Beacon Restaurant

The shame of their closing (I think they lost the lease) was that this was a very consistently reliable restaurant, where you could get in and out quickly for a decent price
My last visit in November, we had the root salad, pumpkin soup, chicken and salmon. Even with a side of brussel sprouts and coffee and biscotti, it came to about $ 85 — not bad considering it is manhattan and the amount of food (which was delicious as usual)
Let’s hoe they reopen soon in a new location

Came here for a holiday lunch about a week ago, and now I’m reading in the news that the restaurant has shut it’s doors. It’s unfortunate because this is actually a decent place to eat if you’re looking for more of an upscale lunch.
Ordered the wood roasted salmon with watercress and horseradish. Excellent. You could break off a piece with your fork and feel it just melt in your mouth. It was cooked to perfection — you had the full flavor of the salmon that wasn’t overpowered by any other seasoning. Also had the roasted wild mushrooms which was an excellent side, even if it didn’t really go with the salmon. The fries were good too.
The restaurant is very clean and bright. Service was attentive and the hostess greeted us immediately.
It looks like this will be a pointless review now. I hope they are able to open their doors in another location soon. I’ve heard their burgers are pretty good and was hoping to try it out.

I had never heard of this restaurant until my friend asked if I wanted to go in on a special through Living Social or Groupon (one of those — I can’t keep up anymore)! I loved it. From the moment I walked in, I was drawn in by the festive ambiance and it just got better as we continued our meal.
I was very surprised at the value. For $ 69 (total), we each got to order any main course $ 38 or under — only two of the plates were more expensive. We each also got to order any appetizer $ 18 or under. Again, every single choice fell into that category. The deal also came with a dessert per person and one side to share. Finally, we received a credit for a bottle of wine of $ 45 value. The bottle we wanted was exactly $ 45!
The menu was quite eclectic — bone marrow, sweet bread salad etc. but there were plenty of choices for people less adventurous like myself. For my appetizer, I had an apple, pumpkin soup to die for. I threatened to lick the bowl but refrained. My friend had the root salad and said it was delicious as well. My pork chop was beyond amazing — perfectly prepared and a HUGE portion. I ate every last bite. My friend had the Bass and also finished her plate. For a side, we shared the brussel sprout and chestnut dish and it was also really good. Finally, I had the apple pancake for dessert and my friend had the chocolate pumpkin cheesecake. Both of us had to force ourselves to leave some food on our plates.
The service was extremely friendly and accomodating without being rushed.
I was sorry to hear that the restaurant would be closing at the end of the year. I wonder if it is because the rent is too high — the place is enormous. In any event, it is a shame because it’s a really good restaurant.

Wood roasted oysters are a must! Easily a 5 star dish. The brussel sprouts and chestnuts were also awesome.
Everything else, was very average. I tried the roasted root salad and salmon. Both were quite average with regards to presentation and taste.
The bread they served with the meal was also quite disappointing. Initially, we had requested it and they said they would bring it with the appetizers. The appetizers came out, no bread. We inquired again and they brought out burnt stale pieces of bread and stale hamburger buns cut in quarters. They would have been much better off just telling us they ran out.
Desert was pretty good. I had the cranberry crisp which was excellent.
Summary:
Pros: Roasted oysters and brussel sprouts were incredible. Portions are big.
Cons: Overpriced, average entrees.
If I ever go back again or recommended it to a friend, I would probably just recommend getting wine and appetizers, or perhaps wine and desert and get dinner entrees elsewhere in the city.

This is a delightful restaurant and treat for Sunday Brunch. What a gem of a find on the West Side. Once you walk into the restaurant it is immense with two levels.
Use a Travel Zoo promotion for their brunch with unlimited drinks. There are so many restaurants in NYC and purchasing a Groupon/​Living Social gives us the opportunity to experience restaurants and establishments that we had no clue about unless going through the Zagat’s guide.
Our waiter, Angel was attentive and helpful. The restaurant was packed and all the staff was running around making sure drinks were filled and everyone was happy. Yes, they missed filling the water glass, but Angel came to the rescue.
My friend ordered the Beacon Chopped Salad and then changed his mind. Asked the wait staff that he wanted the Grilled Filet Mignon and Shirred Eggs instead and the wait staff noted will inform the waiter. Then the sides had to be change for my friend did not want a double order of potatoes. By the time the entrée came it was exactly what my friend wanted. We even ordered dessert since the food was so delicious.
Review of the food–
The bread pastry plate that came prior to the meal was so tasty. Love the banana bread, and the blueberry muffin.
Melt in your mouth «Grilled Filet Mignon and Shirred Eggs»
Apple Smoked bacon and Breakfast Sausage– Yummy. Cooked to perfection.
Check out the bathroom. Two articles posted from the newspaper on the Beacon Restaurant and about Chef Waldy Malouf.
Will definitley be back for the brunch and dinner.

Great service and pretty good food.
I had hosted a dinner here for an important client and the food seemed better as well as the service. They had also made a special dessert for my dinner in honor of my client which was a very nice touch!

Came here for brunch with a travel zoo deal. The place is cute and has multiple levels, but the food is mediocre.

Boyfriend and I went there for Sunday brunch through a deal ($ 39) for 2 sides, bread, tea/​coffee, 2 entrees and unlimited mimosas or bloody marys.
This place was very nice. It was actually smaller than how it looked in the pictures.
The staff was very attentive and although it was very busy, there was always someone there to refill our drinks.
Entrees: filet mignon and eggs (super, boyfriend could not stop raving about it).
shrimp with eggs and grits (very tasty but the gravy became very
overwhelming/​oily towards the end).
Sides: breakfast potatoes (very good)
bacon (crispy, thick slices)
The bread was also very fresh and the drinks were not watered down. I am tempted to return to the place but it is normally very expensive. Great deal!

I came here for lunch with some work people, and we had a nice and delicious meal. My entrée was OK but not as memorable as the appetizer, which was the pumpkin apple soup with spiced spun sugar. The server placed a cocoon of cotton candy filled with spices and what I thought were croutons into the soup. Then the sugar half melted and thus the other flavors went into the soup. It was sweet and spicy, and I could taste the pumpkin and apple and each flavor balanced each other out in the end. I thoroughly enjoyed my soup. I got to taste one of my friend’s oven baked oyster dish, and that was rather fresh and scrumptious. After our meal we got a big ball of cotton candy to share with our teas and coffees.

I strolled in on a Tuesday night to meet my friend at around 6:30. The hostess was SO kind and greeted me enthusiastically, and that instantly put me in a great mood. It’s amazing to get that sort of greeting in Midtown (no offense, but they are not exactly known for their hospitality, no matter how much you drop, it seems).
I had a groupon-​type coupon that called for two beers/​wines, a pizza appetizer, and a soufflé. The beer and wine are pretty limited, and they only had a few «daily» options. I opted for a Brooklyn Lager while my friend went for the white wine.
A waiter came around with a selection of breads, of which you could choose what you wanted. Both of us got this garlic potato kind, which was absolutely delicious with the homemade softened butter they brought us.
There are four types of appetizer pizzas, but we instantly gravitated towards the Applewood Smoked Bacon and Pear flatbread pizza. It came on this at $ 18). It was just an appetizer but both my friend and I were satisfied.
They have two types of souffles — chocolate chocolate chip and pecan. We opted for the chocolate chocolate chip and when it came out, it was STUNNING. It was a very generous portion, and was incredibly light and moist. The server used a spoon to deflate the center and poured chocolate in the middle — GREAT presentation! We enjoyed it, but I personally felt it was a tad bit too soggy.
Overall, we both enjoyed the experience. The restaurant is very midtown-​y (older crowd, slightly old school feel), but I enjoyed the experience. The waiter also treated us amazingly, which sometimes can be asking for too much when you bring in a coupon to use. Although we had several servers, they were all incredibly cordial and kind. We never were left unattended to, and they weren’t hounding us either. Great service, good food, lovely ambiance.

I upped my rating to a better one because the second time we dined here was SO MUCH better than than the first time but I am still going to include my original review.
ORIGINAL REVIEW:
When we dined here for the first time, we used a brunch voucher and I can say that I’ve DEFINITELY experienced better. We had a reservation and still waited for 15 minutes for a table. We ordered our food and it came fairly quickly but our drinks, on the other hand, were a different story. We waited for over 45 minutes for our second round of drinks and our waiter was a complete no show! When we complained to the manager, he said that we were getting the meal for free, basically, so there was nothing he could do but that he’d be right back and then he proceeded to disappear as well. We ended up leaving without giving a tip. It was not a good day…
NEW REVIEW:
The SECOND time we dined here (we still had more vouchers) was a complete 180 turnaround. Because of our experience the first time, we made reservations for first thing in the morning and asked to be seated downstairs, closer to the bar, so we wouldn’t have to wait too long for our drinks. Our waiter this time, was very attentive, and the runners were always visiting our table and refilling our drinks and making sure we were properly taken care of. I ordered the Roasted Salmon w/​Potato Latkes & Poached Eggs and my hubby had the Steak w/​Shirred Eggs. We both enjoyed our food, immensely.
I don’t know what happened since our last visit but this time, we were so pleasantly surprised with the nature of our dining experience. Because the staff was so helpful and pleasant, we were prompted to tip on what the full price of the meal would have been (which is what we normally do anyway) and then some because they truly deserved it. We can not wait to try them out again. I am hoping for a repeat experience.

Went here for a work lunch and we all tried the Restaurant Week Pre-​Fixe… We all were very pleased. Crowd faves were the Chilled Yellow Tomato soup, Herbed Chicken Under a Brick, Summer Vegetable Risotto and the Butterscotch Cheesecake. Oh, also try the onion bread. Tasty without being overwhelming. Don’t forget coffee with the dessert :)
Great midtown lunch spot. You can actually hear yourself talk. The staff was also amazing.

Boy, this is killing me. I want to say that I love Beacon, but what I actually love is the Beacon of some years ago.
Don’t get me wrong: It’s still a straightforward, unpretentious Midtown American. It still welcomes multigenerational groups, tourists included, with graciousness. Still a classy-​looking place.
But Beacon is feeling a bit tired. The food is fine but completely unmemorable. Our bland pizza app would have benefitted from a bit more crispiness, while the burger sliders are swell (and make a fine small meal). My chicken «under a brick» was a bit dry, the panzanella’s bread dry and hard. I will say the the fries we got for the table were exceptionally delicious, although the accompanying BBQ-​type sauce was weirdly cloying. In general, the food is under-​seasoned.
Our pleasant server never asked for drink orders. He disappeared somewhere between entrée and dessert, and someone else had to take over before he reappeared to scoop up the check.
By 10:30 on a Saturday night, Beacon was ready to close up shop. It made me a bit sad that a former favorite is just going through the motions. Maybe someone can turn things around before they give up entirely. Waldy! Wake up! DO something!

Well over 10 years ago (1999 to be exact), NYT restaurant reviewer William Grimes bestowed 2 coveted stars to Beacon. Back then, Beacon was a new restaurant, and Chef Waldy Malouf was coming off his high at a recently completed gig as head Chef at the Rainbow Room atop Rockefeller Center.
But in those 10 years, little must have changed — the menu is still an unabridged encyclopedia of spendy and vaguely Italian, somewhat American and mostly tired classics. The dining room transports you to a different time and place — certainly the 90’s, and perhaps Topeka, KS or some cumbersome steakhouse in the Midwest. At that time, Chef Emma Hearst of Sorella was still in middle school, Marcus Jernmark of Aquavit wasn’t old enough to legally drink, and David Chang’s Momofuku concept was still 3 years away. While the rest of the New York restaurant scene has evolved at lightning speed, Beacon indeed feels like a blast from the past.
But there are still plenty of things to enjoy — and you should pay attention to the wood fired pizzas, which Mr. Malouf expertly plies via his enormous wood fired oven. A sunny side egg & arugula pizza, flecked with truffle oil ($ 18) could compete with some of the new-​ish pizza greats in the city — Co, Keste, Motorino, etc. Mr. Malouf knows certainly knows how to cook a steak, as the filet mignon ($ 36) was cooking within a micro-​fraction of a degree of our requested medium rare.
However the kitchen is, for the most part, left in the dust by its younger, nimbler competition. The menu is ungainly and unexciting to read — we’d agonized over an appetizer interesting enough to order, and eventually settled by default on the roasted bone marrow ($ 16). It went down without complaint, but our table talk veered towards the bone marrow that we’d had at Minetta Tavern, Prune or Blue Ribbon — all much livelier and decidedly more hip. Similar talk followed a happily crisp duck confit ($ 26), which drew our conversation towards the duck confits at newcomers, Fedora, Momofuku Duck Bar, and Empellon. As it was, Beacon’s dining room on a Friday night was about as lively as Catholic mass, with a weary pallor and dreariness.
It’s a darn shame, it really is — for Mr. Malouf, with his years of experience, certainly knows how to cook good, safe, straightforward food. Unfortunately, «good, safe, straightforward food» doesn’t quite cut it in New York anymore.

I wouldn’t say that Beacon is generally deserving of 5 stars, except:
They have the absolutely best french toast I’ve ever had in my life. They make their own Challah bread, and somehow grill it so that it is crispy around the edges while still being gooey and creamy in the middle.
Everything else just seemed good-​but-​not-​great, but if you’re craving french toast, it can’t be beat.

Food rating: 3 stars; docked 1 point for the value of the food
Atmosphere: Business casual
Service: Excellent
A few friends and I ended up at Beacon with a Blackboard Eats coupon for a free bottle of wine.
Below is a list of what we ordered with pictures. Overall, food was good, but not outstanding in a foodie sense.
1) Wood Roasted Oysters (with shallots & verjus)
2) Wood Roasted Artichoke (gremolata)
3) Wood Roasted Rainbow Trout (Chervil Vinaigrette)
4) Spit roasted suckling pig (mole flavors)
5) Dry Aged Porterhouse for 2 (medium rare)
6) Brussel Sprouts with Chestnuts
7) Beacon’s Garlic Fries
8) Bourbon Pecan Soufflé
9) Maple Hazelnut Crème Brulee

We started with the pizza with mushrooms and onion. I love this dish since the first time I tasted it at the Kitchen counter.
Next wife had some tomato soup.
From the wood fire oven I had asparagus that was topped with an egg and some breadcrumbs. Wow. Excellent rendtion.
My main was the suckling pig. The crisp skin was a nice touch. Otherwise the dish was good… not great.
Wife had the burger. Loved it. It came with a nice looking salad in lieu of fries.
We had some sides of creamed spinach (they use eggnog) and wild mushrooms. Both very good.
For dessert I had the grilled peach and blueberry shortcake with white chocolate. A+ idea but B– execution.
Service was great.

I took my gf here for her birthday earlier this month. Ideally, i would give this place a 4 for the food, but 1 star gets deducted for the service. Our server was an old rude guy who was very terse.
We got a bottle of the Kings Ridge Pinot Noir which was very good and versatile. For app, we shared the wood roasted oysters. It was veryyyy yummy. The oysters were cooked beautifully and the shallots and verjus really complemented the barely roasted oysters.
My girlfriend got the Filet Mignon medium rare, and I got the NY Sirloin medium rare. We both agreed that the NY Sirloin was better than the filet mignon. We also shared a side order of creamed spinach was subpar. For dessert, we ordered the Bourbon-​Pecan Soufflé. IT was good but nothing too memorable. Overall the NY Sirloin and the oysters was good. Everything else was a-​ok.
The venue is nice but the waiter sucked balls. He was very terse and rude, and he almost felt offended that we only ordered 1 app, 1 side and 1 dessert.

Meh.
So i went here with my mom for Easter Brunch which was prix fixe. I wish I knew that (I didn’t recall seeing that on the website when I was looking for brunch places by St. Patrick’s Cathedral). Anyway, it was meh.
The prix menu included:
Starters — with an assortment of bread, fruit and salmon. The breads were tasty, it included a croissant, bagel and muffins. The fruits were berries and cantaloupe. I didn’t care too much for the salmon.
Main course — I had the burger which I didn’t like — I asked for medium well and it was well done BLAH. I was expecting much better and my mom had the chicken caesar salad which she liked — it had huge pieces of chicken!
Desert — A desert tray with an assortment brownies, cakes and cookies — all very good, not too sweet.
Overall it was ok, though I liked the starters and desert, I didn’t care for my main dish. Service was good and the price for the meal was $ 35 per person with 20% gratuity included.
I don’t know if I’d come back, maybe for lunch or a non prix fixe meal as the regular menu may have better options.

*prix fix menu available.
*arugala salad came with potato chips.
*roasted ten herb chicken was small portioned and dry.
*good devil’s cake.
*get the berry sorbet.