Guests, many of whom were meeting for the first time, discussed what their “spirit vegetable” was and the merits of leaving the toilet seat up, while Silverman and a small support staff ushered dish after dish from the townhouse’s cramped galley kitchen.
Some highlights:
* A smoked trout skin that had been scraped, boiled, dehydrated, deep-fried and topped with smoked trout mousse, diced apples, trout roe caviar and fried chervil (a parsley-like herb).
* A potato-skin ice cream made from baked potato skins steeped in cream and sugar, served atop creme fraiche and topped with potato chips and shassetra caviar.
* Shrimp that had been rolled out and elongated using a sushi mat, then dipped in tempura batter and fried. They were dusted with country ham pork fat powder and served with a tangerine ponzu dipping sauce.
Friday’s dinner was the first in a series of trial runs Silverman is planning in anticipation of the new restaurant, the construction of which will begin in a few months. “For our first run, we were happy with it,” Silverman says. He hosted similar rev-up events prior to the opening of Rose’s Luxury.
Compared to the offerings at Rose’s Luxury, which recently netted Silverman the top spot on GQ’s Outstanding Restaurants of 2015 list, the dishes are more detailed and refined.
“They’re a lot more complicated, not in the combination of flavors or conceptualization, but the actual execution,” Silverman says. “It’s like building a miniature boat inside a glass bottle kind of thing.”
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