Once upon a time, before soufflés mysteriously vanished from the menus in midtown and the pork chop replaced filet mignon as the protein of choice among the city’s high-minded gourmets, Michelin-approved chefs from Europe were received in New York like visiting popes. But those days are long gone. The perennial Michelin favorite Alain Ducasse has closed two of his four New York restaurants in the past decade, and the survivors (Adour and Benoit) have gone through five chefs in three years. Joël Robuchon’s gourmet outlet at the Four Seasons Hotel has managed to fly under the radar, but Michelin’s other darling, Gordon Ramsay, received a series of tepid reviews when he set up shop in the London hotel five years ago. The Four Seasons briefly hired the celebrated Italian cook Fabio Trabocchi to update its ancient menu, but the plutocrat regulars complained so bitterly that Trabocchi abandoned his efforts and eventually left town.
So you have to give the Barcelona chef Miguel Sánchez Romera credit for even getting on the plane when the jet-set hoteliers Sant and Vikram Chatwal asked if he’d bring his eccentric brand of “neurogastronomy” to the basement of their new Dream hotel, Dream Downtown, in the meatpacking district. Romera, as you may have heard, is a trained neurologist and a self-taught chef whose food is described by his admirers (his Barcelona restaurant, L’Esguard, has one Michelin star) as being a kind of holistic, artisanal version of the high-wire molecular gastronomy practiced by his famous countryman Ferran Adrià. Romera has a fondness for edible flowers and strange, vegetal potions designed to increase sensory awareness of one’s meal. His dishes are accompanied by elaborate tasting notes that he composes himself. And to experience the eleven-course menu at his new, eponymous establishment on 16th Street, you have to fork over $245, which puts Romera in the rarefied economic company of Masa and Per Se.
Read more at http://nymag.com/
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