My spouse and I dined at Café Boulud for
lunch on a weekday afternoon in early August 2016. Operating as a hotel
restaurant, Café Boulud is open daily for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. You can
make a reservation at Café Boulud using the Open Table system or via telephone.
Café Boulud is located on the Upper East
Side in the Surrey Hotel at East
76th Street (between Fifth Avenue and Madison Avenue). The
street-level restaurant is positioned at the front of the hotel, with its
entrance door located just inside the main hotel entrance doors. The restaurant
and its dedicated restrooms are handicap-accessible. You can choose to sit at a
regular table towards the center of the room, or at one of the tables lining
the perimeter of the room that share a leather banquette. The décor features
modern circular chandeliers, neutral walls and carpet, dark wood moldings and
chairs, and several mirrors to give the room a more spacious feel. (The space
is a bit cramped because it contains so many tables, and every table was
occupied on the day that we dined.) If you want to enjoy a drink before your
meal, Bar Pleiades is located across the lobby entrance, with seating both
indoors and outside on the sidewalk. (Café Boulud does not have a dedicated bar
at which you can sit and have a drink.)
French celebrity
chef and restaurateur Daniel Boulud, who is New York City's longest-tenured
four-star chef, operates the Café. The restaurant, which opened in 1998, is named
after a restaurant near Lyon France that was once owned by Daniel Boulud’s
family. The Café Boulud franchise has other locations in Palm Beach Florida (at
the Brazilian Court Hotel) and Toronto. In Manhattan, we have eaten at Daniel
Boulud’s other restaurants including Daniel, db bistro moderne, Bar Boulud,
Boulud Sud, and DBGB Kitchen and Bar.
Café Boulud
serves French cuisine, although the menu features other cuisines as well. For
example, on the day that we dined, the menu offered some Colombian dishes on
the “Voyage” section. At specific times of the year, a special Restaurant Week
menu is available (which actually runs for several weeks, not just one week),
and guests can order a 3-course meal for a reasonable price. The restaurant was
overflowing with guests on the afternoon that we dined, and many seemed to
order the special menu. (A prix-fixe multi-course menu is available when the
Restaurant Week menu is not available.) The regular menu a la carte menu is
divided into four sections, with each section offering about four choices. The
sections are called La Tradition (which feature classic French cuisine), La
Saison (seasonal dishes), Le Potager (selections from the farmers
market/vegetarian), and Le Voyage (international cuisine). When we paid our
bill, we received a postcard that offered us 15% off any other Daniel Boulud
restaurant in Manhattan (excluding Daniel) within the next three months. Café
Boulud holds one Michelin star, as well as three stars from the New York Times.
The chef
presented a risotto ball amuse bouche, which we popped it directly into our
mouths, only to find that it was two bites (not one) and that it was too hot to
consume (we expected it be delivered at exactly the correct temperature, not
that we would have to wait for our bite to cool before eating). We ordered the
rabbit porchetta (with huckleberries, mustard, pistachios, and sourdough bread)
and cazeuela de mariscos (a sort of Spanish seafood bisque served in a volcanic
molcajete placed atop a wicker basket) as our first courses. The porchetta was
amazing (we are fans of the terrines and pates at Bar Bolud)! The cazuela was a
bit disappointing in that we did not realize that it was a soup, which is our
own fault for not asking for a better description (we knew that “mariscos” was
seafood, but we did not know that “cazuela” meant “stew”.) As our main courses,
we chose the bacon-wrapped halibut (set atop finely diced celery, peppers, and
corn, with some tiny clams alongside, and then sauced with a chowder broth) and
the chanterelle risotto (with corn, pecorino romano cheese, and tarragon oil).
The risotto is available in a smaller portion as an appetizer, and we would
recommend the smaller size over the main course portion, which while delicious,
was a bit heavy and rich in such a large quantity. The halibut was terrific and
beautifully presented with many detailed components – we would love to find a
thick fish “steak” like that where we live! We passed on dessert, which had
many offerings. We were intrigued by the Colombian cholada on the menu, but
when we questioned our (heavily accented) French server, she described it as a “fruit
salad”; since dining there and seeing an online photo of the dessert, it is
more of a complex shaved-ice fruit granita, which we would have ordered. A
roving server offers an extensive bread tray. When your server delivers your
check, he also brings some freshly-baked and still-warm madeleine pastries to
end your meal – delicious!
We are pleased to have dined at Café
Boulud, because it was the completion of eating at all Daniel Boulud
restaurants in Manhattan. It was a lovely meal, with good food and fine service.
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