Kreuther's Atelier: Ten Years Ago

[Pink Pig Time Machine by Wilfrid:  January 21, 2012]

Atelier, at the Ritz-Carlton on Central Park South, was really one of the most thoroughly enjoyable fine dining restaurants in New York, during the brief two years when Gabriel Kreuther, fresh from Jean-Georges, was at the helm.

He's held a steady course at The Modern for nearly eight years now, of course, but it was at Atelier that we first got to know classics like the squab and foie gras croustillante.

It was a blow-out tasting menu I ate there in January, 2003.  The week leading up to it was quiet on the dining front.  I cooked one of my favorite dishes, guinea-fowl with toasted cheese and apples.  I visited Bar Demi and Angel's Share.  I sat at the bar at Enoteca i Trulli to eat a selection of salume and work my way through a tasting of Northern Italian reds.

The same night, I headed up to the Firebird on Restaurant Row, not to dine, but to watch Mark Nadlet--for whom the word "madcap" might have been invented--blast out his one-man show, "Tchaikovsky and Other Russians."

As it happened, I had lunch at Lupa the same day I dined at Atelier.  I assume it must have been an early lunch.  A plate of salami, prosciutto, mortadella, and the overly melty inhouse testa to start.  Then shared plates of gnocchi with sausage and fennel ragù, regular spaghetti with guanciale and onions, farro spaghetti, and pork ravioli with butter and thyme.  

A decent walk in the afternoon, before some "R de Ruinart" at Flute, and the Atelier tasting.

Smoked trout canapé

Amuse bouche of goat cheese, layered with smoked salmon, tied with a scallion

Quail and quail egg in Boston lettuce, quail leg, brunoise of black truffle, black truffle jelly

Carpaccio of scallops and blue fin tuna with osetra caviar, balsamico dressing

Seared Hudson Valley foie gras, olive oil, grapefruit

Peasant flour-soup, with frog's legs

Turbot with black truffles and black truffle sauce

Maine lobster with eleven herbs, ramps, potatoes

Moroccan croustillante of squab, foie gras and savoy cabbage, young vegetables

Pierre Robert, Ticklemore, Livarot, Stilton

Orange gelée with cream, coconut soup, Granny Smith apple soup

Poached pear, ice cream

Chocolates, petits fours

Taittinger NV; Hudelot Noellat Vosne-Romanée 1er Cru "Les Suchots," 1999; Muscat B de V

Wow.  Those must have been some early ramps.  The flour soup with frog's legs, along with the pigeon pie, has become a Kreuther signature.  One of several startlingly good meals at the place, and as if I couldn't get enough black truffles, I was at dB Bistro Moderne for the highly publicised $50 black truffle burger a few days later.