03 November 2008

'Perry St.' - West Village, New York City.






I had a Most Excellent dinner this past Saturday night at Jean-George Vongerichten's beautiful West Village restaurant, 'Perry St.'.

The restaurant is housed inside one of the icy, all-glass Richard Meier structures overlooking the Hudson River in Manhattan, where the chef also happens to own an apartment on the seventh floor. From the outside, with the lights shimmering through the frosted glass, his restaurant looks quite beautiful. Inside, the room feels serene and subdued, a muted symphony of soft whites (chairs and banquettes) and tan browns (wooden tables) encased in glass. Huge arrangements of warm-colored burgundy autumn leaves soared from the top of the bar in the center of the space. This detail provided quite a foil to the slick, razor sharp contemporary interior.

Dinner at Perry Street unfolds with a kind of muted, surgical precision. Appetizers and entrées are divided on the menu into symmetrical lists of eight. Meals are served on simple white porcelain, much of which is not round but square. They’re transported to the table by serious-faced waiters dressed in white shirts and thin black ties, who pad among the tables with a kind of exaggerated quietness, like docents in the canteen of a small, modernist museum.

The food was simply wonderful, the company even better and the entire evening absolutely terrific! Special thanks and love to Drue, Heather, Matt and, of course, R.