Meals to Remember - 500 Places for Food and Wine Lovers - page 114

deep-blue backdrop. The real art, though,
is on the plates—tiny, meticulously
arranged assemblages that make you
rethink all your notions about food.
Although Dufresne is often lumped in
with the molecular gastronomists—and
he does employ their whole battery of
techno-methods—what's really intriguing
here is how his dishes deconstruct classic
preparations from around the world.
Instead of a corned beef on rye sandwich,
for example, he wraps a strip of corned
duck meat around purple mustard and
horseradish cream and sets it atop a rye-
crisp flatbread. His “pizza pebbles” consist
of freeze-dried spheres of Parmesan,
tomato, and olive oil alternating with blobs
of pepperoni sauce and frills of shiitake
mushroom. Eggs Benedict sets cubes of
hollandaise sauce, battered and deep-fried,
alongside cylinders of custardy gelled egg
yolk topped by paper-thin fans of dried
ham. His riff on Jamaican jerked pork is a
pork rib served with sweet fried plantain,
tart rhubarb, and a dribble of savory jerk
consommé. His “cyber-egg” is a yolklike
pool of carrot-cardamom puree sitting atop
a white puddle of firm-set coconut milk—
though it looks just like a fried egg, the
deep sweetness floods you with surprise.
Dufresne's approach is often sculptural—a
slender ribbon of foie gras tied in a knot and
studded with toasted sesame seeds and
dots of sauce—but it's also about finding
harmonies between contrasting flavors,
as in the briny filet of turbot topped
with smoky barbecued lentils, sun-sweet-
ened dried apricots, and thin crisp curls of
cauliflower.
Dufresne's reach sometimes exceeds
his grasp; occasionally a dish will miss its
mark (and doesn't last long on the menu).
Still, a meal at WD-50 is always fascinating,
and the tasting menu is the way to go
(though it's priced around $150—that's
when you know you're not in the “old”

One of Wylie Dufresne's many winsome concoc-
tions at WD-50.

Lower East Side). Be sure to save room for
dessert, because pastry chef Alex Stu-
pak's brilliant confections are just as inven-
tive and stunningly presented—some
diners rave that they're the best part of
the meal.

50 Clinton St. ( & 212/477-2900; www.
wd-50.com).
( John F. Kennedy International (15
miles/24km); Newark Liberty International
(16 miles/27km); LaGuardia (8 miles/
13km).
L $$$ Carlton Hotel on Madison
Avenue, 88 Madison Ave. ( & 212/532-
4100; www.carltonhotelny.com). $$
Washington Square Hotel, 103 Waverly
Place ( & 800/222-0418 or 212/777-9515;
www.washingtonsquarehotel.com).