Gilt

Location The Villard Mansion of The New York Palace Hotel 455 Madison Avenue @ 50th Street New York, New York 10022 Phone

212-891-8100

Website http://www.giltnewyork.com/

Opening date December 2005 Interior Design Patrick Jouin.

Executive Chef Christopher Lee Restaurant

Director

Christopher Day

Director of Wine & Spirits: Jason Ferris

Pastry Chef David Carmichael

Three course prix fixe - $82

Five course tasting menu - $110

Seven course Chef’s tasting menu - $140

Capacity Dining Room: Seating for 52 Bar: Seating for 40 Private Dining in The Madison Room: Seating for 100 Hours Gilt Bar: Opens at 5pm everyday.

Open Tuesday to Saturday starting at 5:30pm Reservations Strongly Suggested Dress Code No official dress code.

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Review By Nancy Walman

Award-winning website, Punchin-dot-com, features the Walman Report and reviews of restaurants, travel, wine and theater. Gilt is an opulent temple of gastronomy located in The New York Palace Hotel. Chef Christopher Lee offers an $85 3-course menu that will bring you to your knees.

While wine director, Jason Ferris, has assembled a superb wine list with many bottles priced under $100, you may want to throw caution to the wind and request that appropriate wines be matched to each course. Or go for broke and sample the 7-course tasting menu for $140, with $75 surcharge for wines. Our only request was that Mr. Ferris not select California wine (not that we don’t like them). A brief chat concerning out taste in wine and Ferris came up with the paring below. He also is easy going, guiding and listens. In other words, everything a great sommelier should be, but so often isn’t.

We chose the 3-course route (ordering two different choices for each course). The chef sent out a few on his own and we savored such culinary delights as the following menu can only suggest. The wines were magically paired.

Favorites included Hudson Valley Foie Gras, with roasted peanuts and passion fruit; French White Asparagus with California snails and pickled ramps was ravishing. Olive-oil poached wild Atlantic Salmon melted in one’s mouth. And let’s not neglect the rapturous Mild-Fed pork with fiddle head ferns. Despite some of the complex food descriptions, Chef Lee gets it right every time, knowing that less is more. Beautiful presentations never get in the way of flavor.

David Carmichael’s knockout deserts include luscious toasted carrot cake and a mint chocolate ice cream. Under manager, Christopher Day’s direction, service is among the best in Manhattan. GILT, 455 MADISON AVENUE, has evolved into one of New York’s top 5 restaurants and rates A Major on the Walman Report.

Copyright 2008 By Punchin International. All Rights Reserved

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Our Menu Follows

AMUSE
White Asparagus & Parmesan Ravioli
Wild Asparagus, Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Tomato

FIRST
Japanese Shima-aji Ceviche
Hearts of Hawaiian Peach Palm, Rhubarb, Yuzu Citrus, Thai Basil, Jalapeno Oil

Hudson Valley Foie Gras
Passion Fruit, Coffee Cardamom, Roasted Peanuts, Baby Chicory Salad

French White Asparagus
California Snails, Pickled Ramps, Farmed Egg, House Cured Pancetta

SECOND
Four Cheese Ravioli
Red Mustard Greens, Sugar Snap Peas, Pink Lemons, Toasted Spring Garlic Sauce

Alaskan Spotted Prawns
Braised Fennel, Baby Red Sorrel, Capers, Espelette Cardamom Butter

THIRD
Olive Oil Poached Wild Alaskan King Salmon
Cauliflower Cous Cous, Baby Fennel, Tangerine Citrus, Sun Trout Caviar Sauce

St. Canut Farms Milk-Fed Pork
Fiddle Head Ferns, Ramps, Yukon Gold Potato Salad, Cavaillon Melon, Lovage Pork Jus

DESSERT
Grapefruit Granité
Fennel Cream

Mint Chocolate Chip
Amedei Tuscan Chocolate

Toasted Carrot Cake
Ricotta Sorbet, Walnut Powder

Sicilian Pistachio Mille Feuille
Orange-Scented Cream

WINE
Ruinart, Rosé, Reims Champagne, M.V.
Von Kesselstadt Riesling "Piesporter Goldtropfchen", Kabinett, Germany, 2005
Cortese, "Rabaja", Barbaresco, Piedmont, Italy, 1998

Tasting Notes: I love Rosé Champagnes and this one was lively and lush. We are also fans of Riesling. "Piesporter Goldtropfchen", Kabinett was a surprise. Just a hint of sweetness, which was the result of well balanced fruit. Interestingly Barbaresco is another favorite. The 1998 had good tannins and structure. Delicious

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Background Information

The Eight Seasons of GILT:

Chef Christopher Lee Elevates the Seasonal and Familiar
to the Pinnacle of Innovative Elegance

The four seasons aren’t enough for Michelin-starred GILT executive chef Christopher Lee.

Well-known by the top purveyors for his discerning taste and his refusal to compromise, Chef Lee changes his New American menu not once, but at least twice each season: An ingredient may be in season according to the calendar, but if it’s not of the highest quality and peak condition, you won’t see it on the menu at GILT until it is.

This autumn, Chef Lee continues to make culinary history by transforming childhood favorites into sublime, contemporary grown-up creations in brilliant new ways. Just as the French designer Patrick Jouin transformed the classic, opulent study of the 1882 Villard Mansion at the New York Palace Hotel into a striking and futuristic, yet still elegant and refined dining room, so too, does chef Lee work his transformative magic on the best seasonal produce.

Ingredients featured this fall will include wild and exotic mushrooms, hearty pumpkin, squash and root vegetables, wild game such as venison and partridge, and white truffles, including a special white truffle tasting menu.

Winner of the James Beard Award and one of Food and Wine Magazine’s Best New Chefs for 2006, Lee has established a top-notch reputation for his transcendent twists on the classics, but he is always inventing the next new thing with a focus on luxury, style and a sense of humor. No matter how indulgent the ingredients, or how complex and multilayered the flavors, the preparations are always elegant, light and clean. But the only way to fully appreciate the attention to detail, the time that goes into making each sauce and each garnish, the stimulating combinations, and perfect balance of flavors and textures, is by tasting. Diners choose from a three-course prix fixe, or a five or seven-course chef’s tasting menu.

The experience begins with an amuse bouche: scallops on the half shell with melted leek and truffle butter or thinly sliced venison carpaccio. For starters, three-course diners would do well to select Foie Gras Mille Feuille. The velvety pate is layered between thin crisp sheets of sweet and savory pumpkin seed tuile for a light crunch, perfectly accented with Concord grape foam and a swipe of cheese pumpkin puree. Equally appealing is the strikingly original Beet Salad with Goat Cheese Pannacotta, caviar essence and an ice wine vinegar reduction.

Alternatively, a diner might opt for a first course of Lee’s brilliant, fun and deeply satisfying rendition of a deconstructed Reuben sandwich, “Pastrami” Pork Belly. The succulent peppered pork, served with caraway-inflected rye flour and potato gnocchi, pickled cabbage, raclette cheese and Russian dressing makes light of the traditional layered sandwich of pastrami, sour kraut, and cheese on rye, while also creating an amazing flavor profile. Equally amusing and delicious is the Butternut Squash Soup with tender bites of Canadian lobster. It is served with a surprise tableside flourish of cinnamon flavored cotton candy. Diners gasp in awe as the spicy spun sugar melts into the soup, infusing it with just the right mix of spice and sweetness.

New fall entrees from the ocean will include a new scallop dish; a creation based around Hawaiian escalar; and other inventions that highlight the freshest offerings from the sea, alongside the signature Yellow Fin Tuna Wellington, a gorgeous composition of beautiful bright red tuna topped with a rich porcini mushroom duxelle and wrapped in flat leaf spinach and puff pastry, enhanced by two complex and delicious sauces; foie gras and red wine reduction.

From the land, Chef Lee introduces his version of the Chinese classic tea-smoked chicken: Herb Roasted Poussin with har gow dumplings, matsutake mushrooms, pickled daikon, carrots and sea beans and Chinese spinach. But instead of smoking the poultry, he prepares a consommé with smoked black tea for a delicate, complex preparation that is wonderfully reminiscent of the Asian original, but also unlike anything you have ever tasted.

Even the tea list changes with the seasons. Restaurant director Christopher Day (Oceana, Cello, RM, Per Se) not only thoughtfully anticipates guests’ needs throughout the dining experience but also curates the very impressive tea list. The 38 selections from five of the top purveyors (In Pursuit of Tea, Ito En) in varieties from white to yellow to green to black, red, oolong and special reserve teas such as Yinzhen Silver Needle from Fujian Province, China; Premium Sencha from Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan; and Aged High Mountain Oolong, 1994, Nantou County, Taiwan. There’s also seasonal selection of unusual, limited production teas that are so rare they can’t be listed.

Pastry chef David Carmichael (Daniel, Le Bernardin, Lutece, and Oceana) has the first and last word. You don’t have to wait for the last course to savor the baked creations of the acclaimed pastry chef, named as one of the nation’s top ten pastry chefs in 2004 by both Chocolatier Magazine and Pastry Art & Design Magazine.

From the breadsticks in the bar to the selection of breads served at the start of the meal, these remarkable baked goods are not to be skipped. The bread offerings are seasonal, too, changing every eight to ten weeks. Two of the newest additions are apple cider rolls with thin slices of apple baked into the dough and pecorino garlic rolls with a wonderful infusion of fresh herbs, both served warm from the oven.

When it comes to the final course, he also transforms childhood familiar favorites into sophisticated, creative upgrades incorporating the best seasonal fruits. Warm sticky toffee pudding and black walnut ice cream takes a touch of autumn from a drizzle of pomegranate jus. French toast becomes a custardy dessert delight with port wine syrup and fresh figs. The apple cider donuts from your local cider mill can’t compete with Carmichael’s fluffy lemon-poached apple doughnut with Calvados ice cream. And the ethereal autumn plum baked Alaska with sweet angel hair crunch recalls the popular 1970s dessert, but it’s a definite leap into the future in flavor and complexity.

From the award of a Michelin star in the new edition of the guidebook, to the high marks in the latest release of the Zagat restaurant guide, to the new CW11 television show, “Gossip Girl,” people are talking about GILT.

For the premiere episode of the Gossip Girl, filmed in part on location at GILT, chef Lee produced a decadent version of grilled cheese, featuring melted fontina and white truffles. While this sandwich was originally created to satisfy the fictional demands of Chuck Bass and Serena van der Woodsen, it is now available on the bar menu to satisfy the very real hunger of late-night bar patrons. (In addition to previewing the sandwich, you can also get a glimpse of Chef Lee in the first two episodes of “Gossip Girl,” filmed in part on location at GILT.)

The word is out about GILT, but you have to taste the seasons for yourself. For more information,visit:http://www.giltny.com’" DESIGNTIMESP=17125>http://www.giltny.com’" DESIGNTIMESP=30890>http://www.giltny.com’" designtimesp=10173>http://www.giltny.com">http://www.giltny.com> . You can make your reservation by visiting GILT’S website, or by calling (212) 891-8100.

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