Corton
239 West Broadway, Tribeca, NY
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While The Infatuation definitely feels more at home slumming it around the East Village, we do enjoy throwing down on classy meals every once in a while. We just can’t afford to do it that often (yet). It’s not like this was our first time to the dance. We’ve eaten – and enjoyed – plenty of white tablecloth, prix fixe menu situations before. This one just so happened to be a disaster. Is it possible that my East Village palate isn’t refined enough to properly critique Corton’s four star foam-happy French cuisine? Absolutely. I’ve spent a total of five days in Paris over the course of my life, can’t speak a word of the language and didn’t understand half of the ingredients on this menu. That doesn’t change the fact that my recent meal at Corton was one of the worst I’ve had all year, second only to the infamous Shang.
After reading Bruni’s three star rave in the Times a while back (menu hasn’t changed), we walked into Corton with sky high expectations. Frank led us to our best fancy meal of the year at Eleven Madison Park, so we enlisted his services once again here. Expectations were even higher after checking out the decor – clearly a place with stark white walls, white dishes, no windows and no music will focus solely on the food, right? Well, the food definitely took center stage, and halfway through the meal I wanted my money back. Holy shit is this place overrated. This is the kind of food that restaurant critics go crazy for, but what about the rest of us? I am sure that the pork and foie gras emulsion on my plate is ground breaking and incredibly difficult to master, but we just want to eat things that taste good. Every thing that was put in front of us – appetizer to dessert – had some kind of foamy element. This wasn’t the original intended use, but we’re tagging this with a “Perfect For” Foam Parties tag. Next time you’re looking to drop special occasion money on a meal, do what we should have done. Go somewhere else.
Food Rundown:
Violet Hill Farm EggSee, we were all set to order the foie gras as one of our appetizers (per Bruni), but were pushed in other directions by our server. That momentary lapse on our part proved fatal. Egg and pork prepared four ways: ”Tete de Cochon,” Serrano Gelee, Artichoke | Vanilla Veloute’ (whatever all that means) OR foamy, frothy, soupy and custardy. I wasn’t really sure which to eat first. There were all kinds of different flavors going on and it was confusing and unsatisfying. Was it necessary to go heavy handed on bitter chocolate for the main farm egg dish? It overshadowed the rest of the flavors. The one saving grace was the small cube of tender pork belly that came as one of the farm egg sides. Too bad there weren’t twenty more.
Scallop with Black Winter TruffleWe did the three course, $85 prix fixe and splurged on the scallop dish, even though it was an additional $25. When in Rome, right? Even the freshly shaved truffles couldn’t save this. Like the previously mentioned farm egg, the scallop appetizer rolled out in four different forms, in two of which the scallop was completely unidentifiable, and all of which contained multiple incomprehensible preparations. The main dish of royale, truffle marmalade and parmesan had the look and feel of choppy orange Jello covered in what proved to be a waste of good truffles. While the plating and colors were impressive, I would have been way happier with three seared scallops instead of all this nonsense.
CodAnother miscue on our part, listening to the server who suggested the cod over the black angus beef. This filet of cod was fine, but not enough to redeem the meal. It was cooked in a ton of butter, which will make anything taste good. The cod fritter accompanying it was tasty…wish it wasn’t served in a cup of foam. The risotto of kabocha it came with was too salty and – shocker – served with a frothy puree of pork over it. Wild DucklingWhen you eat at a fine restaurant like Corton, you expect to be completely wowed. Pedestrian food just isn’t going to cut it. If I was served this wild duckling dish for twenty bucks at my neighborhood French bistro, I’d still be unimpressed. These two small strips of duck were served with honey, honey-mead jus, turnip gelee and a crispy white polenta (which I could have used more of). I wasn’t mad at the honey, that actually worked pretty well. I was mad at the duck itself. While the bottom half of the meat was nice and tender, the top half was ridiculously thick and fatty. Weak. Honeycrisp AppleBesides that little piece of pork belly, the desserts were the best part of the meal. Too bad we were too depressed to properly enjoy them at this point. The honeycrisp was certainly enjoyable; dressed in caramel, fromage blanc and accompanied by an apple tarte tatin sorbet.
Chocolate TartThis looked spectacular, big ups go out to the pastry chef – it was clearly labor intensive. Unfortunately, it didn’t taste as good as it looked. We found that the grapefruit and hazelnut flavors didn’t play off the chocolate well, and took away from what we thought should be the focus of the dessert.
