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Manhattan: PerrySt

176 Perry Street , Phone: (212) 352-1900
www.jean-georges.com
Closing day: None

Reviewed by: Kim from NJ, review #3492

When: 2010

I seem to be hitting a lot of the Jean-George restaurants lately, I think this may be my favorite so far.

Directions: Not easy to get to in terms of mass transportation - you could take the A, C or E train to 14th street and walk west until you hit the water (the restaurant is at the corner of Perry and West St), and then south. There's a parking lot too at the corner of Greenwich and Perry, if you're driving in.

Five of us dined at Perry St in June to celebrate a birthday. We had a 7:00 reservation on a Thursday night, and seemed to arrive on the earlier side of things (the place was hopping by 8:00 though and the bar still hopping when we left about 9:45.) Oh, and let me note, right now in case you're wondering, 9:45 wasn't because of poor service, it was because when we gather about every six weeks or so to celebrate a birthday, there's always so much to talk about and catch up on that we tend to linger (and we never felt rushed.)

The location may be considered a bit off the beaten path, at the corner of Perry St. and West St. but the large open room, overlooking the buzzing traffic on West and the Hudson River beyond, simply but cleanly decorated, conveys a quiet elegance yet comfort that allows for people dressed in jeans and short sleeves, to women more elegantly dressed in the black cocktail staple. And while I'm thinking about comfort, let me say this too, they seated us right away though one of our party was late due to bridge and tunnel traffic. So many highfalutin restaurants refuse to seat you until your entire party has arrived, but they had no problem.

As all of us were watching our weight (yeah, watching go right up :D), and it was still a "work" night, so we shared only a single bottle of white wine. Now here's something I love, I described to our server what type of wine we were looking for (white, fruit forward but not sweet, something with a bit of peach or apricot on the nose, basically something refreshing, not an oak bomb) and I gave her our price-point - $40 to $50 and she pulled out an Austrian sauvignon blanc that exactly fit the bill (at $43 a bottle). I'm sorry I didn't note the name because we all enjoyed it.

For appetizers we shared three, while we waited for our "fifth" to arrive, the crispy calamari, the sauteed shrimp and the beat and goat cheese salad with mango vinaigrette. All were delicious and all presented well, and our fifth arrived just in time to finish all three. Oh, and they served us a thick country bread just before the appetizers.

For our entrees - two had the tuna burger (one not cooked enough but I can't blame the chef, to cook tuna hard all the way through, well... order a different fish), two had the lobster poached in butter with potato ravioli and one had the pan roasted black sea bass with portabello fries (yes, you read that right - very lightly fried mushroom sticks - not greasy - pretty good). Everyone enjoyed their dinners and of course sharing occurred.

For dessert, we shared two - the chocolate pudding and the passion fruit souffle (yes a real souffle and in under 20 minutes - amazing).

We really liked this place, I will definitely return, maybe even for a romantic dinner because although it was one large room, the crowd noise was never overwhelming and unlike the other two Jean George restaurants I recently dined in (Mercer Kitchen and Spice Market), it wasn't so dark that I needed help reading the menu (hmm.. guess that could be because of the setting sun outside...). Oh, and almost forgot, dinner came to $245 for the five of us, pre-tip.

This review is the opinion of a Slow Travel member and not of slowtrav.com.

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