Gilt is located in the New York Palace Hotel in the former Le Cirque space. You enter the restaurant through the hotel lobby and walk into the main bar area, which has this incredibly cheesy neon lit textured backsplash that made me and my sister feel as if we were at Foxwoods, Mohegan Sun or some AC casino bar. The host leads you to the main dining room through a pair of pocket doors that remain only slightly ajar through service. The dining area is an intimate space of about 15 tables with chestnut wood panel and gilded era type style. Up a few steps on one end of the room is the kitchen, into which diners can peek through another set of partially ajar pocket doors. On the night I went, I only saw absolute calm and precision in the kitchen, which was no surprise given the quality of food with which we were presented.
The service the entire evening was impeccable, but the waiters were a bit more rigid and less inclined to smile and joke then I like. The only thing that detracted a bit from the food was the crowd, which was such a bizarre mix the night we were there that my sister and I couldn’t help but just sit back and observe. The pair that won the gold medal in weirdness was the couple next to us that sat down about 5 minutes after we did, took about 20 pictures of each plate of food, and then proceeded to let each course sit in front of them untouched for 40 minutes or so (they were still on their second course when we were leaving!). But enough about that, it’s time to get back to the food.
Gilt has two Michelin stars and in my opinion it deserves both. Executive Chef Justin Bogle’s menu is American with modern twists and a seasonal undertone. The menus offered are a three course prix fixe, a five course tasting menu, or a grand tasting menu of seven courses. My sister and I opted for the middle ground, five course tasting menu, which for each of us ended up being the perfect amount of food. The price points for the wine by the glass are a bit on the steep side in my opinion, but the nebbiolo I had was delightful despite the $20 price tag per glass.
The bread basket offered five choices that really made me stop and think what I should do. My sister and I had three of the five: butternut squash and herb roll, manchego twist roll, and apple and cheddar bread. All were the perfect carb texture and wonderfully flavorful, but the winner was the apple and cheddar, which was the ideal balance of sweet and salty.
I can’t express enough how beautiful the presentation of each and every course we had was. It began with our amuse bouche which was a square of finely chopped lobster ceviche, which was silky in texture and had a wonderful spice kick to it. My first course was tuna with wasabi avocado mousse. The plate contained three pieces of tuna with different sauces, sudachi (a citrus), black sesame, and shiso. The sesame piece was my favorite with a thin black sesame meringue on it that coupled with the tuna perfectly and was everything in one (sweet, crisp, salty, and earthy). My sister had the autumn salad which was baby root vegetables with carrot vinaigrette. This was okay, but nothing extraordinary. All of the remaining courses were the same for us but they had substituted the salad for the tuna for my sister.
The second course is probably my favorite of the night and it should come as no surprise that it contained a pork product. The dish “bacon and eggs” was just extraordinary with cavier, egg custard, bacon confit with this thin round of crisp brioche and fried cippolini. The bacon confit was basically bacon jam, a salty, sweet condiment that’s heavenly, the egg was airy and light, and the cavier was the salty goodness that it needed to be. All the flavors and textures were perfectly balanced and each bite just tasted better than the one before it. I looked up and saw the sadness on my sister’s face when she was done and I was certain she was seeing the same emotion reflected on my face.
Up next was red snapper with puffed sorghum (sort of like mini popcorn), corn custard, and abalone fish sauce. The sauce on this dish was tad too fishy tasting for me, however, my sister really liked it. Nevertheless the silky, sweet corn custard made the course worth it for me because it was amazing. Our final savory course was dry-aged strip with bone marrow mousse, mushrooms, and beef jus. This was a delicious and absolutely beautiful piece of meat that was very tender. The beef jus was so rich and meaty that I wished there was more of it.
After our main course, our waiter brought us a pre-dessert of yuzu mousse with poached pear. I love a pre-dessert and this only made me love them even more. Our dessert was rocky road, which was squares of chocolate and nuts with marshmallows, and they brought us an extra dessert, ricotta cheesecake with berries. Both desserts were very good, but neither were anything I would crave. Although in fair disclosure, I was a bit obsessed with the marshmallows on the rocky road dessert, as they were coated in graham cracker crumbs in a way that made me want to hold them over the candle on our table. The petit fours were a bit underwhelming, a peanut butter and jelly square, caramel chocolate, fruit gelee, and a mini tart. None of these were standouts for my sister or me.
As a little aside, I’m conflicted with tasting menus that don’t offer options. If you are dining with someone you are both getting all the same thing and I prefer to try the most I can of what a restaurant has to offer. My sister argued that it was nice not to have to share your dishes and perhaps this is a partial motivation for this style. I suppose in retrospect it was rather nice that I didn’t have to share any of my food at Gilt because I was enjoying it so much!
The service the entire evening was impeccable, but the waiters were a bit more rigid and less inclined to smile and joke then I like. The only thing that detracted a bit from the food was the crowd, which was such a bizarre mix the night we were there that my sister and I couldn’t help but just sit back and observe. The pair that won the gold medal in weirdness was the couple next to us that sat down about 5 minutes after we did, took about 20 pictures of each plate of food, and then proceeded to let each course sit in front of them untouched for 40 minutes or so (they were still on their second course when we were leaving!). But enough about that, it’s time to get back to the food.
Gilt has two Michelin stars and in my opinion it deserves both. Executive Chef Justin Bogle’s menu is American with modern twists and a seasonal undertone. The menus offered are a three course prix fixe, a five course tasting menu, or a grand tasting menu of seven courses. My sister and I opted for the middle ground, five course tasting menu, which for each of us ended up being the perfect amount of food. The price points for the wine by the glass are a bit on the steep side in my opinion, but the nebbiolo I had was delightful despite the $20 price tag per glass.
The bread basket offered five choices that really made me stop and think what I should do. My sister and I had three of the five: butternut squash and herb roll, manchego twist roll, and apple and cheddar bread. All were the perfect carb texture and wonderfully flavorful, but the winner was the apple and cheddar, which was the ideal balance of sweet and salty.
I can’t express enough how beautiful the presentation of each and every course we had was. It began with our amuse bouche which was a square of finely chopped lobster ceviche, which was silky in texture and had a wonderful spice kick to it. My first course was tuna with wasabi avocado mousse. The plate contained three pieces of tuna with different sauces, sudachi (a citrus), black sesame, and shiso. The sesame piece was my favorite with a thin black sesame meringue on it that coupled with the tuna perfectly and was everything in one (sweet, crisp, salty, and earthy). My sister had the autumn salad which was baby root vegetables with carrot vinaigrette. This was okay, but nothing extraordinary. All of the remaining courses were the same for us but they had substituted the salad for the tuna for my sister.
The second course is probably my favorite of the night and it should come as no surprise that it contained a pork product. The dish “bacon and eggs” was just extraordinary with cavier, egg custard, bacon confit with this thin round of crisp brioche and fried cippolini. The bacon confit was basically bacon jam, a salty, sweet condiment that’s heavenly, the egg was airy and light, and the cavier was the salty goodness that it needed to be. All the flavors and textures were perfectly balanced and each bite just tasted better than the one before it. I looked up and saw the sadness on my sister’s face when she was done and I was certain she was seeing the same emotion reflected on my face.
Up next was red snapper with puffed sorghum (sort of like mini popcorn), corn custard, and abalone fish sauce. The sauce on this dish was tad too fishy tasting for me, however, my sister really liked it. Nevertheless the silky, sweet corn custard made the course worth it for me because it was amazing. Our final savory course was dry-aged strip with bone marrow mousse, mushrooms, and beef jus. This was a delicious and absolutely beautiful piece of meat that was very tender. The beef jus was so rich and meaty that I wished there was more of it.
After our main course, our waiter brought us a pre-dessert of yuzu mousse with poached pear. I love a pre-dessert and this only made me love them even more. Our dessert was rocky road, which was squares of chocolate and nuts with marshmallows, and they brought us an extra dessert, ricotta cheesecake with berries. Both desserts were very good, but neither were anything I would crave. Although in fair disclosure, I was a bit obsessed with the marshmallows on the rocky road dessert, as they were coated in graham cracker crumbs in a way that made me want to hold them over the candle on our table. The petit fours were a bit underwhelming, a peanut butter and jelly square, caramel chocolate, fruit gelee, and a mini tart. None of these were standouts for my sister or me.
As a little aside, I’m conflicted with tasting menus that don’t offer options. If you are dining with someone you are both getting all the same thing and I prefer to try the most I can of what a restaurant has to offer. My sister argued that it was nice not to have to share your dishes and perhaps this is a partial motivation for this style. I suppose in retrospect it was rather nice that I didn’t have to share any of my food at Gilt because I was enjoying it so much!
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