In 2017, the World's 50 Best organization released its yearly list of 50 Best Restaurants in the world, which had been carefully ranked over the previous year by expert food critics. The restaurant Eleven Madison Park, a 3 Michelin Star restaurant in New York City, topped the list, dethroning the world renowned Osteria Francescana of Modena, Italy.
Around the time that the new list was released (typically it's every year in June and anyone can tune in virtually!), Will, my boyfriend- now husband- and I had just gotten hooked on the Netflix show "Chef's Table." Essentially, the (very addicting) documentary series highlights some of the best restaurants and chefs in the world, as well as the incredible food and experiences they design for the delight of their guests. We'd always been foodies, and lovers of international cuisines; but watching the process and inspiration behind the dishes put out by such remarkable culinary minds ignited a desire in us to experience food in ways that we never had before.
In 2017, Will and I were just 24 and 23 years old, recently graduated from college. We had never dined at a Michelin starred restaurant, though we'd excitedly dreamed about it, as one would a bucket list item. After watching Chef's Table, we started to learn about and follow the journeys of big name chefs like Alain Passard (French Chef and Owner of L’Arpège in Paris), Grant Achatz (Chef and Owner of Alinea in Chicago, IL), Ferran and Albert Adrià (Spanish geniuses of Molecular Gastronomy) and Thomas Keller (Chef and Owner of restaurants such as The French Laundry in Napa Valley, CA, and Per Se in NYC), and we hoped one day to dine at restaurants that were products of their brilliant culinary influence.
Quick note about Per Se; earlier this year we were denied entry to Per Se due to my shoe selection; I showed up in sneakers (my own fault), though I'd bet if Justin Bieber showed up wearing the same sneakers they would have let him in. I'm just sayin'! No hard feelings, Chef Keller, I'm sure the food tastes much better when wearing formal footwear!
Entry to Per Se or not, we reveled in learning about these chefs and desired immensely to experience the imaginative genius of their cuisine, in any form we could get it.
Will had been long planning a surprise visit to Per Se around our 4 year anniversary, but when Will found out that the 2017 World's Best Restaurant was Eleven Madison Park, just an hour away from where we lived, he knew right away that it was an opportunity that he couldn't let pass by. EMP had been closed for the early part of 2017 for a full renovation of the dining room and kitchen, so it was especially exciting to be one of the first to get the new dining experience first hand. Bookings had to be made 3 months in advance, with full payment collected upon reservation, and the limited amount of reservations were filled within 10 minutes of being released. Luckily, Will was able to secure a table with ease for December 27th, and we planned to travel up to our favorite vacation spot, Newport, RI to continue our anniversary celebrations the next day.
We booked a hotel a few blocks away from the restaurant, which was adjacent to Madison Square Park (not to be confused with Madison Square Garden). We arrived early afternoon to check in to the hotel, eat a light lunch, and walk around the city a bit before heading over to the restaurant for our 6pm reservation. I decided that it would be nice to surprise Will with tickets to a nearby museum to help pass the time. Since he graduated our University (Penn State- We Are!) with an Aerospace Engineering degree, I thought he would really enjoy the Museum of Mathematics, #nerdlife which happened to be super close to the hotel.
On arrival to the museum, it was painfully obvious to us both that it was a children's museum. Laughing and in good spirits about my mistake (even though I did plenty of research on the exhibits beforehand), we decided to enjoy the museum anyway, despite being too large to fit on any of the "rides" used to demonstrate centrifugal forces and the power of gravity. There was no doubt that we were the oldest childless adults in the place, but we quite honestly didn't give a crap about it.
After playing in light labs, holographic mazes, and any other adult-friendly activity we could identify, and dare-I-say, "learning something!", we went on our way with happy-go-lucky attitudes to get ready for the incredible dinner that awaited us.
We had no idea what to expect when dining at the Best Restaurant in the World, so we made sure to come dressed our best and ready to eat!
I decided that high heels were necessary to complete my outfit, but my practical nature told me to slip a pair of leather booties into my purse so I could switch out of my heels once we left the restaurant (priorities, people! I am more of a sneakers and boots all year long kind of gal anyway).
It was a chilly New York City night, and the wind had us walking snugly attached to each others' arms on our way to Eleven Madison Park. As much as I was bursting with excitement, I was a tad anxious. Are we under dressed? Will people look at us funny because we're so young? Will people think that we're just some privileged trust fund kids out for a night on the town instead of the passionate and invested food enthusiasts that we are? Does it matter?
The frosty air began to clear my mind. I considered switching out of my heels and into my boots on the side of the street and replacing my heels upon arrival instead of having to walk the remaining 3 long (and weirdly steep) blocks in an ever-falling state. My consideration quickly became an active priority, and I was out of my heels and into my boots in world record time.
We arrived at Eleven Madison Park just in time for our 6pm reservation. The sun had already been set for half an hour, complements of a late December night in New York. Below the 3-story windows at the entrance of the restaurant, there was an extended temporary awning with a door to prevent cold air from whooshing into the dining room. The door opened up to a spinning glass door, and we proceeded through it gleefully.
Immediately upon entering, we were taken aback by the stunning dining room. The extra tall ceilings and windows made the space feel open, but the intricate craftsmanship of the molding on the walls and ceiling, and the ironwork details around the room made the space feel warm and welcoming.
After a moment of taking in the room, the hostess greeted us, took our pea coats and led us to our table for two on the left side of the restaurant. The lights in the restaurant were slightly dimmed, and there was soft music playing overhead. Will sat on the outside of the table facing the windows, and I sat facing the open restaurant on the beautifully upholstered and modern "booth" seat. Sitting at our table put me completely at ease. Once we got adjusted in our delightful seats, I looked up at Will and we instantly started smiling at each other with unrestrained excitement; almost as if to say "I can't believe we're here and we're about to eat the meal of a lifetime!"
As we beamed at each other, our waitress came to introduce herself, fill our water glasses, and let us know that the start of our 11-course Chef's Tasting menu was actually already on the table, and we could help ourselves whenever we were ready.
In the center of our table was a small box tied up delicately with string - something you would expect to see in Alice in Wonderland. Inside the box was our first course of savory apple and cheddar filled "black and white cookies." The black and white cookie is a nod to NYC, and the small bite was a delectable and creative way to get us completely focused on the dinner to come. This bite actually reminds me a lot of one of the desserts that we had at the restaurant Tosca which is located in the lobby of the Ritz Carlton in Hong Kong. I wrote a blog post about that experience a while back and you can read it here:
Something actually quite unique about the Chef's tasting menu at Eleven Madison Park was that, despite the meal being definitively 11 distinct courses, there were several courses within the 11 that we were able to choose for ourselves from 2 or 3 options given to us by our server. In this way, each table could have a dining experience that was more tailored to their tastes, and the chef's tasting menu is not just a cookie cutter, one size fits all. In our case, our taste is to taste the most food possible! I know for some it is a major "turnoff" to share food or eat food off of your partner's plate, but Will and I always share! We rarely ever order two of the same thing, and normally order different things purposefully so we can try each others' dishes. Without even having to consult each other, we can easily order meals for each other, fully planning to have bites of the others' food. By ordering different options, we were able to taste nearly everything on the Chef's Tasting menu.
After we ate our savory cookies, the next few courses came and went, each more astonishingly delicious and creative than the next. A dish of very thinly cut mushrooms that were cooked in seaweed, full of umami, marinated clams and fennel, and even a few items that weren't part of the 11 course menu that we weren't expecting.
There's something incredible about food, and about fine dining that I learned around this time in our meal. On the way to the restaurant I had reservations (unintended pun!) about feeling like we really belonged at a table in the restaurant, regardless of if we could afford to eat there or not. But after sitting down and starting to embark on the culinary journey that EMP intended for us; I couldn't feel more like we belonged. We felt cared for as individuals; noticed, and seen; even more importantly, we felt a very warm welcome which reflected as well in the service as it did in the food. In each dish, you can quite literally taste the intention that the chefs had to make you smile with nostalgia, or even sigh because you're just so damn happy. Somebody cared to spend 40 minutes slicing my mushrooms into art, and it TASTES like art too. Just incredible. That feeling carried on throughout the entire meal; every course, every set of new utensils that were swapped out, every drink poured.
In between the presentation of the courses at the beginning of our meal I felt an energy shift at our table, so I asked Will; "what's wrong... why are you being weird??"
"Are you enjoying yourself?" He asked me. I told him that I couldn't believe he was asking me that. Of course!! I was having an amazing dinner and was thoroughly enjoying the experience we were having together. I confidently looked him in the eye and said "Will... I will never forget this night, and this meal for the rest of my life." And that is the truth. "I feel exactly the same way," he told me as a cheeky grin appeared on his face.
Later on I learned that Will was nervous that maybe I wouldn't think that the food was up to par in comparison with our favorite restaurant in Newport, the Castle Hill Inn. I did also suspect that he could be nervous for other reasons.... such as a potential upcoming surprise proposal?? I couldn't be too sure, and I had to be prepared for anything. Spoiler alert: he didn't propose at the restaurant, but later on our trip in Newport. I found out later that he had the engagement ring with him at the Museum of Mathematics, and that he had later hidden the engagement ring in our hotel room without my knowing.
After reassuring Will that I was absolutely having the time of my life, we both relaxed. I ordered a glass of Cabernet, and he ordered a Manhattan, which turned out to be a 20 minute drink presentation that allowed Will to customize his drink, and select a specific whiskey based on a selection of New York City distilleries; another nod to New York and in support of local businesses.
As our dinner continued, we were enjoying another fine art; people watching. We created imaginary life stories for the people seated at tables around us; deciding for example that the man eating the chef's tasting menu at a table by himself was a friend of the head chef and stopped in a few times a year to say hello and see what's new on the menu. The family to our left traveled to NYC from Romania just to eat at the restaurant; a dream of theirs which they'd been waiting a decade to accomplish.
Just as entertaining as people watching: observing "the dance" of the Front of House staff. Subtle nods to each other indicate when a fresh glass of water needs to be poured at a table. The watchful servers notice if a guest gets up to go to the restroom so that they can beautifully re-fold their napkin. Each movement, perfectly measured pour and mannerism by the staff was graceful, fluid, elegant, polite and just downright impressive. It is truly a masterful ballet.
Several courses were presented at the table, one of them being a wonderfully creative (and delicious) dish was the Smoked Sturgeon Cheesecake with Everything Bagel crust (photo above), which was served with a quenelle of caviar and topped with a mussel and whey hollandaise-type cream and presented with a beautiful caviar tin (with EMP's logo) of house-made sliced dill pickle. Essentially, they were presenting a lavish and lux version of the New York breakfast we'd probably be having the next morning. If a classic NY breakfast of cream cheese on a everything bagel with lox inspired this dish, then what simple things in our daily lives could be lifted up to such heights? The possibilities were endless. One of the biggest differences between dining at a regular restaurant versus a fine dining restaurant is that the conversation does not end once the food is served. The front of house staff is just an extension of the owners and chefs, and they are asked to provide diners with notes about the food they are eating; where did it come from? And, what is the intention behind this dish; what is the inspiration? What is the chef saying to us by presenting certain ingredients from certain regions. It's really poetry. As our server was creating our sturgeon cheesecake masterpieces, she spoke to us about the local business they work with to harvest caviar, how they do it sustainably, and how they are pushing other restaurants to do the same and create partnerships with the farmers that they use to source ingredients from. Restaurants can be huge influences on local agriculture, which is something that the average person probably doesn't hear or talk about much.
Aside from the wonderful things we learned from the staff, one of my favorite stories to tell about our dining experience at EMP is about the Kabocha squash course. Will had gone to the bathroom after our Lobster and Tilefish course (which again was incredible and actually left me with a constant longing to eat Roe in warm pasta!). I was alone at the table just taking in the beautiful restaurant and enjoying my wine. I guess someone had given an unintended nod during "the dance" because a man from the kitchen appeared at our table with a large squash. It was covered in beautifully roasted bacon and seaweed. He told me about where the squash was harvested in New York, how long they roasted it for, the inspiration for the dish, and then he took a pair of scissors from the tray he held and used them to cut open the top of the squash off to show me the inside of it and how gorgeous and caramelized it was. He let me know that he would take the squash back to the kitchen, and the chefs would transform the squash I had just seen into our next course, which would be a piece of the roasted squash, in a clear broth of bacon and seaweed. All I could think was "OMG I can't believe Will is missing this!!!!"
I didn't want to make the front of house team feel bad for making their presentation without Will there to see it, so when he came back from the restroom, I told him all about what he missed and how amazing the squash looked. Lo and behold, just a moment later, the same man returned to our table with a brand new roasted squash and apologized for presenting the earlier squash when the entire party wasn't at the table. I couldn't believe it; we got the entire squash presentation AGAIN just so Will could experience it. Will was just glad that I was able to see the first presentation, but it was next level that it happened again just for him to see.
Several more dishes came and went, included a dry-aged duck and dry-aged veal with winter vegetables and pear. The duck was crusted with peppercorns and some smoky Indian spices, and may be one of the most sensational creations I've ever eaten to this day.
From one beautiful taste to another, we found that we were finally moving into dessert mode, which for me was highly anticipated. We were served a cheese course, which was a warm "Pretzel." It really didn't look like a pretzel at all, but it was covered in a "beer" New York Cheddar cheese fondue. You could vividly taste the flavor of the beer in the cheese, and they even served the dish with a pairing of beer too which I thought was a clever touch.
We had a warm apple doughnut, which was filled with cooked cinnamon apples and served with a quenelle of vanilla ice cream (a large spoon-sized amount of ice cream delicately shaped with a spoon into a fancy shape with pointy edges), and a dessert called "cookies and cream" which was another nod to the black and white cookie at the start of our meal (more than 3 hours earlier- really, that's how long we were eating for!) Just when we thought that we might be done eating, we were served house-made dark-chocolate pretzels, and we were presented with a bottle of Apple Brandy. Our server poured us each a glass while letting us know that Eleven Madison Park partnered with a local distillery to create the brandy. She invited us to drink as much of it as we wanted, and she left us with the bottle to enjoy and pour at our will.
At this point, we were absolutely stuffed; "fat and happy" as they say. We were utterly satisfied about our incredible experience at the restaurant, and it was quietly understood between us that walking out the door, we would not be the same people who we were when we had first arrived. To others, it may just have been a really great meal, but to us it was something different that would change us forever.
As we quietly reveled at our table in our memories of earlier courses, recalling our absolute favorites, we noticed that the man who was dining alone had finished his meal and been approached by the server. He stood from his table and they walked across the room together into the kitchen. I KNEW IT, I said. He DOES know the chef!! Will and I chuckled. I decided that since our meal was over I would check out the restroom. On my return, Will was paying for the drinks that we had ordered (since he had paid for the meal when he made the reservation), and there was an Eleven Madison Park bag on the table. "What's this?" I asked as I sat back down.
In the bag were two glass jars of house made granola to take home with us, and two of the tin caviar cans that we had eaten pickles out of earlier. Our server approached our table as I opened the container to see what was inside. "You can keep the tin and what's inside as a memory of your meal tonight!" she smiled as I pulled the paper out of the tin. It was a paper chain of circles the exact size of the can; the first circle said Eleven Madison Park and the date, and the remaining 11 circles each had the courses we ate printed on them. Now we would really never forget exactly what we ate! (And I knew Will would probably eat the granola as soon as we got to the hotel). We oo-ed and ah-ed about our memory tins, and thanked our server graciously. She said that she so appreciated us coming to dine at EMP; she told us about the recent renovations that they had recently gone through, and then she asked to give us a tour of the kitchen which was completely redone. We're getting the tour!!!!, I thought, absolutely psyched. Now someone else is going to think we also know the chef, I laughed to myself.
We rose from our table and followed her into the kitchen where she led us to a little rectangular fire pit (bottom right of the picture below) that had been set up to heat up two mini waffle cones. As we approached the station, our server introduced us to the chef manning the station, who was basting the individual waffle cones with butter as they rotated over the hot coals below. She began to fill a pastry bag with cream, and as she did, she told us the story of the Barnum and Ringling Brothers (famously known for their circuses), and how they would perform in Madison Square park (just outside where the restaurant is today) in the late 1800s. One of the traditional circus treats served at these circuses were savory waffle cones filled with fluffy cream and nutty toppings.
She handed us our individual waffle cones, and invited us to stay in the kitchen as long as we wanted. At this point we were just in awe. The kitchen was stunningly beautiful and immaculately clean. In the far back of the kitchen, there was a specific room for all of the dry-aged meats to hang (see photo). I was almost explosively full (LOL) but there was no way I wasn't going to eat the waffle cone- and it was worth it- trust me.
We stayed a few more minutes observing the kitchen's process; fascinated by the calmness, and the fact that everyone seemed to know exactly where they should be, and when. It was as much a ballet as the front of house operation was. After we'd taken it all in, even got to see one of the owners at the time Will Guidara, we decided that it was time to take our goodie bag and head out into the night.
Though at this point it was almost 10pm (that's 4 hours of eating!!!), we were so full that we knew we should just stay up a while longer to digest before trying to get back to the hotel to sleep. We quietly slipped out of the restaurant into the cold night air; I swapped my heels for my booties again, and we proceeded down the street to a nice bar that we'd seen walking down earlier.
We ordered a couple of drinks and once they arrived we got quiet. I reached into our goodie bag and pulled out our caviar tins and opened them up. It may have only been a few hours earlier that we stepped into the restaurant, but when we left it felt as though we had been there for 2 weeks. Almost like 1 dinner at Eleven Madison Park was a well-needed vacation. Just 4 hours contained within them the magic of a few days at Disney World, the relaxation of a few days at the beach, and the inspiration of a trip through a stunning landscape. Total rejuvenation. We looked at each other and all we could say was "Wow" and something along the lines of "Thank you so much for experiencing that with me, because I don't know who else could understand what that did to me."
What is so important for me to get across in sharing our experience at this restaurant, is my learning that food is so important in daily life, for so many reasons. It is a necessary fuel that humans require to survive and grow, but it is also a conversation starter, an outlet for creativity, and a joyful celebration of human life and evolution of consciousness. I've always loved to cook and bake, and especially to eat, but since having the opportunity to dine at restaurants like Eleven Madison Park, I have quite literally looked at food so differently. I now have such an appreciation for the ingredients that go into our food, the communities and farmers that supply those ingredients, and I have such an incredible appreciation for the full experience of food; the life that it sustains, and the life that happens when great food is a part of the equation.
One last thing: Funnily enough, when people ask how much we spent to eat at EMP, they roll their eyes as if $700 is such a waste of money to spend on just 1 dinner. In fact, after going through what is literally, an experience never to be forgotten, I know that we would happily have spent even more. For the way that we were taken care of, for the fact that love, care, planning, effort, diligence tastes freaking AMAZING on a dinner plate, for the way that food can be a creative tool and mechanism for telling a significant (historically or not) story, and for the way that good food can make joy feel like it could be a tangible thing that you can find out in the wild. Most people pay over $1000 for a smart phone these days, which easily could have been easily transformed into the greatest culinary experience you've ever had!
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