the sound was better than any Muzak. They aren’t going to win any interior awards for the restaurant as a whole, though.
I can’t recommend Aquavit highly enough, if you’re in NYC and have some money burning a hole in your pocket. (If you’re in Toronto, by the way, I recommend Opus on Prince Arthur, which is the last great meal we had two years ago.) Aquavit is on 54th, between 5th and 6th.
I’ll post some pictures of the trip when I get them downloaded, and assuming there are any shots worth posting. I’m going to go back to my blueberry muffin at the local coffee shop now.
