New York City: Corton (August 2012)

My spouse and I dined at Corton for dinner in mid-August 2012, and we are still talking about our meal over a month later! We reserved 30 days in advance using the Open Table reservation system. This restaurant deserves both of its 2 Michelin stars, and is very close to deserving a 3rd star, in our opinion. We felt that our meal at Corton was better than our meals at Jean Georges and Daniel, and those restaurants each have 3 stars. (Our best meals ever were at Per Se and Le Bernardin, which are truly 3-star restaurants in our opinion.) 

The restaurant is located mid-block in a very unassuming-looking storefront. Once inside, however, the space is open and airy with high ceilings, stark/minimalist furnishings, and allows plenty of space between tables. Jackets are not required for gentlemen, which is appreciated. 

We were offered two menu options at Corton – a 6-course seasonal menu for $115 and a 10-course tasting for $155. We chose the larger and pricier menu, but we saw some of the dishes from the abbreviated menu, and they were every bit as beautiful and interesting. Chef-owner Paul Liebrandt aims (and succeeds!) in impressing you from the moment that you sit down, with creative amuse bouche selections presented interestingly. I won’t detail every dish that we ordered, but we were blown away by the fantastic ingredients and the way that each dish was plated. Service, although not flawless, but was still quite. 

One brilliant thing that this restaurant does is to leave you with a small “cheat sheet” of the menu items and components so that even after the server delivers a dish to you and explains it, you can refer back to the card that lists the detailed ingredients. We wish other restaurants would do this! 

Corton is part of the Myriad Restaurant Group, owned by Drew Niepont (along with Tribeca Grill, Nobu, Nobu Next Door, Nobu Fifty-Seven). 

We were really impressed with our meal at Corton - fantastic in every way!