New Years at Empire State South

It seems like more and more restaurants are doing fixed menus for new years. This year, it seemed like they all came out only a week before new years though, which I think is pretty stupid.

Empire State South released theirs right after Thanksgiving and it sounded great, so we had already nailed down our plans way in advance.

They were doing two seatings so we opted for the early one at 6pm. Always best to get home before the new years crazies are on the road.

When we arrived, they handed us a new years cocktail. I don't remember the name, but it had Hayman's Old Tom gin, Luxardo bitters, and champagne.

We were one of the first to be seated, which works for me because it also meant that we got champagne early.

The kitchen sent out an amuse, a potato mousse topped with creme fraiche, lemon, fennel, and some UGA caviar.

Light, delicious. A really nice starter.

From there, the charcuterie plate with foie gras torchon, pate en croute of fowl, galantine of duck, pistachio cervales, pate grand-pere, mustards, and pickles.

My favorite, of course, was the foie gras torchon. The pates were all very good. Probably the pate en croute was my least favorite. That's the one inside the bread, right?

From there, the seafood course: bay scallops, clammer dave's clams, rappahannock river oyster, octopus, cauliflower, kohlrabi, chorizo, and chorizo dashi.

This was an interesting dish. The broth was tasty. I'm sure the quantity of seafood is considered generous by restaurant standards, but I wished there had been more. See how it says oyster up there? Yeah, one oyster apiece. It was okay.

This is the charred prime ribeye with farro miso, foie gras, dauphine potato, black trumpets, and brussels that Josh got.

I almost ordered this just because of the foie and I'm glad I didn't because I think there was a small amount of foam and that was the foie.

He said it was good, but my fish was better.

Here is my fish: black cod with black truffle sunchoke pave, sunchoke puree, persimmon butter, bok choy.

It was good. Fish was cooked beautifully.

Dessert: chocolate brittle gelee, sparkling clementine granita, clementines, raspberry-caramel tuile, chocolate caramello, cocoa nibs, beet ice cream.

This was a weird dish and the components didn't really go very well together. A disappointing finish.

I'm torn on the meal overall. My expectations of Empire State South are high and they did 70 covers for this seating. The meal was good, but it fell a little short of my hopes.

We went home and had some champagne. Yays.