Immaculate Infatuation

Blue Ribbon Brasserie somehow feels overlooked lately. Maybe it’s because the flagship of the Blue Ribbon Restaurants is nearly seventeen years old. Maybe it’s because they open a new restaurant, sushi bar, bakery, or bowling alley every six months (all to critical acclaim) like they’re in an expansion race with Panera Bread Company. Either way, it’s time someone shined a light back on the patriarch of the family.

Blue Ribbon Brasserie is famous for a few things. The kitchen is open nightly until 4:00am, which makes it the most gangster of gangster late night eating options. The raw bar is one of the best in New York City, and whether you are getting down on some hard shell crab or half a dozen oysters, you’re going to be happy. Blue Ribbon also does an incredible fried chicken, often the sole motivating factor for an Immaculate Infatuation visit. That being said, the most impressive thing about Blue Ribbon Brasserie is its consistency. The service is without exception the best in the city. Everyone on the nightly payroll is invested in you having a great meal, and it shows, yet the attention is never overbearing. The menu doesn’t really change aside from the specials, and whatever your go-to item, it will be exactly as you remember it, even if years pass between visits. The bottom line is that Blue Ribbon Brasserie is a perfect example of why it’s great to live in New York City … bone marrow and fried chicken at 3:00am. Damn it feels good to be me.

… read more

It’s been a few years since Momofuku Ko opened, and now that the restaurant world is done freaking out over it, we figured it was time to check in on the place and see how it’s holding up. Well, that and it took us this long to finally get a reservation. By our calculations, that means we’ll be hanging out at the Boom Boom for the first time sometime during the summer of 2016.

In fairness to the Momofuku Ko system, it’s actually a very democratic, albeit competitive process for securing a reservation. No special treatment, no secret phone number, just log onto the website and pray that one of the 70 available dinner seatings for the week will be open. Repeat. Should you manage to secure a reservation, this is what you need to know. It’s going to be an expensive meal. It’s $125 per person just to eat dinner, and drinking will cost you quite a bit more. That hefty price tag affords you very little in the way of traditional luxuries. No white tablecloths (no tables, actually), no doting waiters, and no busboys with breadcrumb scrapers. Just a front row seat to some of the most creative cooking you can find anywhere…and some really good tunes. If you’re expecting fine dining for that kind of money and want to show off your new boat shoes at dinner, allow us to suggest Eleven Madison Park. We love that place too. But if you’re looking to put a notch in your culinary experience belt, Momofuku Ko has to be on your list. Good luck getting in.

Photo Credit: Noah Kalina

… read more

Marea definitely needs some good Infatuation press…they haven’t gotten much love lately. Makes you wonder if people around these parts have even heard of it. I mean, it’s only been awarded Best New Restaurant in America by the James Beard Foundation. While we haven’t yet logged enough hours on the road to make that kind of statement, we can definitely say that Chef Michael White makes some of the best pasta in New York City. That would be a bold statement if everyone on earth wasn’t also saying it.

Marea is one of those restaurants, like Eleven Madison Park, you walk into knowing damn well it’s going to be incredible. The food, especially the aforementioned pasta, is exquisite. A few of the dishes, including the lobster burrata, the fusili with octopus (and bone marrow), and the steak are among the best things we’ve eaten all year. Service is top notch as well – the staff know the menu inside and out, and they take excellent care of you. But for all that talk about pasta, it’s good to know this: Marea is a Quality Fish restaurant first, Italian restaurant second. To properly indulge, you’ve gotta be willing to strap on the scuba gear and eat whatever swims your way.

There are two ways to approach a Marea experience, and both are the tasting menu…it just depends on what time of day you want to eat like a baller. For lunch, the two course $42 tasting menu is a steal. That’s a better deal than what you find at most boring ass midtown business lunch destinations. Dinner is almost affordable at $89 a person for a four course tasting menu and a meal of this caliber. Ordering a la carte is always an option as well, but with such a deep menu, you’re going to be better served trying as many things as possible.

… read more

On a recent weekend night, a disastrous attempt at having dinner at Landmarc in the Time Warner Center resulted in an impromptu visit to Bar Boulud. Let me set the scenario before I get into the Bar Boulud review. The Time Warner Center Landmarc is essentially New York City’s Rainforest Cafe…true mall dining at its finest. It was an absolute zoo, there were tables crammed into every square inch of available space, and the hosts and bartenders clearly hate their lives. I’m pretty sure they would have asked us to have dinner on the floor if the place got any busier. Needless to say, we closed out our bar tab and got the cuss out of there. Desperately looking for a civilized meal and a drink, we wandered over to Bar Boulud, sure that a Friday night walk-in would illicit some French snobbery. Surprisingly, they politely sent us to the bar for a quick glass of wine and we had a table within ten minutes.

Bar Boulud is Daniel Boulud’s “casual bistro”, but by Infatuation standards this is a fancy restaurant. It’s an older crowd, but a seemingly loose one as the restaurant feels upbeat and lively. The service is first class, but not the slightest bit stiff. As for the food, you’ll find a long list of pates and terrines, but otherwise, it’s a pretty straightforward bistro. Pay attention to the specials, and the fish selections are spectacular. Salads and starters are tasty, and the wine list is well priced and full of lesser known varietals that will have you taking notes and chasing down bottles online. What‘s the takeaway here? Don’t let the French formalities scare you off. Bar Boulud is fantastic.

… read more

You obviously know by now that we’re not vegetarians. At times, this site feels like little more than a lengthy discussion about skirt steak and pork parts. Why then, are we giving so much love to a restaurant serving only raw food? Because while we may not be vegetarians, we are devoted hedonists, and Pure Food and Wine is all about pleasure. That and every musician we know talks about the place like it’s the Carnegie Hall of restaurants.

A few years back, Sarma Melngailis decided to show New York that a raw food restaurant doesn’t have to mean serving carrot sticks and lentils to a soundtrack of Ben Harper songs. Pure Food And Wine opened, and in the process she’s become an icon among those passionate about the raw lifestyle. Her restaurant, cookbooks, and One Lucky Duck takeaway business have all been extremely successful, and it’s because, raw or not, the food is incredible.

… read more