With a couple of trips to New York last year, I took the opportunity to dine at three Michelin starred restaurants.

Highlight from each restaurant below with a link to a more detailed review.

Blue Hill At Stone Barns
Great experience from start to finish, and the menu integrated the farm to table ethos well with the more traditional fine dining elements.

Stand out dish was the Chicken Mushroom Nuggets And Habanero Hot Sauce. The mushrooms used for this dish are hand foraged in the Hudson Valley and have a remarkably similar texture to chicken, right down to the stringiness.

Deep fried in a salt and pepper batter, they were really tasty and I could easily have enjoyed another dish of these.

They are served with three dipping sauces, the habanero ‘hot’ sauce is notable as having been bred to remove all the heat from the pepper.





Le Bernardin
The seafood on both visits here has been flawless.

My main of Seared Hiramasa; Baby Shrimp, Calamari, Lemongrass-infused bouillon was seared on the top and barely touched below. The dish has an Asian flavour to it with the lemongrass bouillon and the mushrooms, greens and prawns adding contrast to the dish.

I loved the textural contrast between the crispy seared top and almost raw remainder of each slice.




Jean Georges
I was very impressed with the four course lunch menu. Upthread posters indicated the Vongerichten flagship had slipped from its past glory but all four dishes were delightful.

Don’t let the simple presentation of the crusted snapper fool you, this dish is a forty seven ingredient tour de force.

The Japanese snapper is steamed and a series of spices are sprinkled on the skin including black pepper, white pepper and salt. The sweet and sour jus included pieces of pear and honey, though the ingredients change seasonally.

Despite the forty seven ingredients, which my server mentioned as we were talking about the dish, the fish remains centre stage and the dish has a balance like those at Le Bernardin.