Chef’s Table At Brooklyn Fare

A decade after dining at the original Chef’s Table at Brooklyn Fare in Boerum Hill, we can still vividly recall the melt-in-your-mouth pleasure of their signature dish: a slice of black truffle and uni on toasted brioche. The restaurant’s current incarnation—located since 2016 in the back of Brooklyn Fare in Hell’s Kitchen—does a cover version. Here, the uni is shingled over a plank of Belgian waffle, with butternut purée and a blizzard of shaved black truffle.

It’s a fine homage, but the bite fails to capture the luscious alchemy of the original, instead embodying the spirit of “you can copy my homework, so long as you change it up a little.” Chef's Table, which is now led by two alumni after the longtime head chef’s controversial departure , still serves some delicious, skillfully prepared food. But it’s a restaurant haunted by its own ghost, and one that fails to meet the standards of tasting-menu ingenuity it once set for the entire city.

The use of big-ticket ingredients in the 14-course menu is generous, but sometimes perfunctory, like a brute-force shortcut to deliciousness (or reassurance that you’re getting good bang for all 345 of your bucks). Foie gras? Check. Wagyu? Check, and—again, a few courses later—check. The kitchen deploys truffle in particular with the determination of a home cook powering through the first three pages of Google results for leftover turkey recipes in the days after Thanksgiving.

In the restaurant’s early years in Brooklyn, dinner felt like witnessing an interactive performance from your perch at the intimate counter. In Hell’s Kitchen, much of the chefs’ work happens with their backs turned, and most of the seating is banquettes around the perimeter of the room anyway. Your server may point out a few autobiographical flourishes to the menu—there’s white asparagus from one of the chefs’ hometowns, fig leaves from his parents' winery, and that Belgian waffle recipe was inherited from the other chef's grandmother—but those details can’t overcome a greater sense of detachment.

For diners whose budget or tolerance for credit-card debt allows them to treat the most expensive restaurants in New York City like a to-do list, we’d recommend Chef’s Table wholeheartedly. But if the price point would make this a once-in-a-lifetime meal for you, consider having that meal elsewhere.

Food Rundown

Tasting Menu

The seafood-centric tasting menu costs $345 (before tax and gratuity), and lasts around three-and-a-half hours. Dishes change daily, but here are a few we tried recently:

photo credit: Molly Fitzpatrick

A5 Wagyu

This decadent one-bite tartlet is a pretty pink puck of A5 Miyazaki tartare on a nori shell, precariously laden with a blob of kaluga caviar of nearly the same volume as the meat. A delicate sprinkle of shiso flowers on top is nearly as pleasurable as the creamy beef and briny caviar.

Hokkaido Uni

This is a fine Belgian waffle (our compliments to the chef’s grandmother), but the dish is no more delicious than the sum of its parts. And, strictly in terms of logistics, a waffle may not be an ideal vessel for uni—we nearly lost some of the precious payload on its journey from plate to mouth.

photo credit: Molly Fitzpatrick

Kinmedai

This dry-aged golden-eyed snapper with finger lime escabeche looks like a painting—pale pink fish, orange trout roe spheres, luminous green droplets of verbena oil—but it was our least favorite course. It’s lovely as a whole, but it’s not easy to construct a balanced bite within the shallow serving plate. The verbena oil takes on a soapy, citronella quality when the ratio of ingredients isn’t dialed in just right.

photo credit: Molly Fitzpatrick

Caviar | Scallop

This beautifully seared diver scallop, paired with caviar and fig leaf oil, is the kind of dish that makes you close your eyes and briefly forget where, and who, you are. We caught ourselves glancing over to see if any of the vin jaune sauce—over-the-top savory, bright, and creamy all at once—had been left behind on our neighbor’s plate.

photo credit: Molly Fitzpatrick

Cherry | Huckleberry

If you cast a glamorous star to play the lead in the big-budget movie version of a breakfast parfait’s life story, it would come out something like this yogurt foam with cherry and huckleberry sorbet, a stark contrast of blood red against white. We’d encourage you to dig your spoon right down to the bottom of the bowl, because every layer reveals a surprising, delightful new dimension: welcome bitterness from sake granita, crunch from a crispy rice and almond crumble. Like a pie without the crust.

photo credit: Molly Fitzpatrick

Fujisan Bread

An even dreamier breakfast than the first dessert. Rich, soft laminated Japanese brioche brushed with aged Japanese whiskey caramel and coated in cardamom sugar is served warm, to be torn apart with your hands and dipped in a side of creamy coconut sorbet.