Per Se

What do you get for a thousand dollar dinner for two? Foodporn. Every dish at Thomas Keller’s blue-doored temple to gastronomy overlooking New York’s Central Park looks EXACTLY like it came out of one of the multitude of glossy coffee table monstrosities being hawked at Barnes and Noble for upwards of $50.

First I’d like to take on the haters who complain of hunger upon completing the nine-course-plus-one-thousand-amuse boches. Folks, if you’re looking to walk back through the blue door with your belly hanging over your belt, you overshot the Argentinian steakhouse in Hell’s Kitchen by a few blocks. I’m betting that the same people complaining about being hungry after dining and drinking for nearly three hours are the same kinds of people who can stomach an entire gallon of eggnog at the family Christmas party and complain that Aunt Marjorie didn’t adequately anticipate the family’s festive needs. (Nearly) each course was a titillating experience of flavor and texture that left a body yearning for more of the goodness but at the same time not quite sure it could handle another bite of such intensely rich flavor.

Keller’s menu is seasonal and changes often to accommodate the freshest and most perfect produce. The caviar and oyster appetizer is a year-round staple and rightfully so. The perfect marriage of crunchy, briny, and creamy, you just know another good thing is right around the corner. The wine list is lengthy, as expected, and the sommelier’s PERFECT recommendation to order a half bottle of red and a half bottle of white was brilliant, and a request to put the private label zin on ice for a few seconds was happily observed.

Perhaps the most striking aspect of the Per Se experience was the absolute perfection of the service. During the entire course of the three hour dinner, I was quite sure that my captain had never been more unassumingly elated to have served someone in his entire food service career. I would not have been surprised if, behind the tall draped curtain serving as a backdrop, he had been watching our every move from a hidden camera waiting for the last morsel of food to vanish before swooping in to cue up the next course. (I’ve actually heard this rumored to be true at other swanky joints, but not specifically at Per Se.)

I don’t care what the pastry chef earns, she deserves a raise. Outside of the baklava at the Majestic deli on Seventh Avenue, she makes some of the best desserts I’ve ever laid tongue on. And as Chris Farley says in Billy Madison, “I know from experience, dude. If you know what I mean.” The “Peanut Butter and Milk” dessert is an intensely bitter chocolate explosion just salty enough to want to keep licking your lips and wishing for a glass of dessert wine. I can’t say enough about how delicious the rest of the meal was, but I can say that I’d have been happy with 8 out of the 9 courses coming from the pastry kitchen. And then I probably wouldn’t have bitched about being hungry.

WINNERS: dessert, Thomas Keller’s cookbooks, and at $275 a head not including alcohol, at least service is included

LOSERS: the restaurant is in a mall. Please. $150 supplement for shavings of white truffles? Please.