• Geisha

  33 East 61st Street, 212-813-1112

  Spanish-mackerel tartare topped with Iranian Osetra caviar and an egg-caper vinaigrette is one of Eric Ripert’s signature dishes at Le Bernardin. One would have thought it impossible to top, but Michael Vernon, a former Ripert sous-chef, has done just that. At Geisha, the exciting new French-Asian-fusion restaurant, the student gives his teacher’s dish a bit of an Eastern twist (Ripert, mind you, consulted on the original menu). Superfresh Spanish mackerel is diced and tossed with a combination of coriander and scallion. Pale-green wasabi tobiko crowns the tartare, adding an exciting contrast to the silky mackerel. A swirl of wasabi-citrus vinaigrette surrounds the tartare, adding just the right amount of acidity to balance this bracing dish.

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