Prune

Prune is definitely one of my favorite restaurants in NYC.  Always delicious.  There is something so intimate and European about the place that I always feel as if I just took a mini-trip to Paris.  We returned this past weekend for a dinner with two other couples.  I booked the semi-private room downstairs at the table that seats six.  It is like having your own dinner party.  This drawing above is on the wall of the room.

We ate a lot so I am going to breeze through it.  Prune has a small menu only dedicated to bar food and then a larger menu as well.  I have always loved the bar food menu.  Everything is small and packs a powerful punch.  This is Spanish goat cheese with buttered brown bread and salted thinly sliced red onions.  Honestly, how can you go wrong?  The combination is amazing.

Always have been a fan of the raw radishes with a little bit of salt and butter on the side. I generally opt out of the butter although if you are on the mood, slather it on and then dip in salt.

The giant frico is simple to make.  Shaved Parmesean baked into a crisp. Quite good.

 

Some people started with the octopus.  I think the octopus is roasted and then sliced and served with a touch of olive oil, chili flakes and shaved celery.  Quite good and classic.

I decided to opt for the appetizer of the night.  Grilled shad roe with a slice of bacon over the top.  Honestly not that good.  Conceptually out there but just too heavy and not so interesting.

Prune always does a fish of the day.  A whole fish grilled and stuffed with fennel.  This was the branzino and you can't go wrong here.

I had the veal poached in milk.  Really interesting and quite good.  The veal was a little bit dry in places but I liked the whole idea.  This was served over two pieces of roasted endive. 

Two sides.  One was leeks chopped with diced hard boiled eggs over the top and doused in a vinegarette.

The other is slices of potatoes cooked in a butter water. 

Dessert was definitely happening based on the amount of alcohol we had all consumed.  A calvados omelette.  I liked the concept but I like my eggs really soft and this was way too hard.

Butter pecan ice cream doused in maple syrup.  How bad can that be, right?

Deep fried ricotta fritters with a chocolate dipping sauce.  Really crispy on the outside and soft in the inside.

Last was a scoop of ice cream with espresso on the side which was poured over the top.

We snuck into the kitchen.  Super organized.  Here are all their pots and pans.

Here is the prep kitchen.  A really large space.  What is cool about Prune is that they prep downstairs and then everything is taken upstairs to this tiny kitchen that is open to the tiny room (maybe seats 30 people) and that is where everything is prepared.

I have been back to Prune countless times and I always go home happy.  Just a side note is that the chef Gabrielle Hamilton, just had her memoir, Blood Bones and Butter, come out this week.  It is next on my huge stack of books that seems to getting bigger not smaller.