Le Bernardin

Le Bernardin Wins Luxist's Editors' Choice Award for Best in Fine Dining

Filed under: Dining

Le Bernardin in New York is nominated for a Luxist Award for Best Seafood Restaurant

Considered "a legend in fine dining", Le Bernardin is one of the most influential seafood restaurants in America, if not the entire world. The midtown Manhattan restaurant holds three stars from the formidable The Michelin Guide and has a coveted four-star status from the New York Times.

Le Bernardin lives up to all that is expected from one of the finest restaurants in the world. From the exceptional food to the understated elegance of its dining room and formal, yet friendly service, Le Bernardin is the whole package, and thus it has been selected as Luxist's Editors' Choice Award Winner for the Best in Fine Dining.

A seafood restaurant with French roots, Le Bernardin's Executive Chef and co-owner is Eric Ripert. Born in Antibes and trained in France, the award-winning chef's background is impressive and includes stints at such legendary restaurants as the Tour D'Argent in Paris. He has worked with and learned from some of the most famous chefs around, including Joel Robuchon and Jean-Louis Palladin. A student no longer, Ripert is now considered one of their peers. "Ripert is unquestionably the finest seafood chef in the world," wrote Alan Richman in his article The Seven Temples of the Food World in the October 2007 issue of GQ.

Gallery: Le Bernardin in New York

Tags: awards-main, best seafood restaurant, Eric Ripert, Le Bernardin, luxist-awards, Michelin Guide, Miguy Le Coze, New York Times, seafood, winners-fine-dining

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Luxist Awards' Winners for the Best in Fine Dining

by Carrie Coolidge (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Dining

Auberge du Soleil is nominated for a Luxist Award for Most Romantic Restaurant.

Luxist readers nominated and voted for the restaurants that they believe are the best of breed. Below, are their favorite places to wine and dine within such categories as Best Steakhouse, Best Seafood, Best Romantic, Best Domestic and Best International restaurant.

Best Romantic Restaurant: Auberge du Soleil (Rutherford, Ca.)
Enjoying a glass of wine at sunset in California's Napa Valley is one of the best ways to start an intimate evening, and the restaurant at Auberge du Soleil offers a chance to do just that.

Founded in 1981 by San Francisco restaurateur Claude Rouas, the eatery helped spawn the wave of popularity currently enjoyed by the entire Napa area. In 1985, Rouas and business partner Robert Harmon opened the inn---in French, auberge---to host visitors to the California wine country. He envisioned both the restaurant and the inn as a tribute to his beloved Provence, and, true to form, both continue to be exactly that.

Guided by executive chef Robert Curry, the restaurant remains one of America's most delicious---and most romantic. The best way for lovebirds to enjoy the seasonally-changing menu is at La Pagode, the restaurant's private dining area for two. Here, the evening begins with a bottle of champagne, followed by a dozen oysters and a four course dinner, with wine pairings included. This type of romance comes with a $1,495 per couple price tag, plus an optional $550 for two hours of solo guitar accompaniment.

Tags: auberge du soleil, awards-main, best in fine dining, best restaurants, Guy Savoy, Le Bernardin, luxist-awards, Restaurant Guy Savoy, Strip House, The French Laundry

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Le Bernardin Wins the Luxist Award for Best Seafood Restaurant

by Carrie Coolidge (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Dining

A world-renowned New York restaurant that has received numerous awards, Le Bernardin, is also the winner of the Luxist Awards' Readers' Choice Award for Best Seafood Restaurant.

A seafood restaurant with French roots, Le Bernardin is known for its understated elegance. The mid-town Manhattan restaurant is beautifully and tastefully decorated: the restaurant reportedly spends $12,000 a month on fresh flowers. Its menu is extensive and includes such delectable dishes as warm lobster carpaccio, smoked yellow fin tuna, "prosciutto", bread crusted red snapper, crispy black bass and whole red snapper baked in rosemary and thyme salt crust. There are several tasting menus from which to choose, including Le Bernardin's Tasting Menu, which costs $138 per person, or $225 with wine pairing, per person. The prix fixe dinner costs $112 per person.

Gallery: Le Bernardin in New York

Tags: awards-main, best restaurants, best seafood, Best Seafood Restaurant, Eric Ripert, james beard awards, Le Bernardin, luxist-awards, Miguy Le Coze, New York, winners-fine-dining

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Le Bernardin Launches Wine Club

by Deb West (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Dining, Wine

Eric Ripert, the chef/owner of the New York restaurant Le Bernardin, along with his wine director Aldo Sohm, has introduced the Avec Eric Perfect Pairings wine club.

Ripert is the host of a new show for PBS, Avec Eric, in which he explores his own vision of why we cook and where he finds his inspiration. Sohm, who oversees Le Bernardin's wine collection of over 15,000 bottles, recently received the 2009 James Beard Award for "Outstanding Wine Service" and was named "Best Sommelier in the World" in 2008 by the Worldwide Sommelier Association. Sohm is the first representative from America to win this title. Le Bernardin holds three stars from the Michelin Guide ,and has maintained its four-star rating from The New York Times for over 20 years.

In an interesting twist, the wines were picked with specific recipes from the chef in mind. Each month, Ripert and Sohm choose two bottles of wine for their members with the intention of pairing them with recipes inspired by his new series. The members will receive the recipes, as well as the wines, in addition to detailed tasting notes written by Sohm. Members also gain access to monthly online videos of the duo explaining each pairing. The wines are a mixed selection of reds, whites and sparkling chosen to complement the proposed dishes.

Ripert feels strongly that great food does not need to be complicated or intimidating for the home chef. Each show starts out with a trip to a vineyard, farm or four-star kitchen but finishes with the chef in his home kitchen demonstrating recipes for the home cook and enjoying the perfect glass of wine to accompany his meal. A Votre Sante!

Tags: Eric Ripert, EricRipert, fine dining, FineDining, food-awards, le bernardin, LeBernardin, Michelin Guides, MichelinGuides, pbs, wine

Chef Eric Ripert Projects $100,000 Donation to 'City Harvest', Charity of the Day

by Laura Malesich (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Charity of the Day

Known as the first food rescue organization in the world, City Harvest pledges to bring fresh produce and other local foods to the hungry of NYC. Over the past twenty-five years they have been instrumental in providing high quality food to needy individuals expecting to rescue and deliver twenty-three millions pounds of excess food in 2009 which is a million pounds more than last year. Many city restaurants, corporate cafeterias and food vendors are already committed to the cause by donating unwanted and surplus food items to City Harvest but on Tuesday a particularly esteemed venue made a significant pledge.

Gallery: Le Bernardin Supports City Harvest

Chef Eric Ripert (Le Bernardin), Driver Dave Marshall, and Jilly Stephens (Executive Director of City Harvest)

Jilly Stephens, Executive Director of City Harvest, and Chef Eric Ripert, Le Bernardin

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Tags: chef eric ripert, chef ripert, ChefEricRipert, ChefRipert, city harvest, CityHarvest, eric ripert, EricRipert, food rescue, FoodRescue, jilly stephens, JillyStephens, le bernardin, LeBernardin, on the line, on the line book, on the line cookbook, OnTheLine, OnTheLineBook, OnTheLineCookbook, the salons, TheSalons

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The 10 Hardest to Get Restaurant Reservations

by Rigel Celeste (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Dining

This is the time of year where special occasions and rare visits from family and friends are plentiful, and although home cooking is a big part of the season so is eating out -- because when people are in from out of town you hardly want to take them down to the local "all-you-can-eat for $4.99" buffet to celebrate their visit. But if you don't want to get stuck choosing between either the buffet or McDonald's then you might want to plan ahead, because as we all know everybody else in town is going to have the same idea!

If you have plans to hit the local fine dining hot spot this holiday season you better check to see if it's on this Forbes list of the top ten toughest to score restaurant reservations:

Gallery: Ten of the Toughest Restaurant Reservations