Eat your vegetables!
Here’s the dir t on the bumper crop of vegetarian tasting menus sprouting up at fine NYC restaurants
EGETARIAN tasting menus are popping up like wild mushrooms in the rain. It’s a harvest to celebrate, right? Yes, but not all crops are created equal.
I tried seven restaurant tastings at different price points. (Don’t mistake “vegetarian” for “light.” Chefs toss in a kitchen sink of cheese and cream, pasta, grains, nuts, oils and fruit. I finished my meals as stuffed as if I’d split a porterhouse.)
I rated not only the strengths of specific dishes, but what composers call the “long line” — a sense of coherence to the whole affair. Are dishes served in the right order to maximize the pleasure of each?
Here’s my scorecard, ranked on a scale of 0 (tastes like dirt!) to 4 carrots (Bugs Bunny would approve). Prices are per person and don’t include drinks, tax or tip.
Del Posto’s tasting flowed in symphonic-structured movements. The overture: salad of escarole, chicory and bitter herbs under a black truffle vinaigrette mist, one of three marvelous vegan (dairy-free) courses Ladner snuck in. We forgave “cool warm-weather minestrone” poured over basil tortellini that separated into a vinegary pool. High ground came in two mid-meal pasta courses. Luna piena, a giant raviolo, was filled with Castelmagno cheese and shaved black truffles. Wholewheat tonnarelli bore a crackling chili spark and complexions of rosemary and bonito. Forest-floor flavor depths of globe artichoke- and wild mushroom-based vegan compositions saved them from being anticlimactic. Roasted nectarine and grilled lemon cake brought the sun back.