Le Jardinier
- B & J
- Feb 19, 2024
- 3 min read
Updated: May 7, 2024
Le Jardinier: https://lejardinier-nyc.com/
Address: 610 Lexington Avenue, New York NY 10022
Quick Bites
This Valentine's Day (our third Valentine's Day together!), the two of us had the pleasure of experiencing Le Jardinier, a French Michelin-starred restaurant. For this special occasion, we were offered a four-course set menu that was both sophisticated and delicious. It left us with huge smiles on our faces and so much good food in our bellies. We just had such a great time and we really recommend checking this place out, especially if you're looking to celebrate with a very special someone!
The Setting
Our first steps inside the restaurant and we could get a sense of the clean, modern, sophisticated, and romantic atmosphere. We could tell right from the start that we were in a Michelin-star restaurant! Only one small gripe, we were sat in a cramped row of tables near the center of the dining room sitting across from each other, as opposed to being off to the side in one of the more roomy booths where we could sit next to each other. If you couldn't already tell from our other blog posts, we love being able to cozily sit side-by-side at a restaurant!
The Service
Our night started off with a tiny hiccup as our table wasn't yet ready for our 8:30 reservation. We checked in on the ground floor, were told that our table would be on the 2nd floor, walked up to the 2nd floor, and then were told our table wasn't ready but that a table back on the first floor would be clearing up sooner. The staff gave us an option to either wait for our original table or go for the quicker table downstairs. We were pretty hungry so we opted to go back downstairs.
After that though, the service was just great all around. The staff was very attentive and friendly - they would swing by multiple times to check in on us and to ensure our table was always clean of any crumbs. They even humored us when we jokingly tried to pass off J's deep hatred of mushrooms as a "food allergy." They wanted to know if his dislike of mushrooms was due to taste or texture (hint: it's the taste, the texture, the name, how it looks, how it's spelled, the fact that it's a fungus, literally everything, mushrooms have no redeeming qualities) and offered to remove truffles (the closest thing they had to mushrooms on the menu that night) from the dishes. We decided to keep the truffles, but still appreciated the wait staff taking our preferences seriously!
First Course - Cured Hiramasa
The first dish was cured Hiramasa fish wrapped in Jicama (a Mexican turnip), and topped with Royal Kaluga Caviar. The caviar gave the dish a special and luxurious feel to it, but overall this cold dish just wasn't our thing. It looked really beautiful and was skillfully put together, and we're sure other diners with different preferences would have loved it.
Second Course - Ricotta Agnolotti with Black Truffle
Our second course was Agnolotti (similar to ravioli) stuffed with ricotta cheese. A few shavings of black truffle topped this dish. While neither of us are big fans of truffle, we really enjoyed this dish. The Agnolotti and its accompanying sauce were really great! It was a good thing too, because we were a tiny bit worried that our experience at Le Jardinier would be so-so after not loving our first dish. This dish helped put some of those doubts to rest
Main Course - Atlantic Cod & Grass Fed Beef Tenderloin
With the main course, our dinner at Le Jardinier really hit its peak. Both the Atlantic Cod and the Beef Tenderloin were absolutely amazing!
The Cod itself was cooked to perfection and was both flaky and tender, and was the clear star of the dish. The Salmon Roe that accompanied the fish popped in your mouth. The sauce (a yuzu buerre blanc) was also incredibly delicious and really elevated the dish to new heights! Every tender and juicy bite of fish was made so much better with the delicious sauce.
The Tenderloin also WOW'd us! Perfectly cooked, juicy, tender, and so tasty! It came with some delicious and very thinly sliced potatoes as well as a nice onion soubise sauce. But the meat itself truly was a star. The two of us really love to explore a good NYC steakhouse every so often and this tenderloin can certainly compete with the best of them!
Dessert
And then came dessert! A perfect end to a perfect night in our opinions. We were treated to a sweet and creamy raspberry cheesecake mousse which topped a crispy and crunch chocolate sable cookie. A perfect blend of flavors and textures. The heart-shape also perfectly fit into the theme of love!
