Gramercy Tavern

For a recent team lunch, our boss sent a cryptic invite – we knew it was going to be six minutes away (although we weren’t told if it was by cab or by foot), we should dress up, and that the restaurant had received five Grace faces. I thought it could be Gramercy Tavern and when we were walking out of the Credit Suisse building, my boss confirmed my suspicion – we were having lunch at Gramercy Tavern!

I loved Gramercy Tavern during my initial visit (you can read the review here) and was very excited to dine there again. The menu was somewhat similar to my visit last year and I decided to start with the house made parppadelle with lamb ragu and Swiss chard:

I ordered the entree portion because I thought I was going to share with two other people but we ended up keeping our own dishes (oops!) – the lamb was so tender and delicious, the parppadelle was cooked al dente, and I never knew Swiss chard could be so delicious. I sampled the other appetizers (the trout that I had last time and a calamari and carrot salad) but was very glad that I ordered the pasta because it was absolutely amazing.

For my main course, I ordered the sea bass:

The sea bass was tender and quite substantial – it was almost too much after I finished eating an entree-sized portion of the pasta.

For dessert, we were in a rush to get back to the office but we did eat some petit fours:

My favorite – least favorite: the white chocolate, then the lemon tart, then the chocolate macaron. They were all great, but the white chocolate was filled with a passion fruit curd that was absolutely awesome. The lemon tart was also really delicious and the crust was very buttery – the chocolate macaron was good, but I thought the shell was a little too chewy.

We had a great lunch and it was probably the best work lunch I’ve ever had. I’m lucky to work with an office filled with foodies – it means we always have great team outings!