Chef’s Table @ Restaurant Nicholas

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I’m going to tell you all again that my favorite restaurant is Restaurant Nicholas, which is conveniently close by in nearby Red Bank.  I’ve been fortunate enough to eat there to celebrate birthdays, anniversaries, and just for the hell of it.  I’d like to think I’m at a point where Chef Nicholas recognizes us, even though we’re not quite regulars, but he does a great job making us feel welcome even if he didn’t.  We’ve eaten in the dining room, and we’ve eaten at the bar, leaving us only with one dining experience we had not had yet at the restaurant: dinner at the Chef’s Table.

When we arrived, we went to the bar for a glass of champagne, while they went to “prepare the kitchen” for us.  It turns out, the entire kitchen staff lined up to greet us as we walked down the stairs to the kitchen, where the lights were (mostly) off.  After we were seated into our alcove, the lights came up, and the kitchen went back to work.  I’ve read quite a few books about the restaurant industry and how restaurants run, probably owing to the fact if I hadn’t pursued a career in education I may very well have ended up engaged in the culinary arts.  I’ll admit that I was not surprised by the efficiency of the kitchen – not a wasted movement, no one falling in the weeds, not a dish that needed to be re-fired, nothing.  What I was surprised about was how quiet it was in the kitchen.  Most of the time, the only speaking was when the sous-chef would call out the orders, and the brigade would repeat the orders back to confirm.  The entire operation was clean, efficient and seamless – not shocking considering the high level of culinary talent on display every night at the restaurant

Let’s talk about the food: a “Grand Tasting” menu, customized to mine and Steph’s preferences (seafood for her, no walnuts for me), with wine pairings for each dish and our own personal waiter.  I can’t stress enough how delicious every plate was.  Here are our menus from the evening.

I’m not going to paste in every single picture of the meal into the post, so go check out my Picasa gallery here.

Go ahead, I’ll wait.

Back now?  Good.  That was a lot of food, right? Looked delicious, huh?

Out of all the courses, my favorite was probably the butter-poached lobster (with pork belly!), while Stephanie was a huge fan of the soft-shell crab.  I was also able to help myself to my favorite dish at the restaurant, the parisian gnocchi (which you can watch my friend Rob blog about here).  Really, the entire meal was out-of-this world.  The level of execution was amazing, and there were no ‘misses’ at all during the meal.  The only negative is that there is so much food and so much wine and I ended up hitting a wall when we got to the final savory course, which made me sad because the duck was delicious.

In this case, the food was matched up by the attentiveness and openness of the culinary staff.  Nicholas, the chef de cuisine (also named Nicholas, coincidentally), the sous-chef and some of the other staff were more than happy to take the time to answer our questions, which we politely timed to fit in  lulls in activity.  It was fascinating hearing the garde-manger chef talk about the need for perfection in every knife cut and every prepared plate, the sous talk about how he organized himself while expediting, and talking to both Nicholas and Nicholas about their inspirations, their failures, their successes and their goal of not only providing a top-notch dining experience, but doing it over and over each and every night.

I’ve been to Restaurant Nicholas before, but I feel like I’ve gotten a peek behind the curtain, and I can’t be happier at what I saw.