Le Pigeon Awards

Le Pigeon Restaurant Review:

Chef/owner Gabriel Rucker’s menu, which features local, organic and free-range ingredients, changes often and emphasizes carnivorous dishes: tender beef cheek bourguignon is a standard. Rucker is big on foie gras in all iterations, ranging from a foie gras and uni pancake appetizer to his foie gras profiteroles for dessert. It’s not uncommon to see him talking with diners as he wields his skillets and saucepans in the tiny restaurant storefront. Entrées may include palate-stretching items such as dry pigeon ramen prepared from rare pigeon confit, miso, kabocha squash, oranges and enoki mushrooms; pork belly with blackened octopus, black-eyed peas and fennel; and a mushroom and wild rice stroganoff combining fried egg, cauliflower, white truffle and Parmesan. If these choices are too rich, order the crisp chicken thigh with potato gnocchi or the burger. The wine list is appropriately varied to match the innovative fare and pours are generous. Five- and seven-course tasting menus provide a way to sample much of what the place has to offer. Reservations are taken for most seatings at two long communal tables, but the 10 bar stools wrapping around the lively open kitchen are always first-come, first-served.