Sublime Seafood
Le Bernardin Lives Up to the Highest Standards
by John Mariani

I am often asked what my favorite restaurant in NYC is, and I hem and haw, then answer that it's an impossible question. But then (I've got this down pat by now) I say, "Well, if a bomb were to drop on Manhattan, and I could save only one restaurant, that restaurant would be Le Bernardin."

Since 1986 when it opened, I've never thought otherwise. To me Le Bernardin represents a rare, even unique, confluence of the highest standards of cuisine and service in America, buoyed by partner Maguy Le Coze, who, with her brother Gilbert founded the original Le Bernardin in Paris, then brought it to NYC, eventually closing the original. New York took to the brother and sister Le Cozes with both open arms and awe of the refined glamour they brought the city, defining what modern taste should be at the end of the 20th century. Gilbert not only refined but revolutionized the preparation of seafood, which effected a complete re-thinking of the way fish is cooked throughout the U.S. and Europe.

Sadly, Gilbert passed away at a young age some years ago, putting Le Bernardin’s future in doubt only among those who did not know Maguy’s resiliency and dedication to her brother’s memory. Together with chef de cuisine Eric Ripert, now a partner in the restaurant, Le Bernardin kept going and kept thriving, winning every major culinary award in America, including James Beard Foundation honors as Outstanding Restaurant and Ripert as Best New York Chef. The beauty of the place has always been magnificent, soft, formal without stiffness, elegant without frou-frou, now, with some new art work, it looks as fresh and beautiful as any room in the city. And the service staff, with many, many changes over the decades, is still nonpareil. The wine list, now under the direction of Aldo Sohm, is one of the finest in the NYC.

Le Bernardin's menu has always evolved, yet it is still devotedly in a style that preserves Gilbert's original precepts of seafood cookery—the best, freshest American species cooked tenderly and with very little enhancement beyond a few intense flavors. The subtlety of Ripert’s cooking, backed by a superb kitchen brigade, takes extraordinary exactitude, like the creation of a perfect haiku. He and Maguy wrote the Le Bernardin Cookbook in 1998.

And so it was that, on being asked by my family where I wanted to dine on my birthday, I chose Le Bernardin, which looks as good as or better than the day it opened. I asked chef de cuisine Chris Muller (Ripert was on vacation) to do a tasting menu and wine director Sohm to choose our wines to match the food. We began with an amuse bouche of buttery lobster with a simple citrus vinaigrette and a glass of ice-cold Louis Roederer Brut Premier. Our first course was thinly sliced conch "Marinated Peruvian Style" (an homage to Nobu Matsuhisa), with dried sweet corn; the conch was amazingly tender, owing as much to the marinade as to the deft slicing. We also had sautéed calamari filled with sweet prawns and wood ear mushroom in a calamari consommé, which was similar in texture to the conch but distinctive in its own flavorful essence. With these we drank a fine Meursault Limozin Germain 2004.

Next came wild Alaskan salmon just barely cooked–a Le Bernardin signature technique–with daikon, snow peas and enoki salad with sweet pea-wasabi sauce with just enough bite but not heat. Pan-roasted striped bass came on creamy jasmine-coriander perfumed rice, with lemongrass and ginger-scented “pot au feu” broth with which we sipped a red wine, the big, bold Flowers Pinot Noir 2001.

Seared Japanese Kobe beef and truffled herb salad followed, then pan-roasted monkfish with yummy truffled potato emulsion and a red wine-brandy sauce that made this a very sumptuous dish to go with a very sumptuous wine, Vosne Romanée 1er Cru Les Beaux Monts, Daniel Rion 2001.

Le Bernardin has always had a superb selection of cheeses, and we indulged in several, with a glass of Côte Rotie Tardieu-Laurent 2000. Then came desserts, too many to describe, including a lemon-vanilla parfait, citrus biscuit, crisp Meringue, lemon cream and sorbet, and soft chocolate ganache with a crunchy corn and hazelnut base, corn sorbet and tuile, served with the chilled Hungarian sweet wine Tokaji Aszú 5 Puttonyos, Disznoko, Hungary 1999.

Can one eat just as well elsewhere in NYC? Yes, and outside of NYC, too. But when you combine the flair and the service, the civilized buzz of people having a wonderful evening, and food that has never imitated any momentary trend, Le Bernardin is unique and as fine a restaurant as any in the world.

John Mariani is well known for his frank and poignant writing in Esquire, Wine Spectator, Diversion and the Harper Collection. He is author of The Encyclopedia of American Food & Drink, The Dictionary of Italian Food and Drink and co-author, with his wife, of the Italian-American Cookbook.