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The tenth muse.
If anyone comes to New York City and has time to see me, and they also have time to see me for dinner, I'll happily take them to Dovetail. It'll be my treat. I just got back from there, and boy is my mouth happy.
To start, instead of a bread basket there are individual tiny loaves of white cheddar cornbread, with a dusting of salt and sugar that crumble like the best scones. Every night there's an amuse-bouche, which this time around was a trio of bite-sized treats: a bit of apple cider jelly topped with diced apples, a little breaded and fried ball of gooey cheese, and some white cauliflower wrapped in a thick foam. My brother and grandmother shared salt-baked onions and the halibut confit; I had Long Island squash soup and foraged greens ravioli. Dessert for me was spiced gingerbread; for them, miniature apple crepes. We also had a trio of complimentary petit-fours - an espresso caramel, a pineapple jelly, and a miniature dulce de leche whoopie pie.
A blissfully delicious meal, everything so well balanced - all the ingredients were given care and attention, and within the dishes, there was a lot of thought put into how the flavors and textures would work together. Like the soup I got. It had small, spicy croutons that would've been at odds with the flavor and texture of the squash if they'd been bigger or spicier, but they were just small enough for a moment of crunchiness and just spicy enough to set off everything else in contrast, and the creaminess and smoothness of the soup carried it all the way home. It was like that for everything.
All the food was amazing. The drinks were better. It's too bad their website's wine list isn't a current one, because they've got a full page of hard cider that I wanted to work my way through bottle by bottle. But that wouldn't have been feasible, so I just ordered the three-cider sampling. One Virginian sparkling apple cider, very sharp, not too sweet; one New York Finger Lakes apple cider with blackcurrant, smooth and soft and balanced just right, and one French pear cider that I made sure to get the name of because it was the best goddamn pear cider I've ever had. And it was Bordelet 2009 Sparkling Pear Cider Poire Authentique.
Apparently they sell it at Whole Foods. Time to start investigating.
And yes, I asked for, and got, some of the cornbread to take with me for breakfast tomorrow.
To start, instead of a bread basket there are individual tiny loaves of white cheddar cornbread, with a dusting of salt and sugar that crumble like the best scones. Every night there's an amuse-bouche, which this time around was a trio of bite-sized treats: a bit of apple cider jelly topped with diced apples, a little breaded and fried ball of gooey cheese, and some white cauliflower wrapped in a thick foam. My brother and grandmother shared salt-baked onions and the halibut confit; I had Long Island squash soup and foraged greens ravioli. Dessert for me was spiced gingerbread; for them, miniature apple crepes. We also had a trio of complimentary petit-fours - an espresso caramel, a pineapple jelly, and a miniature dulce de leche whoopie pie.
A blissfully delicious meal, everything so well balanced - all the ingredients were given care and attention, and within the dishes, there was a lot of thought put into how the flavors and textures would work together. Like the soup I got. It had small, spicy croutons that would've been at odds with the flavor and texture of the squash if they'd been bigger or spicier, but they were just small enough for a moment of crunchiness and just spicy enough to set off everything else in contrast, and the creaminess and smoothness of the soup carried it all the way home. It was like that for everything.
All the food was amazing. The drinks were better. It's too bad their website's wine list isn't a current one, because they've got a full page of hard cider that I wanted to work my way through bottle by bottle. But that wouldn't have been feasible, so I just ordered the three-cider sampling. One Virginian sparkling apple cider, very sharp, not too sweet; one New York Finger Lakes apple cider with blackcurrant, smooth and soft and balanced just right, and one French pear cider that I made sure to get the name of because it was the best goddamn pear cider I've ever had. And it was Bordelet 2009 Sparkling Pear Cider Poire Authentique.
Apparently they sell it at Whole Foods. Time to start investigating.
And yes, I asked for, and got, some of the cornbread to take with me for breakfast tomorrow.