Aquavit
“I came with a friend for RW and between us we had the herring sampler, the butternut squash soup the (hangar?)”
“For dessert, definitely try the most popular option the Arctic Circle – the combination of goat cheese, mango and berries is sublime.”
“For the main course, I ordered the Swedish meatballs with lingonberry jam and potato mash.”
Aquavit
Takes Reservations: Yes
Accepts Credit Cards: Yes
Wheelchair Accessible: Yes
Good for Groups: Yes
Waiter Service: Yes
Price range.
$$$$ Price range Above $61
8 reviews
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I know I should give 4 stars or more, and I don't take this lightly and have spoken w ppl who were at our table (5 of us). This is a longstanding restaurant and food is still excellent. But as a 2016 Michelin 2-star rated restaurant, the service was subpar.
First of all, everyone at the table MUST order the same course. They now only have 3 courses, and, NO, you cannot order Prix Fixe if your companion is ordering the tasting course. With 5 ppl at the table, it was a bit awkward to navigate it, but we settled on Prix Fixe. Our French friend found their wine menu good and found an excellent bottle.
Appetizers were excellent, especially the herring. Their gravlax is great, but this time, the herring won. The main dishes were all very good, but we were not wowed by the desserts.
However, the service was inconsistent. There were 2 ladies at the table, but "ladies first" was really not observed, which was a little disappointing. And three of us had the same main dish, but one of them was missing the sauce, which took a few more minutes before it was brought and poured over, which sort of broke the mood.
At the end, they'll bring a tray of truffle chocolates. The person who brought to our side of the table dropped one of them on the floor, but NEVER returned to replace what he had dropped. Really?? The excellence of service was shown by the man who was in charge of our water. He didn't miss which one of us was having water "with no ice," "yes, with ice" once.
Also I'm just not a fan of their décor since they moved. It's very "conference room" and not elegant, warm, or comfortable.
Wow! This is amazing and I am unsure why I've never heard about it before. Went for the $50pp lunch and was blown away. The nicest staff, and the food is beyond special. The meatballs and the boullibaisse are not to be missed. Fresh and fun, this is what Michelin stars are given for.
Preferred the "old" location. However, still pretty nice to have the opportunity to have really good Scandinavian traditional food in New York, such as Herring sampler, Shrimp Skagen, Gravlax and Swedish Meatballs. The new location is much less cozy than the "old" one, feels too strict and without any "feeling". Service ok. Will return only when cravings really hits you!
This is perhaps the most underwhelming meal I have had in New York. I was so excited to come here for a work lunch, given how many wonderful reviews I read heard about this Michelin 2-star establishment.
For the prix fixe, I had the tomato with bacon soup for an appetizer, cod for my entree, and finally a strawberry dish for dessert. To sum it up, the food was all for show and completely lacked in substance. The soup was similar to any tomato soup that you can get at fast takeout lunch spot. The cod dish was complimented with an incredibly bitter sauce made from watercress. Finally, the strawberry dessert was actually just strawberries drizzled in a syrup.
Someone at the table opted for the Cornish hen for his entree, and I was seriously outraged when I saw the dish. Cornish hens are already tiny to begin with, and this dish only used the thighs of the hen. (What in the world did the restaurant do with the rest of the hen?)
One of the worse feelings is leaving a restaurant feeling hungry, and that's how Aquavit left me feeling.
Understandably, the corporate lunch is perhaps not the best representation of what Aquavit can offer. However, I was so unimpressed by the meal that I think the chances of me returning are highly unlikely.
Definitely in the list of most expensive meals to date, but the SO and I were fairly happy with our experience with Aquavit. For dinner, Aquavit offers three menus – a 3 course prix fixe, a medium-sized tasting menu, and a full chef's tasting menu – the prices range from $95/pp to $145/pp. Since we were celebrating our anniversary, we decided to go all out and experience the tasting menu. They also presented us with champagne for our milestone!
Staff and service was impeccable here. Everyone was very friendly, our table was always clean and cups were always full. They took the time to explain all the dishes, as is usual with tasting menus.
I've attached a photo of the menu they had for our particular night. Included with the tasting menu was a couple rounds of amuse bouche, palette cleansers, and petit fours… oh so many petit fours.
While we loved everything that evening, these few stood out to us:
– Rabbit and mushroom soup amuse bouche – the little piece of rabbit was tender and the mushroom soup – best mushroom soup I've ever had. Seriously.
– Salmon and apricot – salmon was so fresh and the "apricot snow" they threw on top of the salmon sashimi was quite the presentation
– Pelle janzon – venison tartar with what seemed like some sort of caviar and a quail egg in the middle. A little on the salty side, but very fresh and a nice little starter
– King crab and baked potato – definitely not the kind of baked potato you're thinking of. This is a delicate potato… "sculpture" with layers of white and sweet potato paired with the most delicious and juicy piece of Alaskan king crab. The "potato skin" broth was flavorful and a bit tangy.
– Calf's liver and blackcurrant – tasted quite strongly of wine and thus I could not eat too much of the blackcurrant jelly. The calf's liver/fois gras was very smooth and you actually get a large amount of it.
– Turbot (fish) and turnip – ever had cucumber foam? The tender and fresh turbot with the tangy strips of radish were something I've not had before and enjoyed thoroughly.
– Oxtail and truffle – seriously, some of the best and most tender oxtail I've ever had. See picture. Such tender, much wow.
– 7x Sirloin (wagyu!!) and red cabbage – deliciously marbled (7 grade) wagyu slice with a tangy cabbage side. SO good.
– Arctic bird's nest – the display is incredible – there's even gold flakes. This is my type of dessert – lots of different tastes, textures, and flavors put into one dish. There's fruit, blueberry sorbet in the center, creamy white chocolate goat cheese parfait "eggs" on top, and a cookie "nest". This was an excellent end to our meal.
– Petit fours – choose as many as you like – our eyes were much bigger than our stomach at this point and we had to take some petit fours home. Beware though and make sure you refrigerate your truffles and such even though they don't tell you you need to. I found mold in my truffle the next day and it was a major hiccup to our meal. They've checked to make sure this isn't an issue going forward and have been very nice in helping to resolve my issue.
Would definitely dine at Aquavit again for a special occasion!
My wife and I came to Aquavit for our fifth anniversary and we each had the tasting menu.
We came to Aquavit a day after eating the best meal of our lives at Le Bernardin and so we had a very high bar and high expectations. They were certainly met. For my part, I loved both restaurants and would return to either – but I loved Le Bernardin more. My wife, however, would rather return to Aquavit, and that should tell you something about how good Aquavit was.
The menu at Aquavit is more of a sampling, because between each course we received something different and new. Each course itself was also like an experiment, with vivid plating and sudden and unexpected flavors. Some of these experiments worked REALLY well, and some of them would have been better if they'd held back a little.
For example, one of our courses was the sirloin with onion and bordelaise. I cannot adequately describe to you how good this was – in particular whatever they had done to the onion. I could have eaten only this course and considered my money well spent.
For an example on the other end, the Arctic Birds Nest was vividly plated and exciting to look at, but the taste didn't live up to the previous courses or to its own presentation.
We found the fried bits of one of the appetizer courses unappealing, and the oysters were simply not to our taste (though done excellently). Every other course was a revelation and super exciting for us – we really really enjoyed the whole meal.
You almost don't mention the service as these Michelin starred restaurants because you know it is phenomenal, but there was a real warmth to the service at Aquavit that went above and beyond. It really made our experience that much more enjoyable, and it definitely won my wife over.
I should also add that my wife has an incredibly bizarre food restriction due to a medication she takes for a brain tumor. She cannot eat anything carbonated (no champagne, no soda, etc) and we wouldn't have realized that carbonation would be used in any sauces or foams, but the restaurant caught that quickly and prepared my wife's meal slightly differently to avoid even the risk of her not enjoying it. This was very endearing as well.
Phenomenal job, and we will absolutely want to come back. I hope you get your third Michelin star.
I had the spring tasting menu, which was pretty good. The service was decent, although at the very end, our coffee/latte orders were forgotten.
Food:
Lots of little canapes – all pretty good
Arctic char canape – good
Beets and goat cheese – pretty good
Lamb and lingonberries – pretty good
Monkfish and fennel – decent
Duck breast – very good
Cookies and cream dessert – not great
Dessert sampler – I had almost one of everything; good
Amazing dinner! My husband and I came up from D.C. to spend our weekend celebrating in NYC. We own the Aquavit cooking book so decided to actually have a meal there.
The restaurant is very beautiful, warm and quaint. We were greeted as soon as we sat down with a glass of excellent rose to congratulate us. We decided to go with the Spring tasting because of the ingredients they had (plus I liked everything listed). We started off with two small bites from the chef, Duck Confit with apples and a small salty bite with caviar (I forget what it was!) but were amazing!! We asked for the wine list in preparation for our first course. Then we got a small mushroom soup with rabbit rillette. Also amazing! Our first course came and I had run out of rose and NEVER got the wine list, which was a little annoying. We like enjoying our dishes with wine. So we had to sit there staring at our scallop while we waited for our wine, not ideal. The waiter recommended two amazing white wines. I hate Chardonnay but his recommendations were pretty on point (hence, I actually enjoyed the Chardonnay!).
The scallop was good, not in love because I hate cucumber and it was cut in a weird way (I would've preferred to have the whole scallop instead of small and big chunks cut unevenly). Second course was Mackerel and fava beans = amazing. My two favorite courses were the Halibut and the Lamb. Lamb was cooked PERFECTLY, and the Halibut was AMAZING. Depth of flavors with the Halibut including bacon, yum. By then we had switched to red wine for the meat, cheese plate and dessert. I thought their wines by the glass were pretty good and prices were reasonable compared to other Michelin starred restaurants. We had a cheese plate and conclusion was: don't order the cheese plate, not worth it.
We had heard that the standout dessert was the Artic Birds Nest, and we asked to replace our dessert for it and whoa! it was great . Presentation outstanding and the flavors amazing. We had dessert with one of the best espressos I've had in a long time. So definitely order coffee.
In conclusion it was an amazing meal. The service in the beginning was not the best but by the end of the night they made up for it as we got to know our waiter and increasingly felt more at home! Honestly the canapes, the soup and the palate cleansers were OUTSTANDING while the food was pretty good. We will definitely come back and recommend it to anyone visiting NYC. Thank you for a great night!