Jean Georges

This restaurant is a tribute to showmanship as one might expect of one located in the lobby of a Trump property on the southwest corner of Central Park. You can even get there or back to your hotel by horse and carriage, but the show begins inside.

The meal is served in the classic style, with course after fascinating course. We always order the tasting menu, so we can spend hours being entertained. The meal starts with a little amuse gueule, perhaps red and gold beets with lobster tartare. Then it continues luxuriously with fois gras, perhaps with fresh figs, wrapped in prosciutto, or asparagus with morels in a creamy mushroom sauce.

Every dish is a little gem, whether it is the fresh soup assembled at the table or the stewed root vegetables in truffle oil. Even their nod to organic, scallops in brown sauce with buckwheat crisps tastes like something out of the Belle Epoque. They combine cuisines freely and successfully: venison with enoki mushrooms in an oriental style, or chestnut soup with shitake ravioli. Every dish is a delightful mix and a sense of luxury is maintained by both the kitchen and waiting staff throughout the meal.

Jean George is one of the few restaurants where we eat dessert, which can go on for a while in its own right. There are their richly flavored ice creams, the little meringues, candied grapefruit peel to die for and a host of other little amusements.

There are restaurants with better food in New York City, L'Espinasse for example, and there are restaurants with a greater sense of hospitality, The Lobster Club, for example, but Jean Georges is near the top for sheer entertainment value.

New York Restaurants