L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon

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This venue is closed.

This is the fourth L’Atelier Robuchon outlet to open around the globe, the other three being in Paris, Tokyo, and Las Vegas. (Robuchon has a fifth restaurant in London.) All of the establishments (the name means “workshop”) are built around the traditional Japanese concepts of small-plate, omakase (chef’s choice) tastings and dining at the bar. This is haute cuisine of the most extreme, stylized kind: frog’s-leg croquettes (bite-size, and neatly flavored with parsley and garlic), squares of bluefin tuna touched with a sun-dried tomato mash, and an impressively sweet langoustine, wrapped with a lone basil leaf, and tucked inside a lightly fried crust. There were also rows of Kumamoto oysters barely cooked in salty butter; slices of the finest foie gras terrine squeezed, sushi style, between layers of faintly caramelized Japanese eel; and, for a whopping $88, a single egg (hard on the outside, poached within) set in a spidery net of feuille de brick pastry and served in a pool of crème fraîche, with a giant spoonful of osetra caviar on top. — Adam Platt

This venue will close June 30, 2012.

Gazpacho, sea urchin with lobster gelée, crispy langoustines, foie gras ravioli, cod fillet, hanger steak or lamb, “Le Sucre”

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