Eighty Six on Bedford Street is the hardest new restaurant in town to penetrate. I expected to hate everything about it. Instead, I had one of my best meals of the year. I’ve never been so happy to be wrong.<\/p>\n
The ten-table steakhouse is a dwarf in the middle of the city’s gigantic cattle stables. But it packs a punch well above its weight class \u2013 assuming you can get into it. Too exclusive for almost everyone except friends of the establishment, Eighty Six is \u200b\u200bironically located in what was once one of the city’s most hospitable spots – Chumley’s Pub, which occupied the site for nearly 75 years.<\/p>\n
Limited reservations are available exclusively through DoorDash, but actually, apparently, you have to know someone. The preciousness usually reduces sensible, mature guests to complaining sycophants. For the past few weeks, \u201cCan you please take me with you?\u201d has become a common refrain among friends who think I have a magic wand to gain access. Unfortunately, that’s not the case, and I had to rely on a friend’s invitation to get in myself.<\/p>\n
Once inside, I was rewarded with a meal I’ll remember for a long time – a decadent, protein-packed fantasy that left me longing for more of the menu. The Eighty Six is \u200b\u200bnot for those who want \u201csauce on the side.\u201d Chef Michael Vignola uses truffle butter, b\u00e9arnaise, au poivre and the like to enchant obscure but extraordinary cuts from remote farms and ranches.<\/p>\n
The restaurant is owned by Catch Hospitality Group, the team behind last year’s bastion of unimaginable impenetrability, the Corner Store in Soho. In this restaurant, where Vignola is also responsible for the kitchen, it’s apparently less about the food and more about the scene. They shouldn\u2019t have been. Although I was upset that bread wasn’t served at the start of a meal, I was instead offered two meaty dill pickles drizzled with horseradish to get over it.<\/p>\n
There was also brown butter toasted sourdough to spoon bluefin tuna tartare. A gleaming round of deliciously fresh fish sat on a ring of shaved Persian cucumber, topped with Osetra caviar and drizzled with aged soy and extra-virgin Sicilian olive oil. The 8-ounce Rossini filet mignon \u2014 sourced from the Jeffrey Huss family in Mitchell, South Dakota \u2014 is a far cry from the usual lean, diet-friendly filet found around town. The crust was perfectly seared. Cooked to a precise medium-rare, the meat was finished with a 60-gram mound of Hudson Valley foie gras and white Alba and black Burgundy truffle butter.<\/p>\n
Wagyu Cheesesteak laughed at even the most outlandish interpretations of the Philadelphia warhorse. Westholme’s Australian Wagyu ribeye has been thinly sliced \u200b\u200band slowly roasted to wonderful tenderness, seasoned with pickled peppers and chillies and coated in a creamy blend of Hornbacher and Comt\u00e9 cheeses. The Cresta di Gallo caviar pasta was a complex flavor experience with saffron shallot sofrito, cream, Robiola cheese, egg yolk, Calabrian chili oil and Osetra caviar.<\/p>\n
Chocolate \u201cflying saucers\u201d \u2013 malted milk ice cream sandwiched between chocolate wafer pieces and presented on a bed of chocolate crisps to roll the sweet sandwich into \u2013 topped the list of fun desserts.<\/p>\n
The environment is plush and more. Large, padded cabins almost hug you. The light shines in Art Deco fixtures and shimmers on lacquered dark woods and marble floors. It’s the most seductive neo-speakeasy shit in town. My 30 or so fellow guests looked like they were dressed to party, but all I heard were subtle moans and groans of pleasure.<\/p>\n
For those who come in, a meal at Eighty Six is \u200b\u200ba truly wonderful experience. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time or space for seafood entrees or a huge whole duck, aged for 10 days and served under an orange blossom glaze with foie gras sausage. I would like to try the wonderful sounding waterfowl another time. All I need is another friend to wave the magic wand and get me in.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Introduction to Eighty Six Eighty Six on Bedford Street is the hardest new restaurant in town to penetrate. I expected to hate everything about it. Instead, I had one of my best meals of the year. I’ve never been so happy to be wrong. The Exclusive Restaurant The ten-table steakhouse is a dwarf in the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28515,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[20781,20266,20758,15215,5908,20773,17329,15212,20769,20774,17466,5397,18381,19770,20760,921,6411,17322,18375,6014,20779,20764,20766,15545,17363,107,20763,20757,20768,8296,20759,20775,9656,6680,20765,18301,20780,20761,7513,9365,17348,20770,20777,2075,1671,17335,20772,15232,15242,3462,15546,20767,20771,20762,17375,7750,17591,4368,20778,17327,5409,18310,20776,17361,14860],"class_list":{"0":"post-28514","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-lifestyle","8":"tag-anseriformes","9":"tag-art-deco","10":"tag-beurre-noisette","11":"tag-bread","12":"tag-burgundy","13":"tag-calabria","14":"tag-caviar","15":"tag-cheese","16":"tag-cheesesteak","17":"tag-chili-oil","18":"tag-chili-pepper","19":"tag-chocolate","20":"tag-cooking","21":"tag-cream","22":"tag-cucumber","23":"tag-dessert","24":"tag-diet-nutrition","25":"tag-dish-food","26":"tag-doneness","27":"tag-doordash","28":"tag-duck","29":"tag-filet-mignon","30":"tag-fillet-cut","31":"tag-fish-as-food","32":"tag-foie-gras","33":"tag-food","34":"tag-gioachino-rossini","35":"tag-horseradish","36":"tag-hudson-valley","37":"tag-ice-cream","38":"tag-iranian-cuisine","39":"tag-malted-milk","40":"tag-meal","41":"tag-meat","42":"tag-mitchell-south-dakota","43":"tag-olive-oil","44":"tag-orange-fruit","45":"tag-ossetra","46":"tag-pasta","47":"tag-philadelphia","48":"tag-pickled-cucumber","49":"tag-pickling","50":"tag-potato-chip","51":"tag-protein-nutrient","52":"tag-restaurant","53":"tag-rib-eye-steak","54":"tag-robiola","55":"tag-saffron","56":"tag-sandwich","57":"tag-sausage","58":"tag-seafood","59":"tag-searing","60":"tag-shallot","61":"tag-sicilian-cuisine","62":"tag-sofrito","63":"tag-soho","64":"tag-sourdough","65":"tag-soy-sauce","66":"tag-speakeasy","67":"tag-steak-tartare","68":"tag-taste","69":"tag-truffle-butter","70":"tag-wafer","71":"tag-wagyu","72":"tag-yolk"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28514"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28514\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28516,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28514\/revisions\/28516"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}