The Quietest Room in New York Is Still the Hardest to Book
Thomas Keller's East Coast tasting temple keeps the three Michelin stars it has held since 2006, its view of Central Park, and two nine-course tasting menus a day. The question is whether the room still moves anyone.
The elevator opens on the fourth floor of the Time Warner Center and the sound drops out. That is the first thing Per Se does — before the champagne, before the amuse, before the view of Central Park pinking over Columbus Circle. It goes quiet. Two decades on, that hush is still the most efficient piece of design in Manhattan fine dining.
Thomas Keller opened Per Se in 2004 as his East Coast interpretation of The French Laundry, and it has held three Michelin stars since the 2006 inaugural New York guide. Sam Sifton gave it four stars in 2011; Pete Wells took two of them back in 2016; Michelin has not budged. All of that is true at the same time, which is the interesting problem.
Editorial Deep
The nine-course Chef's Tasting Menu and the nine-course Tasting of Vegetables are the two ways into the main dining room. The technique is classical French, executed at the level you would expect from a Keller kitchen that has been doing this for two decades. The oysters-and-pearls opener is still on. Butters arrive in multiples. On the way out, someone walks you through the kitchen. None of this has changed and none of it should.
Adam Tihany's dining room is the reason to come. Eighteen tables, warm neutrals, natural wood, and a wall of floor-to-ceiling glass framing Columbus Circle and the southwest edge of Central Park. The acoustics are engineered so that a full room reads as a murmur. Request a window table when you book — the sunset seating in the main dining room is the shot, and the difference between a window and an interior deuce is material.
Service in the main dining room is the other reason to come. Pacing is unhurried without dragging, wine knowledge across a 2,000-bottle list is real rather than rehearsed, and the small gestures — the extra butter, the kitchen tour on the way out, the champagne pour when you sit down — are handled without ceremony. The Salon runs looser; the main dining room is the version you are paying for.
The room justifies its share of the bill. So does the service. The question is whether the food closes the gap on a bill that is now the most expensive in New York fine dining outside of Masa. On the Chef's Tasting, the math is defensible — you are buying a full evening in one of the great dining rooms in the country, and the cooking is at minimum excellent.
Once every few years, for a birthday or an anniversary, with the window table and the Chef's Tasting and a bottle you have thought about. The room justifies the return; the food, at current form, does not demand it.
What to eat
Don't miss.
The Chef's Tasting Menu — the longer format the kitchen offers buys length, not a higher ceiling
“The room and the service still land at the top of the city; the cooking makes the argument harder than it used to be.”
Go for a milestone at a window table on the Chef's Tasting and you will not regret the evening. For fine dining as sport rather than occasion, Eleven Madison Park and Atomix make a stronger per-dollar case on current form.
The Verdict
