In the “Booze Buzz” series, we take you to the latest and greatest watering holes throughout the country. Today, we head to U.P. (Unlimited Possibilities), part of Dominique Ansel Kitchen, in Manhattan.
I’m not a morning person. Anyone who knows me knows that I sleep in on weekends and hit the snooze button at least once on weekdays (not a healthy habit, I know). So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that I’ve never been able to drag myself out of bed for one of Dominique Ansel’s famous cronuts at 7:00 AM. I resigned myself to the idea that I’d never try one of those piping hot baked goods, a mystical cross between a croissant and a doughnut; I figured that if I couldn’t try the Holy Grail of desserts, then why bother visiting the bakery or tasting his other creations at all?
Fortunately, this misguided notion was recently laid to rest. Upon discovering U.P. (Unlimited Possibilities), an after-hours desserts tasting menu at Dominique Ansel Kitchen, and learning that these tasty morsels could be served alongside cocktail pairings designed in consultation with Jim Meehan of PDT (Please Don’t Tell) fame, Mr. Five O’Clock and I immediately booked a reservation for March 11.
Warning: spoilers ahead; if you don’t want to know what happens before you go, stop reading now!
After waiting about 15 minutes on the benches inside the first floor of Dominique Ansel Kitchen, eight of us were shepherded upstairs to what appeared to be a compact kitchen area. As the team of chefs introduced themselves, I couldn’t help thinking, But we’re going into another room, right?
Suddenly, with little warning, I snapped out of my reverie in surprise to see our table lowered down from the ceiling. And so the dining experience had begun.
Surprise, guys – we’re eating in the kitchen!
U.P. changes their tasting menu’s theme every six months; that night, we were treated to “American Dreams,” where each course represented a different era of American Dreams. (Previously, the theme had been “firsts,” including courses called First Word, First Kiss, and First Job.) Chef Noah, the Corporate Pastry Chef at Dominique Ansel Bakery and our captain for the evening’s culinary voyage, shared that this was only the second week of their new menu, which also explained the absence of substantial Yelp photos and reviews for this latest iteration of the tasting menu at the time.
Course 1: Eureka!
For our first course—entitled “Eureka!” to represent the American Dream of securing wealth during the California Gold Rush—we were asked to pan for gold (I’m not kidding), which brought to mind memories of giddily panning for gold as a young child at Columbia State Historic Park in California. (Don’t judge, the golden flakes looked way bigger as a kid.) The eight of us sifted through coffee grinds to discover two “gold nuggets,” which were actually cold balls of delicious acacia honey and sourdough flavors.
Sourdough, acacia honey, cold brew
Course 2: Carpe Diem
The second course, Carpe Diem, focused on the newfound American optimism of the 1920s. Silky jazz music played in the background as Chef Noah poured champagne into a tower of coupe glasses, evoking feelings of opulence and grandeur.
Wouldn’t you like to have one of these in your house?
The sparkling wine flowed freely upon bowls containing huckleberries, buddha’s hand (a fruit that looks like it’s from outer space when you see it in its original form), brioche, cream, and juniper. This course was appropriately paired with a champagne cocktail containing sloeberry gin and citrus; both the food and drink were refreshing, as the fruit flavors were nicely balanced and not too cloyingly sweet. The cocktail made me feel like I was in a classy New Year’s Eve party in a salon on the Upper East Side.
Seize the day!
Course 3: White Picket Fence
One of the quintessential American dreams of the past century has been to own your own home, so it was fitting to see a cute little house with a white picket fence as the next course. The “garden” of said house contained passion fruit, persimmon, MishMish (I believe this is an apricot), shisho jicama, confit strawberry, cherry tomato, and chervil (an herb related to parsley).
The accompanying cocktail looked like a martini; it contained sake, vodka, and jasmine. As avid jasmine tea drinkers, Mr. Five O’Clock and I really wanted to like this cocktail so badly, but the jasmine flavor was too overpowering to thoroughly enjoy the drink.
Half dessert and half pop up art
Course 4: Peace
Ah, the 1960s. Growing up, I wished that I had been in my twenties during the 1960s, an era of abso-freakin-lutely amazing music. It was at this point in the meal, when the chefs were talking about flower power and hippies and shit, when I noticed that a Beatles song was playing. Wait, hadn’t we been listening to jazz earlier? Apparently another diner noticed the same thing, because we both brought it up at the same time in our respective conversations with our partners. Overhearing us, Chef Noah confirmed that the music they played changed based on the decade of the course they were serving. Major points for that.
If the entire dining experience was a performance, then this course would be the magician’s act. Each patron received a bowl of bland-looking white liquid. One of the chefs came around and touched something yellow to the dish, and poof! The dessert morphed into a tye-dyed panna cotta, with notes of chamomile and aged apple vinegar.
The colors are changing! The colors are changing!
The cocktail pairing for this course contained apple brandy, Lillet Blanc, chamomile, and Peychaud’s bitters. It would have been fine alone, but became too overpowering in the chamomile department when sipped in between bites of panna cotta. (Side note: I asked one of the chefs what Lillet Blanc was, having heard about it from the James Bond movie Casino Royale, and he wasn’t sure. This served to highlight the major trend we noticed throughout the night: the cocktails were playing second fiddle to the true stars of the evening, the desserts.)
Course 5: Wall Street
After a delicious savory palette cleanser consisting of mushroom broth rinsed with sherry and hazelnut, our mouths descended on the next course, “Wall Street.” This course was the perfect pairing: a “cigar” (crispy potatoes, chocolate, caramel, and grains of paradise) with a port-like cocktail (in actuality, cabernet, Scotch whisky, curaçao, crème de cacao, and black pepper). The pairing itself was good in theory, although the cocktail by itself had too much cabernet compared to Scotch for our liking.
Scotch ‘n’ cigars
Course 6: Tech Boom
Our sixth course was perhaps worth the price of admission alone.
All eight of us received floppy disks with the names of famous tech industry pioneers (think “Bill” or “Steve”). Mr. Five O’Clock and I received disks representing Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the legendary Google founders.
Floppy disks, a relic of the past
Chef Noah pulled out a nifty old school computer, eyeing us knowingly. The music changed to early ’90s and ’00s jams, from the likes of The Cardigans and other alt rock bands.
You don’t know what you’re getting into…
One by one, we took turns inserting our floppy disks into the machine, and one by one, we were rewarded with flying sassafras waffles!
Because all computers dispense waffles…
The sassafras waffles were adorned with “butter” (in reality, tonka bean ice cream) and “maple syrup” (syrup infused with celery). Conceptually, the cocktail pairing was spot on for this course: a flaming Dr. Pepper shot, complete with Belgian wheat ale, amaretto, and rum.
If only they served breakfast like this in college.
Course 7: #GoingViral
As Taylor Swift began to serenade us with her sugary pop anthems, the chefs assembled the night’s grand finale, #GoingViral. “Sherman the Sheep,” as they called him, was surrounded by four different flavors of “filters.” Sherman himself consisted of manchego, Marcona almonds, quince, and olive oil. For the final cocktail of the evening, we were served a mixture of manzanilla sherry, quince vinegar, and honey. The sherry was nutty and sweet, pairing well with the cheese.
Look at that sweet face. Could you eat him?
All in all, the desserts were delicious; the menu was well thought out and executed with strong attention to detail. As cocktail lovers, though, most of the pairings failed to live up to expectations in terms of flavors and amounts (for $45 per pairing, we would have anticipated a bit more bang for our buck). In sum: go for the desserts, stay for the show, but the cocktails? Head over to PDT.
U.P. (Unlimited Possibilities) at Dominique Ansel Kitchen
137 Seventh Avenue South, 2nd Floor; New York, NY 10014
Hours: Two seatings on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights at 7:30 pm and at 9:30 pm.
Cost: 7-course dessert tasting menu $90/pp, optional cocktail pairings $45/pp
http://dominiqueanselkitchen.com/up
(All costs were paid by me, and all opinions are my own.)