the {foodie life } Narcissa
I highly recommend you dine or have cocktails this Spring at The Standard’s, new restaurant Narcissa. We met with a few friends there and were pleasantly surprised on how Andre Balazs masterfully combined a warm inviting restaurant in a modern hotel once named the Cooper Hotel. The atmosphere was inviting, warm, and beautiful. The food was absolutely delicious and we would definitely call Narcissa one of our favorite go to downtown eatery. Thank you for reading my blog post, the {foodie} life – Narcissa!
Narcissa, André Balazs and Michelin-starred chef John Fraser’s restaurant nestled next to the The Standard’s townhouse entrance, marries the clean flavors and impeccably-sourced ingredients of California cuisine with new techniques of roasting, rotisserie and slow-cooking. Featuring seasonal, local and organic produce from André Balazs’ Hudson Valley farm, Locusts on Hudson, the healthy, multi-layered American menu offers both simplicity and sophistication. The intimate neighborhood restaurant offers two dining rooms, one featuring a large open kitchen and chef counter, the other overlooking a charming private garden, allowing for al fresco dining in warmer months.
There’s nothing remotely rustic about the crowd, many of whom seem to be V.I.P.s, chatting matter-of-factly about meetings at the Vatican and photo shoots in Qatar; on a recent evening, a “clothier consultant” had dropped his business card in the bathroom. But when it comes to the food, the grange concept rings true: according to the Web site, Narcissa the cow “presides over” Balazs’s farm in the Hudson Valley, which is the main source of the vegetables, herbs, and eggs on an elegant but accessible menu from the chef John Fraser, of Dovetail, on the Upper West Side.
Narcissa the restaurant could be called Carrot, considering the absolute reverence Fraser shows the root, swaddling a bundle in a mushroom-sunchoke pâté and flaky pastry for a sweet, earthy Wellington, and battering others to make fat, golden fries, served with a jalapeño-tofu dip. Fraser kneels at the altar of the beet, too, judging by how long and lovingly he roasts them in his open kitchen’s rotisserie oven, until their exteriors are charred and their interiors rival the consistency of tender steak, well deserving of the creamed-horseradish accompaniment.
Fraser’s just as talented with animals, which is made particularly evident by a mound of Dungeness crab meat scattered with chopped hazelnut, blood orange, and basil, and by a juicy “lacquered” duck breast, its scored, fatty skin rendered crisp and almost candy-sweet, tempered by a dusting of dried herbs. The carrot returns for dessert, in wedges of cake that look Seussian, squiggled with cream-cheese frosting and adorned with poppy seeds, parsnip chips, and golden raisins. A citrus salad, served over tapioca pudding and under an orange-blossom granita, is a symphony of temperatures and textures, and perfectly embodies the careful line Fraser walks between virtue and indulgence. As a server described the house blends of herbal tea, also grown on the farm: “Good, and good for you.”
Restaurant review by Hannah Goldfield on the New Yorker. Photos courtesy of Grubstreet.com
