Beauty & Essex
“The fun of walking through a pawn shop to get to a speakeasy also adds to it's splendor.”
“Six spoons come in the grilled cheese, smoked bacon and tomato soup dumplings and they are DELICIOUS.”
“Excellent service, amazing food; try the tomato soup dumplings, the lobster tacos and tomate tartare!!”
Beauty & Essex
Takes Reservations: Yes
Accepts Credit Cards: Yes
Wheelchair Accessible: Yes
Good for Groups: Yes
Coat Check: Yes
Waiter Service: Yes
PokéStop Nearby: Yes
Price range.
$$$ Price range $31-60
8 reviews
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Beauty & Essex is a place you go to have fun not necessarily a place you go to eat amazing food. The style of this restaurant is tapas-sharing so it is small portions. For me, it was nothing worth to come back to except for the experience and good music played by the dj. The service was good but the food is very greasy and salty although it tasted good.
Beauty & Essex is such a fun place to go for tapas! The restaurant is decorated like an antique pawn shop at the entrance, with classic guitars on the wall and showcases of jewelry.
As soon as you go through the door, the restaurant changes to extravagant decor with dim lighting. The chandelier at the entrance is massive and very pretty! They also have a huge window in the ceiling that is beautiful during the day and at night. The tables are huge and decorated with large vases filled with plants and peacock feathers. It is a very unique restaurant with a trendy ambiance.
Dishes I loved:
-Crab Rangoon Jewels on Toast: Simply divine. A must have!
-Apricot & Ricotta Jewels on Toast
-Grilled Cheese Dumplings in tomato soup spoons: really cool presentation, pretty good taste
-Short Rib over Mushroom Risotto – My favorite entree
-Salmon Entree
-Salmon Ceviche appetizer
-Lobster Tacos for brunch
-Butterscotch Mousse with Cookie Spoons dessert
Underwhelming dishes that I would not order again:
-Crab Cake BLT
-Scrambled Eggs Jewels on Toast
-Lobster & Chorizo Hash: Lacked flavor
None of the "underwhelming" dishes tasted bad at all, they just were not as memorable or impressive as the others!
Service was consistently good during both visits. Even though Beauty & Essex always seems to be busy, they do a great job at taking care of their tables and making recommendations! This restaurant is a great place to take a date or celebrate a special occasion! It's also a fun place to go for brunch & cocktails with a large group!
Buckle up, friends, this is going to be a long one.
Despite its front as a pawn shop, Beauty & Essex is hardly hidden from the public eye. This place is a destination for New Yorkers and tourists alike because more than anything, it's a palatial wonderland. Let's define those two words, shall we?
Palatial (adj.): resembling a palace in being spacious and splendid
Wonderland (n.): a land or place full of wonderful things
This is Beauty & Essex in a nutshell.
After passing through the pawn shop (which is a pretty fun space in it of itself), you enter into total splendor. I typically dine at smaller restaurants so Beauty & Essex initially shocked my senses in its pure size. It's glitzy and glam and extravagant and massive and beautiful and really anything that a girl could want. And I guess this as good a time as any to mention that this is the PERFECT spot for a girl's night out (contingent on all party members' willingness to shell out more cash than they typically would at a bar/restaurant). Before diving into my experience, here's why large groups of girls flock to this place:
-Everyone here dresses up. Fancy dresses, high heels, lots of sparkles. Who doesn't like to feel pretty?
-The drink menu isn't spirit-forward. I happen to love spirit-forward drinks but most of my girlfriends don't
-The menu (much more on that later) is set up such that all plates are meant to be shared. Not only that, a good number of the dishes (at least those that are appetizer-sized) are on the lighter side. So you likely won't feel grossly full after eating here
-The luxury makes its way into the bathrooms too. Bathroom attendants, couches and free champagne. Let me repeat: FREE CHAMPAGNE. So if you're waiting to be seated/on your way out, get some bubbly and rejoice in the fact that it's so, so free.
So now onto our experience. We came here on a Saturday night for a late dinner and as expected, the place was packed. After helping ourselves to some of that complimentary champagne, we moved onto the good stuff at our table. We both started out with the Pink Panther (gin, St. Germain, pink peppercorn syrup, lemon), which is a fantastic first drink. Fresh and wonderfully-balanced. My second drink, The Woodsman (bourbon, allspice dram, maple syrup, lemon, muddled pears), was wildly different from the Pink Panther but just as good. Sometimes I'm wary of bourbon/maple syrup cocktails because when the ratios are off, they can turn out sickly sweet. Thankfully not the case here.
A note about the menu before I jump in: I want to reiterate that these are small plates. They suggest 4-6 as most tapas sports do, but these portions are smaller than most. Typically me and one other person will order 4-5 and end up pretty full. On this particular night we had nothing left over after ordering 5. I do think we ordered some of the lighter dishes, but you should still keep this in mind when assessing your hunger level. Eats below:
Salmon Ceviche w/ jalapeño, mango, crispy corn tortilla: A-
Fresh and incredibly flavorful. The jalapeño adds a pop of spice here which paired nicely with the mango. You get three in an order and they're virtually impossible to split so keep that in mind when ordering. A yummy summer dish and a great way to start off our meal. And *beautiful* preparation.
Tuna Poke Wonton Tacos w/ micro cilantro, radish, wasabi kewpie: A
Also 3 to an order. So if you're a party of two, it works out well if you order both this and the ceviche. As long as you don't have the same favorite one, you'll be able to avoid all tension. But most likely, someone will have to concede, because these tacos were just better than the ceviche. Poke is all the rage these days, and for good reason. It's fresh, healthy and you can do tons of fun preparations with it. That wasabi on top is bomb.
Hand Cut Steak Tartare w/Swedish pickled beets, anchovy crème fraiche, mustard dill rice cake: A
This dish is different. Unlike any steak tartare I've had in the past. For some reason it took us both a minute to decide whether or not we liked it. Once my tastebuds assessed the situation, they were very pleased. It might've been the anchovy creme fraiche that threw me, but once I adjusted, I thought it actually made the dish.
Crab Rangoon w/ warm jumbo lump crab, sweet thai chili pearls, crispy crab cracker: A+
The star of the night. Though we were expecting toast as opposed to another set of little tortilla/cracker bases, this dish was a total flavor explosion. It's hard to beat succulent lump crab. Serious mastery over the 1-2 bite dish here. This dish also came with three pieces but we managed to split the last magnificent morsel between the two of us (we also saved it for last).
'Chile Relleno' Empanadas w/ poblano, manchego, jalapeño-lime crema: A
Yet another flavor bomb. 4 perfectly crispy empanadas, lots of drool-worthy manchego, spiciness from the pepper with a dollop of light crema on top to balance it out. Nice antidote to all of our seafood.
Oh snap! In looking at the pictures, I am feeling some major regret that I didn't come here for dinner! The food looks amazing!
At any rate, I can tell you about the bar experience. I came here with a group of ladies for a bachelorette party. Imagine my surprise when our bachelorette group showed up at a tiny pawn shop on Essex Street. After a similar experience at Vandal, I was beginning to think my friends had weird tastes. But then a door opened up and inside was a huge restaurant/bar. The stairs were a little tricky for my gang in our heels but the building is beautiful.
The cocktails are typical NYC prices and themes. I had the Beautiful drink and it was good. The other major highlight for me was the bathroom. While it was also inconveniently located at the bottom of a LOT of stairs – it was massive and had comfy couches and a great area for touching up hair/makeup AND, to top it all off, they served complimentary champagne! It was fantastic. All of the servers were very nice and accommodating to our group. We didn't stay very long because the music was pretty outdated and bland but I definitely want to come back here for dinner!
This place is really something. From the secretive pawn shop entrance to the grandiose "see and be seen" atmosphere inside. I felt like I was in a hip hop video the whole time i was there (seems to be their soundtrack as well)
Interesting cocktail menu. I enjoyed the Beauty Elixir, heavily cucumber flavored but refreshing nonetheless. My husband had a much stronger cocktail that was also delicious.
Service was great. We selected most of our dishes based on our waiter recs. Standout for dinner was the Thai Style Deep Fried Shrimp. I wish I had ordered two orders of this appetizer. The sauce was well done covering nice chunks of shrimps which were not really deep fried (more like a good sear). The pan seared scallops was also delicious, too bad it only came with 3 pieces. The baby back ribs were literally fall off the bone tender. They paired well with the onion rings. The lobster mac and cheese was missing the lobster, not a memorable dish.
I've heard about the free champagne in the ladies room before but it's totally a different experience in person. The bartender lady was nice and engaging. I made two trips to the bathroom.
Goes without saying that its expensive here. For the moment, I appreciated dining there but not our usual scene. Would go back for a special occasion.
I know it's still kinda trendy and all, but Beauty & Essex still does not cease to amaze.
I had come for dinner a few times, but stopped in for brunch this past weekend. Still sleepy from the night before, I passed on a cocktail and ordered Iced Tea instead which was delicious, very sweet.
For our mains, we went with four items:
– Lemon Blackberry Pancakes
– Jewels on Toast: Free Range Scrambled Eggs
– Jewels on Toast: Avocado, Lemon and Esplette
– Grilled Cheese, Smoked Bacon and Tomato Soup Dumpling
Seriously, all almost all of them were to die for. I would recommend again and again. The only disappointing item was the Free Range Scrambled Eggs. There was really no flavor, or anything special or unique about the dish like the other items on the menu. The other three were truly game changers, and suggest that you try them for yourself!
Overall a fantastic brunch that is truly unique and not to be missed. Definitely worth a visit. Chris Santos and team continues to work their magic!
Do you want to have an awesome dining experience where you get to taste a variety of culinary masterpieces? When you need to use the restroom, do you ever wish there was somebody handing out rosé afterwards in the women's lounge? Do you want that Lower East Side speakeasy feel? Look no further than Beauty & Essex. All the dishes were exceptional, cocktails too. Sadly, another thing that was exceptional were the prices- we were a party of seven eating dinner and drinking cocktails. For that type of meal, expect to be shelling out half a month's rent. Drinks and food are typical New York City prices (maybe a little more,) but tapas-style means you have to get a bunch and it all adds up very quickly. It's definitely a special occasion type of place. You could just go for the cocktails, but the food was all unique and a real stand-out. They can also accommodate for vegans. I'd definitely come back here, getting drinks and a few tapas between a few people is more financially manageable.
Beauty & Essex is THE restaurant that should have been featured in Gossip Girl. The ambiance is absolutely gorgeous. From the chandelier to the bar and lounge to the main dining room to the ladies room (complimented with champagne and perfume), this restaurant is one of the most posh and stylish places I have been to in the city. The waiting staff look like they just walked off a runway, so if you want to grab your girlfriends and dress up, don't be shy to!
I came in a group of six, which was the perfect number for the plentiful round tables in the main dining room. I started with a pink panther cocktail, apparently one of the most popular cocktails on the menu, and it was very strong. Then I shared two appetizers: kale and apple salad and bbq fries and two entrees: baby back ribs and spaghettini with my boyfriend. Everything was quite tasty, even the kale salad which I really doubted. While the food is described as "tapas" size, the servings were actually quite large, and the food itself was quite heavy. Two appetizers and two entrees were far too much food for us, and I was so sad that I didn't have room for the even more amazing sounding dessert.
While coming here for a date night was pretty fun, I think Beauty & Essex is definitely more suitable for a girls night out, so leave the men at home next time.