To celebrate our dating anniversary, my fiancé and I decided to try famed chef Daniel Boulud’s Le Pavillon, the newer, slightly more approachable (and affordable) little sister to his eponymous flagship (which, incidentally, is the first fine dining restaurant I ever visited, and thus will always hold a place in my heart). With an elegant ambiance filled with greenery, a prix fixe menu, and one Michelin star, it’s still decidedly a special occasion spot.
Like Daniel, Le Pavillon features French cooking focused on what’s in season. The three-course prix fixe menu has options for all kinds of eaters: there’s a lot of seafood, a lot of vegetables, and some meat, as well as many appealing desserts from pastry chef Maria Arroyo. (The table next to us was composed of one gluten-free pescatarian and one vegan, and from what my nosy ass overheard, they were very accommodating and the couple was pleased with their meal.) There are more options total than one usually finds at a restaurant of this caliber, where menus are sometimes hyper-curated to a fault; this is a refreshing change. Each course is divided into “Terre” (meat and vegetable) and “Mer” (fish and seafood) sections, and each menu item is named, in French, by its main ingredient and a secondary one: “Betterave | Tahini,” “Foie Gras | Ananas.” (My knowledge of French mostly consists of numbers, colors, basic greetings, and many, many food items, so this was well within my powers.) I love a menu with a consistent style and format—perhaps it’s the copyeditor in me—so I actually found the menu itself to be enjoyable to peruse.
To start, I was tempted by the caviar, served classically with blinis and crème fraiche, but less tempted by a supplement charge that was more than the cost of the entire prix fixe menu itself. If you’ve been reading for a while, you won’t be at all surprised that I chose the “Thon | Fenouil” to start, as I live my life on the constant verge of mercury poisoning, rarely passing up raw or rare tuna at a restaurant where it’s likely to be very fresh and well-prepared. Le Pavillon’s did not disappoint; seared ever so slightly and served just cold enough, it was dusted with fennel pollen and dotted with a creamy, savory tonnato sauce. And nothing can take tuna from great to wonderful except tartare-ifying it (yes, I do believe that’s the technical term)—so I was delighted to discover two dollops of flavorful tuna tartare served sandwiched by crisps, almost like two mini tuna tartare tacos. These were flavorful and achieved the impressive rank of My Mental Top Tier of Tuna Tartares.
As always, I got to try twice the dishes I normally would be able to because I tasted everything my fiancé ordered. He had a duo of white and red gazpachos to start, which he was instructed to mix together after they were poured at the table. These were exploding with fresh vegetable and fruit flavors, the ideal blend of savory and sweet, and enhanced by a dollop of goat cheese and drizzle of olive oil.
For mains, the “Champignon | Comte” with girelle pasta called out to me — obviously I love pasta, and creamy Comte is one of my favorite cheeses — but I don’t tend to love mushrooms with pasta. Instead, I opted for the “Poulet | Asperge.” It was a delightful surprise: I must admit that I had not registered the words “basquaise doppio” while reading the dish’s description, probably because the term was totally unfamiliar to me. Well, it turned out to be an elongated agnolotti filled with a mixture of ricotta, red pepper, and chicken liver (the “basquaise” style). It was rich and savory and flavorful, and I am thrilled to have made its acquaintance.
Chicken at an average restaurant is high risk, low reward. Chicken at an excellent restaurant is slightly lower risk and slightly higher reward. In other words, it’s not guaranteed, but in the hands of a talented chef, a chicken dish can be very good, and this one was. The preparation, involving a chorizo sauce in addition to the pasta and asparagus, was scrumptious. This perfectly moist chicken breast, a creamy and flavorful sauce, and delicious, rich pasta achieved that (in my opinion) rare thing for a chicken dish: it was as good as, and perhaps more interesting than, a good steak.
Which leads me to my fiancé’s main course, “Boeuf | Carotte,” a duo of beef served with carrots in brown butter and beef jus. A wasabi glaze added interest, and both the ribeye and the cap roulade were a perfect rare temperature. It didn’t reinvent the wheel, but it didn’t need to.
This meal was batting 100 even before dessert, and I’m glad to report that it continued to do so through the sweets. I knew immediately upon seeing the menu that I’d be getting the milk chocolate hazelnut crémeux (“Noisette | Jivara”), because it sounded like a fancy French pastry chef’s take on Nutella—and it was. I’m not ashamed to say that I love milk chocolate and merely like dark chocolate, so this creamy, velvety, sweet chocolate dish, juxtaposed with the crispness of a buttery, salty crust, was one of my favorite desserts I’ve had in a while.
The other dessert that greatly appealed to me was the “Cerise | Vanille.” Red fruits and vanilla cream? Count me in. So I was lucky when my fiancé decided to order it. The rum-soaked pastry was a nice contrast with the cherries and vanilla chantilly, but ultimately, this dish was less special than the crémeux. Still, it was a great end to a great meal, which was topped off with two varieties of mini cream puffs. These were delicate and crisp yet soft, filled with pistachio—which tasted more like almond paste than pistachio to me, but was still sweet and satisfying—and caramel, which was rich and layered in flavor. This is another restaurant where the details are well attended to; from these petit fours to the three kinds of bread with butter from Normandy to the elevated prosciutto-and-melon amuse bouche to the creative co*cktails, I left feeling like I had had everything I could possibly want in an elevated, creative French meal.
The plating at this restaurant is flawless. Each dish was presented beautifully, with not a single microgreen or a drop of sauce out of place: true works of visual art. Le Meurice Alain Ducasse, a slightly disappointing two-star French restaurant in Paris where we found the plating to be shockingly sloppy, could take some direction from this New York spot. I can’t remember seeing such artful plates anywhere besides perhaps at Daniel itself. The service matched this standard; the presentation and explanations of dishes were elegant and knowledgeable. I expect nothing less from Daniel Boulud. This might be as top-tier of a fine French meal as I’ve ever had in New York—but the menu is more approachable, less pretentious, and less expensive than the Le Bernardins and Per Ses and Jean Georges, and yes, the Daniels of the world.
The only thing I can possibly criticize about Le Pavillon is that its location in Midtown East and, specifically, in a high end office building gives it a rather corporate feel. Many a banker was dining there. It hardly matters; if you transplanted this spot to a chicer or trendier part of town, no one would stop talking about it.
Unbeknownst to me when I visited, they also have a bar with a food menu that includes some great French classics in a more casual format and lower price point. This seems like a great way to experience a wonderful restaurant if you don’t want to commit to an elaborate multi course affair—and I will absolutely be going for a bar meal so I can try their beef tartare. Duh.
The large number of options on the prix fixe menu is another attribute: I could easily return to Le Pavillon not too long from now, have a completely different meal, and—based on the consistent high quality of these dishes—enjoy it just as much. And I hope I will.
TL;DR: WHAT WE ATE
Loved: Thon | Fenouil, Gazpacho | Tomate, Poulet | Asperge, Boeuf | Carotte, Noisette | Jivara
Liked: Cerise | Vanille
Could have skipped: nothing
