Corton

After researching other trips to New York I’d long been interested in visiting Corton because the ever changing menu always looked fascinating. A further endorsement from @chefbennett01 was sufficient to pique my interest further.

One booking later, I nervously approached A Matter of Taste - Serving Up Paul Liebrandt a film based on his time in New York starting shortly after his departure from Atlas, despite being the youngest chef, at 24, to receive 3 stars from the New York Times. The film then follows an arc from heading Papillon, a New York bistro, post-September 11 then overcoming a number of setbacks to opening Corton.  The approach was nervous because if Mr. Liebrandt came across poorly I’m not sure that I’d still want to go.

He was a product of a unique background, born in Rhodesia, parents split, sent to boarding school and discovering high end food with Marco Pierre White’s White Heat and his time with Pierre Gagnaire cited as hugely influential. This all led to him forging his own path building on his classical French training to come up with his own innovative and interesting approach, though it may have mellowed slightly over the years.

No doubt, the film worked to present him in a good light but Paul Liebrandt is a great character to build a film round. Even though you know the outcome, you’re willing him to find success while sticking to his vision. He shows an appealingly understated sense of humour throughout, even when financial struggle understandably prompts Papillon’s owners to go with a more burger-centric menu or when he’s designing cocktails for a living. His passion and attention to detail is something I could strongly relate to, particularly when he is discussing the lighting and its effect on the plate of food in front of him. Interestingly, early in the film he was critical of named chefs who were not in the kitchen but on the night I visited Corton he was marshalling the crew, even though he was in the planning stages for opening another restaurant in Brooklyn.

As the film showed, Corton opened in Tribeca in October 2008 taking over the site of Montrachet. The restaurant is a collaboration between Paul Liebrandt and Drew Nieporent, restaurateur and founder of the Myriad group behind a number of other restaurants including Nobu. The restaurant has had two Michelin stars since 2009. It the ground floor occupies of a narrow fronted tenement building.  The actual footprint is much larger than the front suggests due to the L-shaped bar/dining room and kitchen. The seating is a mix of uniformly coloured bench seats around the perimeter of the room and stiff-backed chair wherever they didn’t back onto the wall. Predictably, the tables were covered with heavy linen tablecloths and adorned with a glass bowl vase with single large orchid.

The cocktail list was short with some acknowledgement of the warming season with inclusion of a rhubarb negroni and a Pimm’s based cocktail. As a Brit visiting a restaurant with a head chef with an English background the only drink to go for was The Englishman, a refreshingly tangy blend of Pimm’s No. 1, Greenhook gin, hibiscus and ginger beer.

The menu choice in May is between the more seasonally based Spring menu or the more comprehensive and traditional tasting menu. I opted for the Spring menu. Immediately after ordering, in something of a theme for the evening five separate canapés were brought to the table at once.  The nettle financier with viola lemon cream was a nice moist sponge savoury with light Spring flavours. 

The light sea buckthorn crisp had an intense flavour similar to passionfruit.

I loved the homemade oyster cracker filled with mornay sauce, the airy cracker giving way to a decadently cheesy sauce. You could have given me a bowl of these and I’d have been set for the evening.

The lemongrass and coconut meringue was light as a feather and the blend of flavours was a delight.

Best of all was the clam chowder croquette with XO sauce for dipping. The two worked together perfectly with the XO sauce drawing out the marine character of the clam.

Choice from a tray of breads baked at the restaurant was next. The selection included homemade pretzel, rye bread, hazelnut & pistachio bread and I opted for a chestnut brioche and a salt and toasted sesame seed-crusted foccaccia. These were accompanied by an apricot and black olive butter and a whipped creamery butter.

An eggshell filled with black truffle custard with celeriac purée and coffee salt was a additional taster ahead of the full menu. This was excellent with strong flavours all working very well together. The truffle custard was rich and silky smooth. The celeriac and coffee combined superbly. The accompanying squid ink cracker added welcome crunch. This was a superb dish.

The first course was peekytoe crab salad served with a crab consommé, hazelnut crème, salt crusted beetroot and wild ginger vinaigrette. The gently flavoured crab was delightful and the beetroot crisps were excellent. The hazelnut combined superbly with the crab where the sweetness of the nut subsided to give way to the more lingering crab flavour. The sweet, warm beetroot was a lovely addition to the whole dish. Overall, this a wonderful gentle fresh-tasting dish.

I was happy with this as a first course for a meal and was surprised that the next plate was also part of the peekytoe crab course. This combined a crab gelée with hazelnut crème, Oscetra caviar and gold leaf. In this version, the crab and hazelnut was a stronger flavour combination but were actually much more in harmony. The salty caviar was an ideal partner for the crab and hazelnut blend. Over the two dishes this was a thoroughly commendable course with the gelée edging it for me.

The next course followed the theme of multiple plates but this time they all came at once with tuna and morels as the central ingredients. The first dish of the three had a piece of tuna, garnished with greens and viola, cooked in a dashi of matsutake mushrooms and green pistachio seasoned with Madagascar pepper. The tender but firm tuna was an excellent combination with the intense broth that was poured onto the dish at the table. 

The second dish with walleye tuna and lemon cream topped with crispy red shrimp and nasturtium petals again benefitted from a really delicious, tender piece of tuna at the core. The shrimp had an initially hazelnut flavour and for me they were a bit too dominant for the tuna but overall this was very good.

The star of the three dishes was the tuna pâté served with a mushroom cracker. The strong flavour of the smooth pâté with a hint of horseradish was a delight. The mushroom cracker provided a slightly sweet counter to the pâté to round out the dish perfectly. Great stuff.

The next course of skate, Spring nettle and razor clam was listed as inspired by Cy Twombly. Paul Liebrandt confirmed via Twitter that it was the feel and sense of motion in Cy Twombly’s pictures that drove this dish. The focal point of the dish was the skate and nettle roulade with the fresh greens playing nicely with the wonderfully, fresh and tender fish. The nettle pesto was another excellent accompaniment and a highlight for me. The asparagus added fresh Spring-flavoured crunch and the dish was rounded out perfectly by the razor clam and baby turnip that combined particularly well. The white bergamot paste didn’t seem vital for what was a nice dish. 

The skate plate was accompanied by a Japanese and Korean cucumber salad with shavings of asparagus, yuzu ricotta and a sunflower vinaigrette dressing. This was a refreshing salad but I’m not sure what purpose it served in accompanying the skate. For me this was the course where the multiple plate approach made the least sense.

The Violet Hill farm poussin was worthy of its billing as the crescendo of the savoury courses. The waiter said it was served Kiev style but that didn’t mean a breaded cutlet with a butter garlic centre as you’d expect on British kitchen tables in the eighties. The tender poached 21-day milk fed poussin is served with flavours of ramps, jus roti, spring garlic and broccoli. The ramps and poussin were an extremely harmonious partnership with the superb jus providing a deeper flavour pool for them to dip into. The pickled ramp root was another highlight. The main dish was accompanied by a poussin royale with maitake topped with a delicate glazed garlic leaf. The evening showed that any time that Corton served up a custard the customer was onto a winner. The Japanese influenced custard was a glorious blend of strong flavours and was the ultimate feelgood savoury dish. This was a superb duet of dishes.

The first of the desserts was again split into two separate approaches with a common main ingredient. The principal here was “Number One Brand” Thai tea and a small dish with the main ingredient came out to the table. The young coconut royale with citrus coriander blossom and granité of Thai flavours with pain de Gênes of Thai basil was excellent. The royale was soothingly serene and the small dense cubes of cake made the dish texturally satisfying and well as adding pleasantly complex notes to the whole. The granité was a wolf in sheep’s clothing and for me the best part. The cool ice concealed an intense but never overwhelming spicy heat from Thai chilli pepper. There was an amazing amount going on in one small glass vial but it was all a delight. The second part was equally captivating. Thai tea ice cream with bubbles and their complimentary malty/chocolatey flavours and tannic hint was refreshingly uplifting on the palate.

And rounding out the main menu, the last dish was a really good note to finish on. The Spring double crème fudge with tarragon sable, chartreuse sabayon, sweet pea ganache and celery confit. The fudge was gloriously gooey and very sweet, although not overwhelmingly so. The more savoury ingredients all teamed faultlessly with the sweet main event.

Petit fours were the last items of the night. White & red sangria pastilles had a nice tangy, spicy kick with an orange undercurrent. The Meyer lemon macaron was light and deliciously lemony, pretty much as you’d expect. The plain chocolate shell of the mojita chocolate broke to give way to a luscious liquid centre and I’d have liked more of these. The hazelnut & macadamia truffle was creamily good too. The nougat of black olive and pistachio had pockets that tasted too much of olive for me although the overall effect was akin to treacle toffee. The monogrammed Florentine of Vermont maple syrup was best of them all.

There was one final flourish. The bill came accompanied by a hazelnut financier wrapped ready to be taken home.  

The overwhelming impression of Corton was of a place that combined a good mix of great imaginative food with unfussily efficient service. The room did not feel oppressive as many formal dining rooms can. There were some really nice touches such as the card for the tasting menu that was given for you to refer to throughout the meal. I can vouch for the lighting as discussed in the film, it was perfectly set up at my table.

The food was very impressive in places but I struggled a bit with the multiple plates at once approach. You get the sense that the kitchen has so many ideas for an ingredient that necessitates the multiple plate approach but I found the crab course much easier to deal with when there was a short break between each element than later courses where everything came at once. That said, the only the ricotta salad with the Cy Twombly skate course seemed out of place within the flow of the whole menu.

Having tried the seasonal menu I would love to go back at other times in the year to see how it evolves. I definitely view Corton as one of my first choice places to return to when I next get the chance to visit New York City.

Totally recommended. As is watching A Matter of Taste.

Overall Rating - 4.5/5