Photo Credit: Jeremy Liebman, New York MagazineAlthough I grew up in New York - or, more likely, because I grew up in New York - I don't have very many oportunities to choose where I eat when I get back there. I'm not complaining - my trips are (happily) centered around friends and family, and my desire to sample the finest local food restaurants in town hasn't been a high enough priority.
Still, it was with quite a bit of excitement that I recently had a chance to get back to Manhattan to visit my good friend Jon. It was his birthday, but he let me pick the restaurant. I turned to Twitter and Facebook.
"Will be in NYC Saturday night, looking for a good restaurant that serves local food. Suggestions?" I asked my friends. Quickly, the recommendations started coming: Jimmy's No. 43, Back Forty (where we enjoyed a tasty lunch), Savoy, Little Giant, Spotted Pig, Blue Hill, Northern Spy Food Co., Telepan, Mas Farmhouse, Rouge Tomate. I was overwhelmed with terrific suggestions within 20 minutes. Using geography as our guide (we were staying near the Dakota), the answer soon became clear: Telepan it was. Lucky us.
Here's what New York Magazine wrote about Chef/Owner Bill Telepan:
Telepan, who made his reputation at the once-popular and now-defunct JUdson Grill in midtown, turns out to be an avowed Greenmarketeer, which means Upper West Siders, at long last, can enjoy the kind of preciously highbrow seasonal cooking that has been on display for several years now at fashionable downtown establishments like Blue Hill and Craft.
My friend Jon and I settled on the four course (including dessert) tasting menu ($55), which offered us the best chance to sample lots of food at a reasonable price. Here's what I ate, with descriptions from the Telepan menu:
Course One: House-Smoked Brook Trout, with buckwheat-potato blini and black radish sour cream
(Jon got the delicious Egg in a Hole (pictured here), with a slow-poached egg, spinach, hen-of-the-woods mushroom and toasted garlic.)
Course Two: Duck and Foie Gras Ravioli, with parsley root puree and dried fruit sauce
Course Three: Heritage Pork, with potato pierogi, sauerkraut, celery root and apple
Course Four (Dessert): Crunchy Peanut Butter and Milk Chocolate Gianduja, with peanut brittle ice cream and huckleberry gelée
All of the food was excellent, at least as good as it sounds on the menu. Most impressive was the heritage pork dish, which Jon and I informally renamed "once around the pig" - pork tenderloin, pork sausage, and pork belly on a bed of homemade sauerkraut, apples, celery root, and a pierogi, at once traditionally Eastern European and altogether brand new. When I asked the server (who was just a bit stuffy at times) for more information on the pig, he let me know that Telepan served only rare heritage pork from Flying Pigs Farm, located in New York's Battenkill River Valley.
Jon and I left Telepan happy and full, and I'd go back again in a heartbeat. Many of the diners surrounding us were digging into a fantastic-looking hamburger served with - according to the menu - "house-made pickles & a volcano." I made Jon promise to get that next time and let me know what he thinks. Stay tuned.
