Eating the Big Apple

When it comes to fine dining, New York is still at the top of the food chain.

- AMIT DIXIT

New York is dizzyingly vertiginous, but it's not the skyscrapers I'm thinking of. It's the standards. The air of competition is so thick here, you could cut it with a knife. The food scene is no exception. The culinary talent of the world converges upon the Big Apple, and New Yorkers are spoilt for choice, with celebrity chefs thronging the scene, eager to please a demanding and discerning clientele. Therefore, to stand apart from the crowd, restaurants have to be excellent at their job-and a touch of genius helps. On a recent trip to New York, I had three extraordinary meals, each more spectacular than the other.

Park Ave Kitchen by David Burke

Brooklyn-born David Burke gained celebrity status after appearances on Top Chef Masters and Iron Chef America. He's a TV chef, but thankfully he's not only a TV chef. A purveyor of Modern American cuisine, Park Ave Kitchen is his newest baby, one half of it styled as a plush brasserie, the other as a Euro-style market café with brick pizza oven and grab-and-go options. I was surprised to find the affable Burke in the house, because he runs a veritable restaurant empire, comprising nearly 20 establishments.

At lunchtime, the brasserie was a welcoming space, filled with natural light. I had come armed with an appetite, and a friend. Burke has a whimsical approach to food, apparent in the very first dish we ordered, Clothesline Bacon. It's exactly what it sounds like, two black pepper-maple glaze slabs of bacon on a clothesline, secured with clothes pegs (and a scissor to snip them with). They tasted as good as they looked. The juicy lobster dumplings were a welcome diversion while we waited for the mains to arrive.