Chanterelle

NO!!!
This was the best restaurant in NYC, no question about it.

RIP CHANTERELLE!
Super duper sad!
UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH — they’re closed!

OMG I just heard today that they are CLOSED. This is some of the worst news I could get on a Thursday afternoon! Seriously!
We will miss Chanterelle so much! So many memorable and amazing dinners! From New Year’s Eve to Anniversaries and Valentine Day dates — our neighborhood will not be the same…
Karen — we will miss you tremendously! We hope your next venture will keep you in Tribeca. Big hug! xoxo

It’s been a full 24 hours since I visited Chanterelle, and I can’t stop thinking about the Zucchini Blossoms with Chicken Mousseline in Truffle Sauce that I was lucky to enjoy as part of the Chef’s Tasting yesterday evening. All I have to say is, HOLY SH! T, that was amazing.
Memorable courses included the Japanese raw fish tasting (amazing salmon with wasabi sauce), the aforementioned trufflicious glory, and the Lamb (cooked perfectly). The others I don’t remember, but these alone were worth visiting.
Such an elegant, old-​world atmosphere. Drapey curtains, wood paneling, and fabulous chandeliers made our dining experience feel like a night inside a royal palace.
Honorable mention goes to the French Martini– I could barely taste the alcohol, and it got sweeter as the temperature rose.
Mmmm. Can’t wait to get the cookbook.

This was a wonderful and unexpected surprise. We stumbled in without a reservation at 9pm on a Thursday night and we’re seated in 5 minutes or less.
The food was amazing, everything from the cod appetizer to the sweet & sour beef that I had for a main course. The seemingly endless deserts and sweets we’re quite good as well.
The only thing better than the food was the service. We had at least 4 different waiters and each one was exceptionally helpful and courteous.
The handwritten check added a final elegant and special touch to top off this wonderful meal. At about $ 150 for a couple including 2 glasses of wine, it is on the pricier side, but well worth it.

It just good… as you will expect from restaurant at this price range.
My experiences was great… from the moment when I walked in the place to the end of the meal. Good coffee!

it was a year in the making but i finally found myself at chanterelle this afternoon for lunch. the décor was very elegant and extremely inviting especially on a day like today with the natural light coming in. the quiet and almost empty dining room was intimidating at first but the friendly service and delicious food made us forget all about it. the menu changes frequently with the seasonal and fresh ingredients available at the farmer’s market. the portion sizes will definitely not leave you hungry. every plate looked picture perfect.
APPETIZERS:
crushed mustard seed, frisee salad with shavings of foie gras — light dressing and great balance of flavors.
ravioli of spring greens with tomato butter — great pairing of light ravioli filling with a heavier sauce. the tomato butter really brought the whole dish together.
grilled seafood sausage — the flavors were nice but the texture was a little mushy for me even with the pine nuts in the sausage. you can see all the ingredients of lobster, scallop, and shrimp. the sauce had a nice tart flavor but overall the dish was very heavy. i cannot imagine one person finishing this appetizer alone and being able to move on to their entrée.
ENTREES:
seared duck breast with sherry vinegar and chilies — this dish was a play on an asian plate with french technique. the duck was perfectly cooked and the sauce paired well with a bit of sweetness. the mashed potato stuffed spring rolls were a little unnecessary though nice in texture.
striped bass with red wine and fresh sage — the skin was crispy and the bass was cooked nicely. the red wine sauce was delicious. not much of the sage flavor came out in the bass. but still a nice dish
DESSERT:
strawberry consommé with grapefruit panna cotta — this dish was nicely balanced. the strawberry consommé was light and sweet. it’s a shame that i couldn’t taste much of the grapefruit flavor in the panna cotta though it was very velvety and creamy in texture.
meyer lemon and semolina gratin with olive oil ice cream and raspberries — the olive oil ice cream went very well with the fresh raspberries. the gratin was nicely torched which gave it a crisp on top. the flavors worked well.
OVERALL:
the food was very good but not enough for me to be overly excited about. i give it 3 stars for food and an additional star for the great service. the waiter was very accommodating. maybe because there were only two couples during lunch service? but whatever the reason was, he answered all of our questions and accepted our inquisitiveness with grace and a smile. when we asked to supplement a dessert from the a la carte menu to the prix fixe, he gladly agreed with no additional charge. when asked to box up our leftover truffles, he gladly gave us a whole box filled with truffles and a very nice carry bag for it.

In 1979, I was years away from setting foot in this city, and I can only imagine how revolutionary an elegant restaurant in Tribeca, serving meticulous French-​inspired food, must have seemed back then. In the thirtieth year of offering carefully prepared French cuisine, chef David Waltuck certainly has no shame in offering simple, uncluttered, classic plates.
Dinner kicked off with two appealing amuses: a sort of quail egg mayonnaise, but the yolk had been accented with Meyer lemon before being creamily-​reintroduced to the white and topped with caviar; and a neatly crusted, meaty Maine shrimp with remoulade sauce. These were followed by a dark-​brown scoop of squab mousse, subtly flavored. A scoop of squab mousse accompanied by a few, lightly dressed salad leaves. On a round white plate. At almost any other upscale Manhattan restaurant, if squab mousse was served at all, the plate would have at least one sweet garnish, probably some crunchy stuff to vary the texture, maybe streaks and squiggles of various sauces criss-​crossing the plate — some unlikely flourish at least in the presentation. This was just a mousse, which tasted like squab — the juniper was thankfully mild. Oh, and some toast points.
Next up, a rightful Chanterelle classic — the seafood sausage. If it’s no longer revelatory, that’s because so many chefs have replicated the concept. Indeed, the most recent dish I ate which reminded me of the Chanterelle sausage was Martin Brock’s weisswurst at Grayz (now Atria); a different flavor profile, obviously, but a similarly light, springy texture. The plating again was simple, the slices of sausage lapped by a sprightly, buttery, pickley sauce. A little too much sauce, truly, but you aren’t forced to eat it. You could swab it up with bread, I suppose.
The fish course was a New Zealand snapper, which research (okay googling) tells me is actually a member of the sea bream family. It was served with a pleasantly nutty orzo «risotto», but the sauce reminded me too much of the sauce which came with the sausage. The meat entreé, also of Antipodean origin, was quite superb. I am a fan of New Zealand venison, expensive though it is. It may not be the most pungently gamey meat in the world, but cooked rare it has a decadently silky texture.
Chanterelle was one of the first restaurants with a serious cheese program in the city, and the selection remains exemplary, served at the right temperature too. I asked for, and received, a list of the cheeses sampled:
Monte Enebro; Azeito; three cheeses from Quebec which were new to me — Madawaska (a super washed-​rind specimen), Emissaire de Notre-​Dame (soft goat) and Sentinel; Rogue River Blue; and a splendid, craggy-​rinded, French cows-​milk, Bourboule. One of the best cheese plates I’ve eaten in a while. I chose a sort of meringue with Meyer lemon for dessert, joined on the plate by a tangerine ice cream. A blizzard of charming sweet things followed, including pieces of Linzer torte, white chocolates with coconut, mini-​macarons.
Despite the high points of the venison and cheese, I wonder when I’ll dine here again. Correct though the cooking and service is, I fear we have been trained to anticipate more surprises, more fireworks, more sheer adventure, especially — and this is a point which can’t be dodged — at the price. The tasting menu costs $ 140, the three-​course carte $ 98 (with a stern $ 27 supplement for cheese). Comparable with Daniel and Jean-​Georges, more expensive than Bouley, much more expensive than Corton. The tag should buy you not only some of the best, but also some of the most exciting cooking in the city. Chanterelle doesn’t fully fit that description. Many love it anyway.

40 out of 41 Valentine’s Days with my bride were great — only one bad one, thanks to this overrated pit.
Karen Waltuck, the co-​owner of Chanterelle, shows what publicity hounding can do for a mediocre restaurant that spends it time kissing critics’ backends. When we lived in NYC, we had Valentine’s Day dinner reservations at a top restaurant. But we received a call from an off-​Broadway theater we’d gone to, saying we’d won Valentine’s Day dinner for two at Chanterelle. So we changed our plans
Our waiter, once he found out we were dining for free, completely ignored us. Constantly, consistently, completely. He turned Valentine’s Day into Friday the 13^th. What a bummer.
Weeks later, when we were again at the theatre, the manager recognized us and asked us how the dinner was. I told her, and she said, «Contact Karen. I’m sure she won’t accept that you were treated that way.» So I wrote her, telling her what happened. Never a reply. Not a word. I guess I didn’t rate, since I didn’t write a newspaper column or run a charity that would get her restaurant publicity.
Am I alone in my view? Read the reviews of Horace H., Steve C., Velina L., Amanda E., Anita C., & Thea T. Only 30 Unilocal reviews, and lots of complaints. New York has plenty of great places — this isn’t one of them.

One of the best meals I’ve ever had… and I’ve had some.
Go, now.

Chanterelle [Kate Zuckerman] (2008 Plate by Plate Tasting Benefit) — Maple star anise crème caramel w/​huckleberries — licorice and caramel? kinda like a crème brûlée minus the blowtorch, very complex but i don’t like those two ingredients so i’m biased. Bouley is definitely better, but not by much.
Pics:

Service, Service, Service.
I have been to Chanterelle twice and both times I found the food to be great and the service amazing. Every time I looked down, there was a warm roll on my bread plate. I have no recollection of how it got there…

I heard so many rave reviews of this place from friends so I came with high expectations. Those expectations were fully met in some ways, happily overwhelmed in others, and satisfied for the rest.
Service was definitely much better than I expected. I complimented my server early on and in general, joked around with everyone, and was treated quite well for the entire meal. They were attentive, really nice, not pushy in any way, and greatly impressed with my ability to eat large amounts of cheese (more on that in a moment).
The first two courses were excellently prepared but not particularly original. However, the chicken third course was tender and well seasoned — truly a pleasure. Then came the cheese course. The woman presenting the cheese thought I was joking when I said I’d try each one. I listened patiently as she described every offering on the cheese platter. Then, she asked me again which ones I’d like to try. She giggled a little when I told her that I wanted to try each one. And then she arranged them in order of strength around the plate. DELIGHTFUL!
And finally dessert. They bring you so much dessert it’s unbelievable. Definite thumbs up on that. And they let you take the leftovers home! For serious? Anyway, the other great thing about dessert was that my bf had the most interesting thing I’ve ever tried — a chocolate basil parfait. The basil was presented as an ice cream and it was truly original. It was refreshing, had a lovely texture, and went surprisingly well with the chocolate. I don’t think my bf liked it as much but he had to admit that it won points for its creativity.
There you have it. My experience with Chanterelle. I would definitely go back and I would save more room for dessert (and maybe some more cheese).

I’ll preface my review by saying i attended a wedding here, and so its not quite the same as attending the restaurant, but i wanted to throw my two cents in anyway.
I thought it was wonderful, and will absolutely put this on my list of restaurants to hit up. Everything I ate was delicious and ineresting without being pretentious. Im was hoping that the appetizers were a little mini tour of the chanterelle menu offerings and it turns out i was right– most of what we had has been or is offered on the restaurant menu.
The restaurant is very small, but intimate, not claustrophobic at all, probably because of the tremendous corner windows and high ceilings, and the décor is very simple. The only thing i wasnt crazy about was what i call the «coffin lining drapery» which for some reason really stood out in my head, but now im just nitpicking.
The passed starters included a delicious tasting of prosciutto with fig on toast, (wonderful!), fried oysters over a diced cucumber salad (a crowd favorite) rare beef tenderloin over a homemade potatochip (good but nothing exciting), and two things im sure were created just for parties and are not on the chanterrelle menu but probably should be in some form– mini ‘grilled cheese’ which were wedges of melted something outrageous (i didnt ask) between two heavily garliced wedge of toast (heavenly!) and the chanterrelle take on the pig in a blanket– sausage in pastry with spicy mustard dolloped on top. I believe there were also duck spring rolls but i never managed to find them.
Our first course is right off the tasting menu and was to die for. Salmon tartare with wedges of corn chips and a light dusting of caviar. I dont even like salmon and i ate every bite.
Dinner was also off the menu– loin of lamb or halibut, both of which were very good, but not on par with everything else i ate that day. I suspect that they might have been chosen for their simplicity to be more crowd pleasing as not all of the guests are adventerous eaters.
Overall, I really want to return to Chanterrelle to try out the menu and I recommend it to others as well.

My experience with this restaurant was perfect. The service was impeccable, and the food was nearly orgasmic.
I would highly, highly recommend the fois gras mushroom scallop dumplings. Easily the most wonderful dish I have ever had the joy of experiencing. There is a reason they won a James Beard Award.

What a disappointment. Service was odd from the very beginning. When they asked me what type of water we wanted, we asked for still water. They brought us tap water, so I clarified and asked for bottled water. They brought us sparkling water. I had to ask for bottled still water a third time.
The food was decent, but unimpressive. Definitely not worth the price. As a James Beard Award winner, I had expected more from them but the flavors were not as interesting as I had hoped. Although dinner was decent, it was a completely forgettable meal.

Like sitting in your eclectic great-Aunt’s Parlor room. You don’t have a great-​Aunt? High ceilings, hush-​hush, strange furniture, foo-​foo shi-​shi atmosphere, and weird company.
The maitre d’ was cool — yellow glasses and odd, Andy Warhol-​like mannerisms. The rest of the staff was just fine. The tasting menu with wine was better than fine. (Hurrah for the crazy salad and cheese course). But $ 1400.00+ for four? Holy Cow.
Nice, even exemplary at points, but not worth it.

I’ve been here a few times, and I like it a lot. I agree with the reviewer who commented the atmosphere is odd. The last time I was there one of the waiters was like seven feet tall, and the other had on these crazy yellow glasses.
All of the dishes I’ve had here are definitely solid, I haven’t had one that I disliked in the entire bunch. What pushes Chanterelle over from regular high-​end restaurant four star into five star is that I had probably the best dessert of my life here. I’ll be coming back in the future hopefully to see if they can reach those kind of rarified heights again, but holding the title to «the best» anything I ever had is enough to get them into the five star range for me.

After harassing my poor boyfriend for a year to take me here, we finally went last year on our anniversary. The food was everything I was hoping and more. Absolutely exquisite, perfect wine pairing, etc. The service was nice and made us feel totally welcome.
That being said, the atmosphere was strange. I can just picture the owners using the keywords «romantic» and «classy» when talking to their interior designers… like someone wrote before me, like a stuffy French restaurant. I was expecting this part, but it was the crowd that got to me.
Besides the couples (the usual crowd for this place, it seems), there were several large tables of what looked like professionals still in their suits, talking loudly and brashly all night. My reservation was on a Thursday night at 9pm, I think, and these people looked like they had been boozing up at the table for hours. Perhaps they are the only ones that can have a leisurely dinner at this place (it IS at least $ 100/​person) like it’s no big deal, but for us plebes, I would’ve liked a more special experience. Too bad.

My husband and I have talked about going to Chanterelle for years, ever since we bought David Waltuck’s «Staff Meals» cookbook and fell in love. Anyone who cooks this well for their own employees, we reasoned, must do truly amazing things for their diners.
The atmosphere is odd — the gauzy balloon shades covering the windows look like they haven’t gotten an update since the place opened in the 80s, and the wide-​open room seems sparse, not elegant. No banquettes or booths… just a few tables, overly fragrant floral arrangements, acres of plush carpet, and deathly silence. Very much the old-​school stuffy French restaurant vibe: I kept expecting John Belushi to pop up and ask «how much for your weemin? how much for the leetle girl?»
We opted for the tasting menu and wine pairings. I’ll try to find the copy of the menu that they gave us – unrequested, I might add — and report back. At the moment, though, nothing really stands out about the food, other than that the foie gras course was appropriately sized (unlike the usual trying-​too-​hard gigantic slabs that ruin your appetite for the rest of the meal), the cheese trolley selections were impressive, and the basil soufflé for dessert was very strange.
Service was good overall, with a few glitches: More than once, our wines didn’t make it to the table before the course they were supposed to accompany; we got served the same wine twice — once with the foie and once with dessert — by mistake; and we kept getting handed from server to server when our main waiter would disappear.
In short, it just wasn’t quite the impressive experience you’d expect at these high prices. And high prices they are: We spent almost $ 600 for two, after tax and tip. Nothing was bad, almost everything was quite good, but nothing was amazing, stunning, or otherwise impressive. And frankly, I’d rather have three $ 200 meals — or two trips to the French Laundry — than eat here again.