My dad was in town for the day, so I decided this was the right opportunity to check out this place. They don't seat in the main room for lunch on the weekends and the seating in the tavern is first come, first serve. They open at noon on the weekends and when I got there at 11:55AM, there was already a line about 10 people deep already. Luckily, my dad got there early, so we were seated right away. In terms of the menu, a word of warning that it is different than what they serve in the main room. Even though I haven't eaten in the main room, the tavern food was more than fabulous and I can only image what the food in the main room is like. We split the fish croquette and spinach salad ($12) and I got the red snapper with shiitake mushrooms and cauliflower ($22) while my dad got the sea bass with spaghetti squash, walmuts and sherry sauce ($22). One of the many things I loved about Gramercy Tavern was that when I told the waitress that we would be splitting the fish croquette, they actually pre-split the dish into two separate dishes for us. Now that's great attention to detail and very much appreciated. The dish was amazing. There were two croquettes per person and they were nice and fried on the outside and the inside was this perfect mashed mixture of fish (but not too fishy) and spices. There actually wasn't a lot of spinach, more of a mixed green combination. The greens were superbly dressed with a light dressing and then there was a surprisingly bed of spicy kimchi on the bottom of the bowl. I know the whole thing might sound weird, but it just somehow worked really well. After our appetizer, we did wait a bit for our main entrees and this is where I had to dock 1/2 a fork. While I completely and totally understand that quality food shouldn't necessarily come out in 5 seconds, we did wait quite a while for our entrees. While eating in the tavern, you do get a front view of the small open kitchen and I knew that there were only 2 chefs in the kitchen working the whole room, so I don't fault them, but it was a bit frustrating to wait over 30 minutes of the next meal to come out.
But when it did come out...oh my. My red snapper dish was one of the best fish dishes I've had in a while. I don't know what I was expecting but it was a fairly generous portion of perfectly pan roasted firm piece of red snapper covered in this amazing thick and flavorful sauce that shamefully I'm not 100% sure was in it. But it was a delicious buttery tasting yellow sauce (who am I kidding, it was probably just all butter) that completely covered the fish and was served with pieces of cauliflower and mushrooms. I wish there were more mushrooms but overall there wasn't a single thing that I would change about the dish. Each bite was just as good as the one before. I had a quick taste of the sea bass and that was also great with a very distinct sherry taste and the squash spaghetti was a great healthy touch. Even though I was totally full, I had to have dessert, I mean how often am I going to eat here? I opted for the pumpkin butterscotch pudding with cinnamon whipped cream ($9). It's like the dish was made for me since I have always been mad for butterscotch and pumpkin, so to combine the two almost sent me over the edge. You could totally taste both the pumpkin flavor and the butterscotch flavor and neither overpowered the other. The whipped cream was fresh and light and was equally addictive on its own. It was served with a cinnamon pastry on top which I only ate half for fear that my whole system might go into sugar overload.
The wait staff was impeccable...they constantly filled your water but not at an obnoxious way, took away my dirty plates at the right time and were just perfectly attentive without being in your face. I will note that the whole meal took over two hours, which was just about 30 minutes too long for me. We also had to wait a while to get the check, but I don't hold it totally against them. I'm usually a bit suspicious of restaurants that are labeled "New York Institutions" but this place totally lives up to the hype. Now I'm even more excited to try the actual restaurant. Total bill $110 total with tip and tax.
Photo Credit: Yelp
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