Contra Contra

Contra Awards

Inventive fixed-menu spot on the Lower East Side that mimics the neo-bistrot movement in Paris.
Openings: Dinner Tues.-Sat.

Features

  • Dress code: Casual


Contra Restaurant Review:


Contra is the perfect place for those who don't like to make choices, because there are none. The entire restaurant is reserved for a fixed menu that changes nightly. You can choose your wine from a very short list, a bread supplement, and whether you want an optional cheese course, sometimes extra meat (quail one night, duck the next), but you're leaving yourself in the able hands of chefs who did time at Noma in Copenhagen and Isa in Brooklyn. Dishes have included a juicy chicken with almonds, butternut squash salad with guanciale, monkfish with brassica and beet, and a raspberry dessert that verged on savory but was hauntingly good.