Infirmary
“I dream about the char-baked oysters with Parmesan cheese & creole bread fresh from New Orleans.”
“I ate at the bar with my husband for new years eve and have to say they make some of the best fried chicken I've had.”
“My friend had fried chicken and cornbread (delicious) and my other friends had the alligator sausages.”
Infirmary
Takes Reservations: Yes
Delivery: Yes
Take-out: Yes
Accepts Credit Cards: Yes
Bike Parking: Yes
Wheelchair Accessible: Yes
Good for Groups: Yes
Happy Hour: Yes
Has TV: Yes
Waiter Service: Yes
Caters: Yes
Price range.
$$ Price range $11-30
8 reviews
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It's rare that I jaunt to this section of the Upper East Side for any reason, short of driving through on the M98 or BxM1 to head back to WaHi or Inwood. The way that some people boast, "Oh, I NEVER go above 125th Street / 59th Street / 14th Street / Houston", I suppose I'd consider myself to be that a-hole that boasts, "Oh, I NEVER go above East 86th Street." Ha! However, due to Infirmary, I may have to change my mindset regarding this stupid notion planted inside of my head. This place is MONEY.
Two Yelp Gals Walk Into A Bar: Dione and I wandered into Infirmary around 5:30 on a Monday, and it was still on the emptier side, to our advantage. (Note: 6:30 is when the crowds seemed to funnel in.) Our bartender / server, James, was wicked cool and very knowledgeable about the food and drink menus. We both went hard on the drinks: Dione opted for the Classic Sazerac, The Louisiana Purchase, and the Hurricane. I opted for the Voodoo Lady and the Pin Up Girl. Between the two of us, we sampled virtually every basic hard liquor you can think of. The Voodoo Lady is a fantastic frozen drink; to paraphrase Dione, it tastes like "Grape Kool-Aid with a smoky kick". I seriously was ready to order a second, but switched to the The Pin Up; to again quote Dione, it tastes "clear". That's actually a really good way to describe it; it has a very clean flavor, almost like a good palette cleanser. I had sips of all of Dione's drinks, and they were all great, so boozy you could light a match and set 'em all on fire if you wanted to.
We split plenty of bar eats. The mac and cheese was wonderful, as was the Fried Chicken & Biscuit Sandwich, served with a sweet drizzle of honey. We also split a grilled cheese sandwich with their signature Cajun BBQ sauce. What I loved about all of these foods is that there was definitely some HEAT present, but it erred more on the side of smoky compared to mouth-burning, so I was a happy camper. (I'm a big ol' baby when it comes to spices. Heh.)
I was already feeling sick and tired of my work week, and only on a Monday, but Infirmary definitely cured my Work Week Blues.
I love Southern food. I love fried chicken. I love biscuits.
Manhattan has a lack of KFCs, and KFC isn't always that good.
Infirmary is much better, and they don't just have fried chicken, they have jambalaya, gumbo, fried oysters, po boy etc.
I came on a Weds night. There is a bar area at the front, and a dining area at the back. On Weds, wines are half off – ie. about $20+. This is much cheaper than getting a cocktail for $13. The cocktail list did look good but I decided to resort to wine.
Our waiter was honest and told us he didn't know anything about wines. He did recommend one that was more popular and we really liked it.
The menu is divided into 2 section- small plates and large plates. We ordered the crispy boudin balls from the small plates section. These resembled arancini balls. They were filled with pork and rice. Each plate comes with 3 balls (not 2).
For my main course, I had fried chicken and biscuits. THE biscuits came with honey butter, and the chicken came cajun bbq sauce. The fried chicken was very crispy on the outside, it was DELICIOUS. The biscuits were ok, they were a little hard and dry. Wish they were better.. at least the butter made up for it.
Overall, a great place to eat Cajun food.
The food here is really good! Definitely a spot to hit up. Unfortunately I can't comment too much on the flavors cause I went there over a month ago, but from what I remember, everything was on point and my parents were happy.
CHAR-BAKED OYSTERS 1/2 dozen for $15: delicious! dip the bread in the sauce after
ROAST BEEF & DEBRIS PO BOY $18: really really messy but I think that made it taste better.. not a dish I'd recommend if you're on a first date =P. I thoroughly enjoyed it though.
DOUBLE CHEESEBURGER $15: dad had this and it was so overstacked he was wondering how people can eat it in one bite. he used a fork and knife lol but i hope my fellow yelpers will bring me honor by eating the burger as it's meant to be eaten.
JAMBALAYA (CUP) $9: my mom had it as her entree and it was sufficient since she picked at our food too.
Made a prix fixe brunch reservation at this place only to arrive and have them tell us they are not ready nor could they serve the alcohol from their menu until noon. I wouldn't have minded this if they had taken the time to add that disclaimer on their website, or better yet, not offer reservations for the brunch (which included a drink) before noon. We ended up coming back an hour later, as they were able to squeeze us in then, and enjoyed our brunch to its fullest. I really wanted to like this place, and the food was great, but the reservation fiasco was enough for me to not come back here anytime soon.
Solid brunch spot in the UES
I love the chargrilled oysters and their $20 unlimited mimosas for brunch! Most of the other dishes I've had were pretty good. Although I was disappointed w the chicken sandwich.
Here's a totally unsolicited confession: All the 2nd Avenue bars/cocktail lounges look alike to me (with the exception of The Milton, which I have an undying fire in my heart for). They all have some variation of eggs Benedict on their brunch menus, wood-paneled flooring, and the same twenty-something/stroller-mommy crowd. Infirmary wins some points for the Cajun/Creole menu (a New Orleans sampler of gumbo, jambalaya, and rice and beans is something that I've never seen before in the UES), and seriously the best drink that I've had recently – the silver tongued devil.
This drink is a masterpiece. As someone who's been on a spicy drink kick, the silver tongued devil with its silver tequila, ginger, and jalepeno was absolutely delicious – so good that, when our waitress kindly informed us of last call for happy hour cocktails, I immediately sprung for a second one. It's not extremely spicy but it definitely doesn't go down without leaving some heat in your throat. Plus, it's SO smooth. I could barely taste the tequila.
The food wasn't quite as spectacular. I liked the fried chicken slider well enough but I thought the bun was too bread-y and a little stale. Same staleness to my friend's pulled pork sandwich bread. We both ended up just eating the meat and cole slaw and leaving the bread behind despite both of us being insane about our bread. Her fries were good, though. I was trying to be "healthy" and still ended up stealing 5 chunks of delicious potato away.
My kale salad was very, very lightly dressed. In other words, I was maybe one teaspoon of dressing away from eating raw kale leaves. While I'm of the minority of salad-eaters that hate it when the leaves are swimming in ranch dressing, I still maintain that just a tiny bit more dressing never hurt nobody. More candied pecans too, please.
NEXT TIME: lamb meatballs, smothered catfish, DEFINITELY more of the silver tongued devil
I was SO excited to find a cajun place in the neighborhood, but to be honest I was a bit disappointed when we came for weekend brunch. I quite liked my shrimp and grits, though not a standout (unless that standout is "sauciest"); it really wasn't authentic IMO (way too saucy and very unexpected flavoring), though as I said, I still enjoyed it. However, my friends' dishes ranged from meh to bad (not fresh crawfish).
The beignets were only just okay. Frankly I'm surprised so many people are raving about them – did we get ours on an off-day or have people not had truly amazing beignets before? I will admit though I may be a bit of a beignet snob – I thought Cafe du Monde's was only pretty good and not the best I've had (though I had waited a bit before having those so that may have made a difference). Ultimately, fried dough covered in powered sugar will be tasty regardless, but these were simply not that great relatively speaking – dough inside too hard and dense with a little too much sugar smothered over the tiny portion of beignets – not a melt in your mouth experience.
The service and ambiance was great though.
So this was more a "Meh – I've experienced better" restaurant based on our visit, but I'm tacking on an extra star since it's hard to find cajun cuisine in the city, and I appreciate this one is close by to conveniently get my fix. Maybe I'll go back and try the char baked oysters next time.
I don't usually hang out on the upper east side but I'm glad to have this spot in my back pocket for when and if the occasion arises.
I liked the space and vibe. I live and usually hang out downtown so having space was a nice treat.
I went for a friend's bday party. I only had a cesear salad and it was not particularly amazing or at all bad.
Overall I would say this is a very solid bar to check out if you are in the area.