Well, I experienced the reconceptualized Eleven Madison Park for the first time last night. Not sure I'm a fan of most of the changes.
The new menu design isn't actually a change, it's just a gimmick. As much as it looks like a bingo card inviting you to circle whatever looks appealing, it's really the same thing as the old menu - you pick one dish per row. The difference is that you don't actually know anything about any of the dishes. The NYT article linked at the top of this thread described the point of this thusly: "The menu is almost an abstraction. Rather than seducing you with luscious descriptions, its a reason or provocation to talk to your server about what you feel like eating." This does not seem right. The understanding we got was pretty much the exact opposite: the point is to increase the "surprise" when you get a dish. (One of the staff actually used that word when we were discussing the concept on our way out.) To that end, when you ask for more information on a dish, the waiter doesn't actually give you any. (If our waiter was representative, they seem to be instructed to limit the descriptions of each dish to one word - all I could be told about the langoustine was that it was "raw," both the beef and chicken main courses could only be described as "a roast.") There is of course a lot more that could be said about them which would have strongly influenced my decision of what to order and I wasn't totally thrilled with the combination I ended up with. My first course was a very summery dish - the "raw" langoustine turned out to be a ceviche - and my second course was a very autumnal dish - lobster in a maple-syrup-like pear sauce - on a very, very wintery day. Both were just OK. The pork main course was A+ and more in line with the quality I'm used to from EMP.
The cheese cart is gone. In its place is a cart containing one single block of cheese which is served by microplaning the cheese into proscuitto-thin slices on a plate. Not sure if it's garnished with anything but this wasn't my idea of a cheese course so we did dessert sans cheese. The "Chocolate" dessert was incredible and while I haven't kept track of who or how many pastry chefs EMP has gone through, I don't think I've ever had a dessert there as good as this, and its presentation was more consistent with the presentation style of the savory courses than the desserts here have ever been as well.
Not knowing what's in each dish makes ordering the wine a challenge unless you're the type who doesn't mind surrendering completely to the sommelier's picks. I'm not, and ended up ordering a bunch of things by-the-glass, where there were actually some options I really wanted to try. Andre Clouet Un Jour de 1911 Champagne was a nice starter, obvious mature flavors in a British-palate Champagne style and rich and slightly butterscotchy. Arnot-Roberts 2009 Vare Vineyard Ribolla Gialla was nice and chalky but also boxier and not nearly as compelling as the '05 ribolla from the same vineyard under the Vare label which was probably the best California white I've ever had. Philippe Delesvaux 2005 Anjou Vignes Francaises "Authentique" was irresistible to me on account of the freedom-pie factor but the color was as dark as a fifty-year-old wine with a commensurate lack of freshness and it was just too sweet. It didn't work with the lobster but I was glad to have most of it left over to drink with the pork which emphatically needed a sweetish white wine and clashed horribly with the Grosjean Torrette I'd ordered to drink with it. Finally, Istvan Szepsy 1996 Tokaji-Aszu 6 Puttunyos was also dark and evolved to the point where it had become a little dreary without a corresponding uptick in complexity or intrigue. Hmmm, that's a shame, I had always kept Szepsy in the back of my head as a potential contender for greatest dessert wine nobody talks about, but not if they evolve like this.
