Without a reservation, getting in to a trendy restaurant on a Friday night in Manhattan is next to impossible. And after our photo shoot with George, we were turned away at Pearl and Ash and Booker & Dax, as might be expected. We were on our way to another less-trendy spot when we stumbled upon Lafayette, where we fully expected to also be turned away. “No, we don’t have any tables,” the hostess lamented. “But there is a lounge downstairs, where you can order the full dinner menu.” We’ll take it!
Lafayette, or as Google likes to call it, Lafayette NYC, is the newest restaurant from chef Andrew Carmellini, who was once chef at Cafe Boulud for Daniel Boulud and is now the owner of a restaurant mini-empire that includes Locanda Verde (which we truly adored; see our dinner here) and The Dutch (which we enjoyed but not quite as much; see our meal here).
His newest restaurant is French — clasics like frisee salad and roast chicken. The menu is enormous, like brasserie-big. We decided to try one from each of the catagories and share.
The first category was cocktails.
Clockwise from top: Jack Rose with Calvados, house Grenadine and Lemon Juice; Bordeuax Sour with Bourbon, Lillet Rouge, Lemon, Agave and Egg White; and Sazerac with Peychaud Bitters and Absnithe.
And, below, the Julep d”Hiver with Pierre Ferrand 1849, Laphroaig, herbs de Provence and rosemary.
Our gang. Catherine:
Boo:
Les Dorkages:
The oysters were unbelievelably fresh and delicious. From Massachusetts (Moon Shoal) and Maine (Belon). 
God I love a Maine oyster!
Our frisse salad was very tasty, though the egg was overdone.
(We had even sent it back to ask for a runnier egg, but when it returned it was just as hard-cooked. And probably had a bit of spit on it, too, at that point.)
One cook thing: there was a layer of dressing on the plate under the salad, which helped coat the frisee evenly. The dressing was very, very good.
House pate:
Very well made. Tasty.
Pumpkin risotto with duck confit and chestnut.
Very rich and creamy. Probably the best dish of the night.
Housemade garlic sausage with lentil du puy and dried cherry:
Spicy and satisfying.
From our seats on the couch near the bar, we could see as the staff carried a flaming dessert to several tables. I photographed one as it was being lit:
We did not get dessert — we had to rush to leave to catch our train.
Even if we had, though, as good as the food was, I doubt we would have left with a sweet taste in our mouth. The service was agressively aloof. We waited for 20 minutes at a time between drinks, and got attitude for sending back a corked bottle of wine (and that was after the first bottle we ordered was not available). We did enjoy our evening — the company was stellar and the food was nearly so — but I don’t need to go back. But maybe our experience was clouded. After all, we squeezed into a trendy restaurant on a busy Friday night without a reservation. What did we expect?
The 411 on Lafayette: 380 Lafayette St. (corner of Great Jones), Manhattan. 212-533 3000.lafayetteny.com
