PrintBalthazar: What a Satisfying Dinner
I hadn't eaten dinner at Balthazar in years, but after the meal we had last night I plan to return much sooner. I had something I've never had before, chicken Riesling, which turned out to be a pan-roasted half chicken with mushrooms, pearl onions, and homemade spaetzl. It was the best kind of soul-satisfying grandma food, if your grandmother happened to be a great Alsatian home cook. My friends had the steak frites, always delicious at Balthazar, and the duck shepherd's pie, another dish I hadn't tried before and would certainly order when returning. For dessert, the pot de creme, the pavlova, meringue with a creamy center surrounded by stewed fruit, the berry tart, and of course the profiteroles made for an appropriate ending to a pitch-perfect meal.
Balthazar is always crowded, always noisy, but somehow manages to make you feel like a million bucks when you eat there. I'm convinced it's the golden glow that makes us all feel that way, a glow that you may not even find in Paris any more. Lee Hansen and Riad Nasr, co-chefs and partners at Balthazar, may serve a thousand people a day sometimes, and yet the food they turn out is surprisingly personal and shockingly consistent given the volume of covers they're doing at the restaurant.
80 Spring Street (between Broadway and Crosby Sts.
New York, NY 10012
Ph: 212-965-1414
Add a comment:
Previewing your comment:
HTML Hints
Some HTML is OK: <a href="URL">link</a>, <strong>strong</strong>, <em>em</em>
Comment Guidelines
Post whatever you want, just keep it seriously about eats, seriously. We reserve the right to delete off-topic or inflammatory comments. Learn more at our Comment Policy page.
If you see something not so nice, please, report an inappropriate comment.
3 Comments:
I agree. I was lucky enough to eat there once, and it is wonderfully alive and the food is all on point. It makes you want to look up all the recipes and do it yourself. I love restaurants that teach you about good food. Balthazar is one of those places.
Goldilocks Finds Manhattan at 10:10PM on 04/13/08
Balthazar is indeed a happy place with good food. The chicken dish that Ed mentions is proof of the latter. It closely resembles one of Soltner's "special" dishes in the good gone days of Lutece. It was "Coq Saute au Riesling" and was enriched by what-must-have-been a scary amount of egg yolks. Soltner, as you probably know, was Alsatian also. He too had a way of making the diner feel special, even those of us who were existing on hotdogs and tuna sandwiches and could only afford Lutece on special occasions. Balthazar is more egalitarian and casual, but there always seems to me to be some genetic connection between it and Lutece.
richard dilallo at 9:09AM on 04/16/08
What an interesting comment, Richard. I never thought of that connection, but I'm sure it's there on some unconscious level. I don't think Lee or Riad ever worked for Soltner, just Daniel Boulud.
Ed Levine at 9:30AM on 04/16/08