Taste test
Diners take on the role of critic at Park Avenue’s lively new Test Kitchen dinners
WITH its Upper East Side address, steep prices and business-suit-clad clientele, Park Avenue Summer isn’t exactly the place where you’d expect to find a gaggle of 30-something Brooklynites sipping experimental cocktails on a Tuesday.
But there they were last week for the first of the restaurant’s new Test Kitchen dinners where customers critique the menu. They ate familystyle from brightly colored Le Creuset pots, debated the proper intensity of pickled eggplant and wrote comments for the chef in miniature notebooks.
Park Avenue — the restaurant known for undergoing a dramatic transformation each season by changing its name, menu and décor within a 48-hour period — has introduced the dinner series to attract a younger clientele and to give 31-year-old chef Kevin Lasko a chance to stretch his wings and try out dishes in development.
“We think we have a budding star with Kevin,” says owner Michael Stillman. “He has so many dynamic ideas — we wanted to find ways to show them.”
In a town lousy with chefs’ tables and intimate tasting menus, the Test Kitchen is distinctive. The price tag — $75 for a four-course meal, beverage pairings included — makes it a relative bargain.
“I can’t remember the last time I was at a chef’s table, which I attend fairly frequently, for under $125,” says Alexandra Peterson, a 28-year-old from Park Slope who works in business development, and attended the dinner with her boyfriend.
Then there’s the venue, an elegant soundproof room in the middle of the kitchen with seating for up to 10 and a large glass pane that looks out at the cooks on the line.
“It’s like being in this magical bubble where food just appears,” muses Sasha Stiles, a 32-year-old who works in media and lives in Downtown Brooklyn. She’d been to the restaurant several times before, mostly for work, and had used the Test Kitchen to introduce it to a girlfriend and fellow Brooklynite. She was surprised by how calm the cooks at work appeared. “It’s not like ‘Hell’s Kitchen’ at all,” she notes.
The social element also makes the dinners unique — at least when the mix is right, as it was on the first night. Over four tomato-centric courses, the conversation flowed easily as the six strangers chatted about the poor reviews for popular chef Michael White’s new East Village restaurant Nicoletta, urban gardening and the eats and drinks in front of them.
While Lasko experimented on the plate, sommelier Justin Randolph, 30, got to branch out a bit in the beverage arena.
“I’m constantly tasting new products that just don’t fit in the restaurant,” he says. “We sell a lot of California cabernet and pinot noir.”
There were no de rigueur California reds, but plenty of boozy intrigue for the diners. The first course — brie panna cotta with lemon cucumbers, heirloom tomatoes, balsamic pignolis and crouton-size bits of Thomas’ English muffin — was paired with a vodka cocktail featuring a balsamic strawberry shrub (a vinegarbased flavoring), and the night wrapped up with a digestif made with chartreuse liqueur and homemade tomato water.
At each place setting, there was a small composition notebook for diners to record their thoughts. At the end of the meal, the notebooks were turned into Lasko.
While it’s unlikely the night’s tomato-centric dishes will show up on the menu when the restaurant transforms into Park Avenue Autumn over Labor Day weekend, Lasko says they will come into play when he’s developing dishes with the summery fruit for next year’s Park Avenue Summer.
What notes did the diners have for him? The brie panna cotta and the second course — a saffron fettucine with “ratatouille flavors” — were crowd-pleasers.
“While everyone else was talking, I was focused on cleaning my bowl,” Peterson’s live-in boyfriend, Adrian Bacao, 31, said about the pasta. The cioppino-like third course of “Montauk Longshore” seafood with andouille sausage got mixed reviews, with some praising the shellfish bounty and others deeming it overcooked.
Multiple diners noted that the ice-heavy strawberry balsamic cocktail was difficult to sip and needed a straw.
Still, attendees wrote mostly positive things in their comment books, and their notes grew less detailed as the night progressed. The social elements — and the drink pairings — seemed partly to blame.
“To be honest I got a bit distracted from the composition notebook!” laughs Stiles. “There was so much to see and taste, and such unexpectedly lively conversation with the rest of the table.”
The next Test Kitchen dinners are scheduled for Aug. 29 and 31. For more information, visit parkavenyc.com; Park Avenue Summer, 100 E. 63rd St.; 212-644-1900.
heber@nypost.com