eulalie

[Diancecht]

just posting this here since nymag’s review  came out earlier this month…and i am just a teensy bit envious (ok a lot envious) of ny-based mffs 

i look forward to reading about your adventures.

————

A visit to Eulalie begins, inevitably, with an outgoing voice-mail message. That alone may be disqualifying for whole swaths of would-be diners; Eulalie is on no reservation apps and has no official website. “You have found us in the wonderful and historic Tribeca,” announces the voice of Tina Vaughn, who, with her husband, Chip Smith, runs Eulalie in the address recently vacated by Bâtard. This is not a short message. It comes with news (it is fully booked), rules (“We do so appreciate your best in terms of attire … think more Mad Men and less Grubhub”), and an invitation to leave a message and be called back because, as Vaughn says, “we are so looking forward to welcoming you.”

She means it, too. “Welcome to the house!” Vaughn crowed on a recent Tuesday. Eulalie takes its name from a vineyard in the south of France, named by its winemaker for his wife, though it also calls to mind Edgar Allen Poe’s matrimonial poem, about a man who “dwelt alone / In a world of moan / Till the fair and gentle Eulalie became my blushing bride.” After the Klimtian moodiness of Bâtard the space has been stripped to a kind of Colonial plainness with pea-green, mostly unadorned walls and yards of white tablecloth. But Vaughn warms her dining room like a roost, and the whole place has a family feeling. I had been only once before, but already I had a usual table….

….Smith’s menu — currently served as a $115 prix fixe — is a tour through a Silver Palate–ish sophistication. Every dinner starts with terrine for the table (the variety of which is rotated every two weeks), with brioche toasts and homemade pickles, and a midcourse quenelle bobbing in a little bowl of oceanic sea-bass soupe de poisson and crowned with caviar. Among the starters, you might bow to the overriding ambience and have a savory mushroom tart, a square of homemade puff pastry atop a zigzag squiggle of balsamic reduction, or the soufflé of the moment — goat cheese one visit, blue cheese another. But — and I am aware that I am striking at the heart here, so I -apologize — the soufflés were puckish and dense on both my visits. If you see trotter among the appetizers, crisp and golden on the outside but crumbling at a touch to gamy tenderness, get that instead. It comes with turnips and a “pot likker” of their greens, a nod to the owners’ southern heritage. (Their first restaurant was in Kitty Hawk.) “This is the best foot I have ever eaten,” a tablemate remarked.

[Sneakeater]

I predict that I will be the only person on this board who ever goes there.

[Anthony Bonner]

It sounds like something my mother would call dated

[rozrapp]

1 hour ago, Sneakeater said:

I predict that I will be the only person on this board who ever goes there.

If we were doing indoor restaurant dining, Michael and I would certainly go there. But since I don’t see us doing so in the foreseeable future, it’s possible your prediction will be true.

(Note: We had dinner once at The Simone with our daughter and son-in-law. We all enjoyed it.)

[Wilfrid]

2 hours ago, Sneakeater said:

I predict that I will be the only person on this board who ever goes there.

I thought about it, but like their other place, the hesitation is that you have all the performance but he has cooked at no more than average places in the past.

[MitchW]

2 hours ago, Sneakeater said:

I predict that I will be the only person on this board who ever goes there.

You look just like none of the people in that picture!

[Sneakeater]

I look a little like the guy bussing the wine if he were at least 30 years older and less goodlooking.

Edited December 30, 2023 by Sneakeater

[rozrapp]

3 stars from Wells:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/16/dining/eulalie-restaurant-review.html?searchResultPosition=1

[small h]

The food sounds very good to me, but everything else sounds very not good - no menus on the website, pate arriving unbidden, no way to reserve but to call (I don't like not being able to prove I have a reservation). It's all very clubby.

 

[Wilfrid]

I didn’t expect Phil Schaap.

[Sneakeater]

Nobody expects Phil Schaap!

 

[small h]

9 hours ago, Wilfrid said:

I didn’t expect Phil Schaap.

Neither did his ex-wife - I just emailed her the review.

[Steve R.]

On 12/29/2023 at 4:18 PM, Sneakeater said:

I predict that I will be the only person on this board who ever goes there.

Turns out you were incorrect.  

[Sneakeater]

I so often am.