This year has had a boon of veggie friendly/veggie forward restaurants from Nix to By Chloe. You can now add Ladybird to that list. It's a "globally inspired vegetable tapas bar" from the owner of Avant Garden in the old Bourgeois Pig space in the West Village.
First off, the space is gorgeous. It's got a French elegance feel to it and it's very glamorous yet approachable. The only issue I had was that all the seats were high tops, so you're sitting on stools the entire time, which was kind of annoying and as I get older, just hurts my back. The menu is actually not just vegetarian but vegan as well. It's broken up into the front half with amuse bouches and cold plates and then the back half of warm plates. They're all tapas style so definitely order 2-3 dishes per person because they are not very big in size. We ordered the fried olives ($7), cauliflower ($6), saganaki ($9), coconut croqueta ($9), seared peach caprese ($12), artichoke hearts ($12) and the charred eggplant ($11). I'm not a huge fan of olives so I didn't try it but it looked exactly like what you would think fried olives would look like. The cauliflower was served on a bruschetta like bread with chive pesto, lemon ricotta, and chia. It was a bit difficult to eat a hunk of cauliflower on a piece of bread and frankly, the dish probably would have been better without it sitting on it. Flavor wise, it was nice and light and could have used a pinch more salt to it.
I was intrigued as to how they would serve saganaki since the restaurant is vegan and the answer is soy cheese. This dish was flamed "mozzarella" with smoked carrots and carrot green pesto. While I respect and get the whole focus on not having any dairy, I gotta say that soy cheese just isn't an adequate substitute for real cheese - especially if you're going to light it on fire. The next dish was the coconut croqueta which had bell pepper bechamel, orange romesco and jalapeño to it. It was small enough to be just a quick bite but I really enjoyed this dish - it was creative with all the complex flavors but still worked. Next was the seared peach "caprese" (again soy cheese) and burning sage. Again, I would like it a lot more if it was real cheese because something was just missing texture and taste wise. The 2 favorite dishes of the night were the artichoke hearts and eggplant - two really hearty dishes. The artichoke was sprinkled with sea salt and served with creme fraiche - simple yet delicious way to eat artichokes. As for the eggplant, it was charred and served with sweet potato crisp, feta, apricot jalapeno, and sherry vinegar. To me, it's hard to mess up charred eggplant because it soaks up so much flavor and yet still maintains the heartiness of the actual eggplant.
Since it was Lav's birthday, we had to get dessert and the chocolate fondue ($24) won out. It's kind of pricey for a chocolate dessert however, it's a huge serving, enough for 3 or 4 people. They give you all kinds of sliced fruit, slices of cake and fried mochi to dip into the chocolate. Luckily it was more of a dark chocolate and not an overly icky sweet milk chocolate, so it made it much more bearable for me.
Ladybird is a beautiful restaurant and would be great on a date because it's got a really romantic feel. I'd come here for some wine, a few nibbles and dessert but probably not for a full blown dinner. While I enjoyed my experience here, I can't say I felt particularly full at the end of it which was kind of annoying. Total bill: ~$120 for 3 people with tax, tip and wine
Photo Credit: Yelp
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