• Le Bernardin

  155 West 51st Street, 212-489-1515

  Plump, sweet uni from Santa Barbara is the current rage in savvy sushi parlors. Japonica, the Village fixture, delivers an impressive pileup of pale, plus-size beauties louchely lounging on a sofa of rice, and there’s much to be said for the trembling little tofu custard with a sea-urchin crown appetizer at Citarella’s sushi bar. But for sheer uni epiphany, head to Le Bernardin, where seafood magician Eric Ripert ladles his premier selection of the sea-urchin harvest onto fragrant baby scallops for a tangle of sweetness and brine that sings in your mouth. A whisper of lime, the organic green taste of fresh cilantro, the pungence of the sea . . .

From the 2004 Best of New York issue of New York Magazine