First and foremost, I want to congratulate ABC Kitchen for winning the James Beard Award for Best New Restaurant on Monday night. For anyone that has eaten here (and there are many) you already know this award is more than well-deserved.
ABC is the brainchild of Chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Phil Suarez, the same team which brought you the four-star Jean-Georges, Spice Market, Jojo, Mercer Kitchen, and about twenty other restaurants across the world. To lead the kitchen here, they tapped on the talent of Executive Chef Dan Kluger, formerly of Tabla and The Core Club, and who also was just recently honored as Chef of the Year by Time Out New York. With years of experience under his belt, Dan uses a very simplistic approach to his food, by masterfully combining flavor profiles of the freshest ingredients possible.
Tonight was my second time dining at ABC Kitchen, and like so many other diners, can’t stop raving about the experiences. The restaurant is beautiful. It has one of the sleekest looking bars in Manhattan, and a dining room which is blanketed in white. Everything looks so modern, so elegant, so clean. From the black & white artwork on the walls, recycled white tables and chairs, wooden beams which run through the dining room, and the handmade porcelain dinnerware. The FOH staff, all dressed in plaid shirts and jeans, are on point, welcoming everyone with warm smiles and attentive service. Even with a packed dining room your water glass will never remain empty for more than 30 seconds.
The restaurant commits itself to buying local, seasonal, organic, sustainable products, and every ounce of this passion comes through in the menu. I love to admit this to anyone, ABC Kitchen has made me fall in love with vegetables again. Now if I, a self-professed lover of pork and offal can say that, then it’s not hard to see why people love this restaurant so much. Not to say that the meat and fish dishes are not up to par, but I will happily go vegetarian for this restaurant any day of the week.
