Untitled

Danny Meyer's recently opened restaurant in the Whitney Museum on the UES is summery, semi-family-style (entrees are the only items served in individual portions), friendly and delicious. We ate an early dinner (6pm, since that's when the museum closes and we decided to tour the museum beforehand) and had the entire place to ourselves for about an hour.

A Danny Meyer restaurant and an entire kitchen staff and wait staff all to myself! My husband and I whispered about the place needing better marketing as we chomped on our amuse bouche of fresh summer vegetables (initially thought to be the healthy replacement for fresh bread, but we were greeted by warm puffed wheat bread AND minted chickpea crostinis shortly thereafter).

Below you will see: the perfect summer salad. Grilled zucchini with charcoal-flavored sears hinted at summers long past spent in the backyard with smoke billowing from the family grill. Fregola (think big couscous) and cubes of feta on top of the bed of arugula with lemon-basil vinaigrette made for a substantive, yet light, delicious salad. I'm inspired to also add couscous to my salads in the future.

As our main courses we ordered swordfish (me) and pork meatballs (husband). The meatballs were the winner of the night's battle-of-the-entrees. They came with sides of creamy polenta and swiss chard with raisins and pine nuts. And we finished the night with some delicious stumptown banana bread pudding, which had a delightful hit of espresso and a lovely understated banana flavor.

Untitled, I loved your $46 prix fixe, I loved your family-style food presentation and I loved your food. I hope that one day your space will overflow with patrons, while I continue to remember the day I had a Danny Meyer restaurant all to myself.