By Contributor John Mariani
Since 1986 Le Bernardin has defined French ch seafood cuisine in America.
Le Bernardin
For the first 25 years of our marriage, my wife and I celebrated our anniversary at the great classic French restaurant in New York named Lutèce, now closed. And ever since then we have done so at the only other restaurant in New York to compare, albeit in a very different style.
The food at Le Bernardin is all seafood (though there is a vegetarian menu offered) and it is all exquisite, creative without ever showing eccentricity and quite unlike anything else one might find in the U.S.
Founder Maguy Le Coze and chef-partner Eric Ripert have never wavered from the unique Le Bernardin … More style.
Le Bernardin
Indeed, by placing ourselves in Chef-owner and partner Maguy Le Coze’s hands, my wife and I have never had the same dish twice over the past fifteen years, even though a few dishes have been on the menu since the restaurant opened in 1986.
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The tables are large, set with thick linens and napery, lovely show plates, China is of the highest quality, silverware is just the right weight and stemware elegantly fragile.
One cannot from a smaller menu at the Lounge at Le Bernardin.
Le Bernardin
Opened by Maguy Le Coze and her chef brother Gilbert, Le Bernardin immediately won the highest praise from the media, including four stars from the New York Times and three from the Michelin Guide. Sadly, Gilbert passed away in 1994 but his second-in-command, Eric Ripert stayed the course, eventually becoming a partner with Maguy. A few dishes abide on the menu from the restaurant’s inception—classics like seafood carpaccio that Le Bernardin pioneered and everyone since has copied. But while keeping within the kitchen’s traditions, Ripert has masterfully allowed the menu to evolve with myriad global flavors.
Each element of a dish at Le Bernardin, like this salmon with caviar, is always balanced so none … More overwhelms another.
Le Bernardin
On our anniversary visit this year my wife and I, as usual, left the menu up to Ripert, which began with kombo salt-cured with Japanese madai, with fresh hearts of palm dressed with a tangy calamansi vinaigrette. Then came lightly steamed lobster with kumquat and charred cucumber in a spiced shellfish-citrus broth.
Quick, even cooking is the essence of Ripert’s cuisine, always maintaining the seafood’s essential flavor, so that Faroe Island salmon is slowly baked and topped with Royal Osetra caviar and a horseradish emulsion one might think would overpower the fish. Instead its subtlety buoys the dish’s saline and briny flavors.
Japanese madai was cured in combo salt.
Le Bernardin
Next came a classic nudged into the 21st century––Dover sole pan-seared with butter, served with Romanesco and cauliflower florets, toasted Almonds and a soy-lime emulsion.
Le Bernardin has a splendid cheese cart from which we each chose four cheeses each.
Summer strawberries with sorbets.
Le Bernardin
Dessert was very summer simple but deeply flavorful: a dish of summer strawberries with sorbets and Tahitian vanilla Chantilly. Chocolates and cookies followed.
If I did not go into greater detail in describing each dish it was because I want to save room to mention all the other aspects of Le Bernardin that make it unique, even among New York’s French restaurants. Each of those aspects have been so carefully honed and modulated over three decades that what may go unnoticed is part of a seamless enactment of exquisite taste.
The dining room itself is done with the same unaffected sophistication, its large tables widely separated, flourish of flowers, artwork reflecting the sea and ideal lighting so one can see the rest of the room as well as the beauty of the dishes served. Despite the room’s capacious size, it is never loud, the noise soaked up by carpeted floors, fabric chairs, thick linens and draperies.
Wine and beverage director Aldo Sohm is also partner at hi namesake wine bar adjacent to Le … More Bernardin
Le Bernardin
When you enter you find all the staff, led by directeur de salle Tomi Dzelaja, impeccably dressed (better than some of the male clientele). The cordial greeting immediately indicates the refinement of what is to follow. The host turns you over to a lovely smiling young woman who shows you to your table. Wine and beverage director Aldo Sohm (who is partner in his namesake wine bar across the breezeway) has a passel of sommeliers who are intent on finding you the right bottle for your taste and budget from an extraordinary wine list.
Three kinds of bread are presented with a ramekin of soft butter that is replaced whenever you’ve used half of it. Special spoons or forks accompany certain dishes, as are wine glasses, which are always refilled without your needing to ask for it.
Captains and waiters carefully spoon or swirl the sauce onto your dish at the table, lest it grow cold on its way from the kitchen.
You will not be continuously interrupted mid-meal to be asked how you like a dish; only after you finish one might you be so queried.
Eric Ripert himself often comes out into the dining room and, though he is something of a media star, greets his fans with a humble demeanor and sincere interest in how you are enjoying your evening. When Maguy Le Coze is at the restaurant she moves through the dining room with savoir-faire, with her hands folded, nodding at everyone.
The sorry news about Le Bernardin is that it is not easy to get a table, even weeks in advance for prime hours. Which is precisely why you will have better luck requesting an early hour or one after 9:30. And now, in the heat of summer, with so many regulars out of town, lunch is easier to book. You may also eat in the posh lounge, if you like, which has its comprehensive menu and dozens of wine by the glass.
All of this determines why Le Bernardin is expensive, but not as much as many others in New York, and considerably less than Parisian counterparts. At Le Bernardin a four-course meal $215, the chef’s tasting menu $350. But a four-course lunch is only $135.
You not only get what you pay for at Le Bernardin but you get more than you expected, which goes just as much for the décor and the service as for the nonpareil cuisine, which is all the more remarkable for a restaurant now in its fourth decade in New York.
Le Bernardin
155 West 51st Street
212-554-1515
Open for lunch Mon.-Fri.; Dinner Mon.-Sat.
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