Cafe Boulud

[Sneakeater]

Next time I go to Cafe Boulud, you can bet I'm going to say to the waiter, "I don't want no fucking vegetables."

[Wilfrid]

Next time I go to Cafe Boulud, you can bet I'm going to say to the waiter, "I don't want no fucking vegetables."

 

[ulterior epicure]

Can you think of two more dissimilar restaurants?

 

But irnscrabblechf52's gonna have to go back to CB, cuz I'll bet all those CB guys are gonna return from this hip and groovy.

One of the most memorable dishes I had in 2011 is on that menu (Spaghetti Nero).

Of course you all know I meant 2010, not 2011.

[taion]

The interesting thing to me about Cafe Boulud is that it feels not at all like a destination restaurant. The food and service are both fully 3 stars, but for whatever reason it feels like something of a neighborhood place, unlike others around it.

 

The spring green risotto on their menu right now is really good.

[oakapple]

The interesting thing to me about Cafe Boulud is that it feels not at all like a destination restaurant. The food and service are both fully 3 stars, but for whatever reason it feels like something of a neighborhood place, unlike others around it.

That's a pretty good description of what the place has always been about.

[Sneakeater]

Gavin Kaysen doesn't need me to promote him. But the current iteration of Cafe Boulud gets so little love on this board that I thought I'd send at least a little like its way.

 

We started with cocktails in the new-ish Bar Pleiades across the lobby. This is a very nice, welcoming spot. The cocktail program is very good, and -- amusingly -- the list is formatted into the same quadpartite structure as the Cafe Boulud menu. (They have do some stretching to fit their various drinks into the categories, of course.) Just as a place to be, I think this bar is nicer than the Cafe Boulud dining room. It is a very good idea to meet here for a drink before a meal across the lobby.

 

The most notable feature of my dinner was that the "Voyage" section of the menu was much more interesting than usual. Usually, it refers to the kind of Asian or North African cuisines that are unsurprising in a French restaurant. But this Spring, California Chef Kaysen is doing: Mexican! (The cuisine that Alex Stupak has taught us all multi-star chefs secretly aspire to cook.) As much as it's common wisdom to avoid the "Voyage" section of the menu here, I couldn't resist trying a Mexican dish. I had a dish that's regressing toward that old mean: earlier in the season, it was saddle of rabbit with mole negro, chorizo, and tomatillo; now it's pork tenderloin. It was well cooked, with excellent ingredients. But it was kind of bland. I should have seen that coming.

 

The removal of the rabbit from that entree, however, opened the way to my starting with rabbit tortellini in a light tomato sauce. This is the kind of dish this place has been nailing since Andrew Carmellini's days. It was excellent. Not fascinating, not rapture-inducing. Just very good food.

 

The same could be said for the risotto with morels that we shared as a mid-course. No agonizing over whether this was properly cooked risotto worth ordering in a restaurant. Again, a nice dish that won't send you into orbit, but will make you very satisfied.

 

I make it a policy to eat as much rhubarb as I can this time of year, so for dessert I had the "vanilla poached" rhubarb with a thyme bavarois. The thyme gave a nice woodsy undercurrent to the sharp rhubarb as mellowed by the vanilla. Blah blah blah. It was a nice dessert.

 

It was a pleasant surprise to see that Blue Pilkington, formerly of Public, is now the sommelier at Cafe Boulud.

 

As has been observed many times, both as a compliment and an insult, Cafe Boulud very much has the clubby feel of a neighborhood place. And its crowd is one that many people here -- me very much included -- don't much enjoy. But, as my dining companion remarked, the room has an energy to it that makes it a fun place to eat in a way that most restaurants of this level just aren't.

 

COMP DISCLOSURE (on my dining companion's account, not mine [well, I did order an extravagant wine]): A shared risotto mid-course, all our after-dinner drinks, maybe some other stuff.

[LiquidNY]

ICYMI, Gavin Kaysen is leaving Cafe Boulud to open a place in Minneapolis.

[Wilfrid]

IDMI thanks.

[Sneakeater]

Cafe Boulud is reopening in the Vaucluse space!

I wonder who the chef will be?

[rozrapp]

8 hours ago, Sneakeater said:

Cafe Boulud is reopening in the Vaucluse space!

I wonder who the chef will be?

Cafe Boulud at Blantyre, in Lenox, MA, started as a pop-up in 2020, and became the regular restaurant there the next year. However, Googling reveals that it closed at the end of October 2021 for “renovations” with no announced date for re-opening. The executive chef there was Jerrod Zifchak, who was the e.c. at C.B. NYC before it closed. So, it’s quite possible he’ll return in that position. 

(Note: A long time prior to the pandemic, we stayed at Blantyre twice. While the food was very good, C.B. was definitely a major step up.)

 

 

 

[Seth Gordon]

19 hours ago, Sneakeater said:

Cafe Boulud is reopening in the Vaucluse space!

I wonder who the chef will be?

i had mixed experiences at CB. A couple meals during Kaysen’s era were  far more exciting than the couple I’d had at the flagship. Some years later we popped in for dinner and it was just kind of fine.

I feel like I’ll be more excited when/if Bistro Moderne is reopening. It’s weird they haven’t relocated the iconic burger, at least - it’d fit in on the Bar Boulud menu, say. The Escargot & Chicken Oyster fricassee was pretty right on, too.