NoMad’s decadent roast chicken for two is stuffed with black truffles and foie gras.
A friend who works at one of Daniel Boulud’s places buttonholed me on the sidewalk: Was The NoMad’s chicken as “astronomical” as she’d heard?
Yes — NoMad’s fabulous fowl, pumped up with black truffles and foie gras, is starting conversations on the street. It’s the grandest dish, but by no means the only grand one, at the year’s best new restaurant by a mile.
And the sweetest. Hosts smile, waiters usually don’t step on your punch lines. The NoMad is the work of Eleven Madison Park owner Will Guidara and chef-partner Daniel Humm. That they brought forth a new place attitude-free is merely amazing. That they pulled it off at the NoMad Hotel, sizzling younger sister to The Ace a block away, verges on zany.
Humm, whose Eleven Madison Park holds three Michelin stars, had nothing to prove at The NoMad. He simply created ridiculously delicious dishes for a broader clientele, modern-American in style but French-disciplined and Hummed to his freshly tweaked tune.
Where EMP offers an ultra-pricey, prix-fixe menu only vaguely described — “scallops,” “beef” — NoMad’s a la carte is cheaper than at a steakhouse. It tells you what you’re getting: “Halibut slow-cooked with spring peas.” Eerie compositions are put on the shelf for presentations you’ll recognize even after an atomic mint julep made with Jamaican rum and cognac.
Two equally fun dining rooms are distinct enough for different restaurants. The seductive, carpeted “parlor” is steeped in dark oak, red velvet and tush-pampering salon chairs. If it doesn’t deliver for you on the third date, give up and become a monk.
The noisier atrium has a skylight view of the hotel above; a parted curtain offers a glimpse into the glowing bar. Buzzing by night, it’s tea room-like at lunch, when two guys bolted because there were no eggs Benedict.
“I really like to cook,” Humm said modestly one night, strolling through — a preference leaving little time for TV. Which is swell. The question about chefs who play with arcane molecular riffs, as Humm does at EMP, is: Can he roast a chicken?
NoMad’s bird for two ($78) is a masterpiece you might have encountered in a rustic French auberge 50 years ago. The breast’s plated with white asparagus. A surfeit of foie gras and truffles insinuated between meat and skin permeates every pore.
The dark meat materializes in a black pot after flash-sauteing in a sumptuous fricassee of morels, truffles and sherry-brown butter sabayon. But Humm’s protean gifts inform dishes quite different and less costly.
You want modern — out of the garden, say? That would be refreshingly earthsome snow peas chiffonade (julienne-sliced, $15) crackling with pancetta, pecorino cheese and fresh mint.
Deceptively orderly looking squares of fish and pork tamed appetites on a blustery night: one of slow-cooked halibut filet ($32) melting on the tongue atop gentle saffron and lemon-thyme broth, one of inexhaustibly deep-flavored suckling pig confit ($34).
A “vegetarian” entree tickles the eye and palate — pumpkin-orange carrots ($20) amid toothsome wheatberry salad discreetly sprinkled with duck skin and cumin-scented. For a truly meat-free thrill, there’s sensuous crackling asparagus bread salad liberally decorated with adorable hon-shimeji mushrooms.
Relative letdowns? Chewy lobster ($39) was scrunched into a pan gridlocked with vegetables and pointless potato chips. Foie gras torchon ($24) encircled a round of head cheese — too unctuous by half and in need of a parrying sweet.
Mark Welker’s desserts see to your sugar needs, and then some. Our favorite was “milk and honey,” a swirly looking affair involving honey shortbread and brittle and milk foam crisps.
But Humm and Guidara better not take their eyes off the place for a nanosecond. One night, the normally adult floor crew was hijacked by swarming hoverers, loomers and crumb-scrapers as pushy as squeegee men. Should we tip them for annoying us?
I’ll give the place the benefit of a doubt, as long as they don’t let anyone mess with that chicken.