The Prime Rib Feast at The Breslin

It’s never too soon to re-visit The Breslin, one of two April Bloomfield restaurants with a Michelin star — The Spotted Pig is the other — and both criminally under-rated by the Paper of Record, at one star apiece.

The Breslin has been with us for five years, and the value proposition isn’t much changed. It’s a full-on cholesterol assault, but you’ll love it all the same. Sam Sifton had a point when he implied it would kill you to eat here too often. So would Peter Luger, but no one’s making you drop in every night.

There’s a robust market for the so-called “large format feast,” which started to appear all over town at about the time The Breslin did. There are four of them here, all for eight to twelve guests: prime rib ($95 per person), roasted duck ($65), whole suckling pig ($85) and lamb curry ($80).

Order one of these, and you’ll be seated at the dining room’s large central table, facing the open kitchen, where you can oogle the chefs, and the rest of the guests can oogle you as the food comes out. A group of us visited recently for the rib. (Click on the photo, above left, for a larger image of the menu.)

 

Dinner began with a salad of radishes and little gem lettuce, with gorgonzola dressing and parsley. While we munched on this, the whole prime rib came out of the oven (see photo at the top of this post), was presented at the table, and was taken back to the kitchen to be sliced.

As you’d expect, the prime rib was wonderful. The rib bones came out in a separate bowl; most nights, one of these alone could be dinner for me.

 

There was an abundance of side dishes: heirloom carrots (above right) were the best of the bunch. Yorkshire pudding (above left) was disappointing, according to a member of our party who’d sampled far better specimens over the years. The two others (not photographed) were roasted broccoli and a really good preparation of champ, an Irish dish combining mashed potatoes and spring onions.

Dessert was a forgettable chocolate toffee tart with crème fraîche (above).

Order one of these feats, and you get plenty of attention from the staff, as you should for $95 a head. Wine pairings are another $55 a head, though for far less than that we got three good bottles from The Breslin’s cosmopolitan list, and drank well.

The Breslin (16 W. 29th Street between Broadway & Fifth Avenue, West Midtown)

Rating: ★★

Comments

[BourgBlanc]

Looks overcooked, at least for me. Too much pink, not enough red.