Esperanto

Worth going? A resounding yes, one of the best meals of my life, up there with Brooklyn fair, Mugaritz, Etxebarri, Osteria Francescana and the other greats. The chef revels in capturing the perfect texture in every dish. He loves the fishy, sweet, umami mix that one gets with excellent Japanese food. The dishes were refined, delicate, and almost all of them were exceptional.
The dining room is lovely and warm, with friendly servers. When we were there, we were able to peer at the new omakase sushi bar that functions as a separate restaurant in the corner. It looked very tempting.
We had a special request for the sommelier, to do a sake pairing instead of wine pairing, something the restaurant had never done before, and they did a brilliant job of obliging us, starting with a sparkling sake and taking us through five more that were all very interesting, including one red rice sake, and one aged in bourbon casks.
I won’t go through every course, but will just mention the highlights:
Among the many amuse bouches was a crispy cod skin with cod stew and nori on top. It was a stunning bite with fantastic texture, and a perfect sweet, fishy flavor.
Another of my favorite– we were presented with a cloche, and when it was lifted, were left with smoked milk skin and cabbage, and billows of pungent smoke. The dish had an amazing smokiness, beautiful overall flavor, and texture.
On the menu, my favorite dish of the night was the langoustine. It was cooked to perfection, with a perfect crispy chip underneath and a lovely citrus note.
The second best dish of the night was a new dish on the menu, a perfectly cooked piece of monkfish. The flavor was outstanding, it was smoky, herbaceous, and packed such a punch. They brought three pieces of smoked wood chips to the table to add some smell.
The third best dish was a nettle porridge. It was crunchy, and had a lovely savory umami flavor. I am still dreaming about that dish one week later.
Finally, the first of the two desserts was an incredible maple and rhubarb crispy disc, with such a stunning presentation, and a beautiful crunch for texture. It was not too sweet, not too sour, a perfect balance. It is one of the best desserts I have had in my life.
Wow is all I can say.

Food and service were great, but I still don’t feel that this helped to compensate for the very expensive price.

Fantastic food and great service — exceeded all of our expectations! The food is a unique and sophisticated mix of Swedish and Japanese. We ordered quite a few courses and shared. Great combination of tastes in each dish, subtle and surprising at the same time. It is on the pricy side, but definitely worth a try.

The tasting menu is of course great, but the cost is significantly greater. The synchronized waiters make me embarrassed.

We found this restaurant in Where Chefs Eat and we were not disappointed.
We opted for the 10 course meal and settled in for our high-​end, unique, Swedish/​Japanese meal. It ended up being more than 10 courses, because we had 5 small starters and 5 small bites at the end, so needless to say we were stuffed.
The service was superb.
And the tofu dish that we ate was the very best tofu I have ever eaten in my entire life. Keep in mind, I love tofu and eat it in all ways but this was by far, the most original way of eating tofu I have ever seen. I will dream about it forever.
Hubby loved the langoustine and oysters.
One thing that I found extremely refreshing was the fact that all of the wait staff were women. This sounds sexist but it’s actually the opposite: in the States, we’ve noticed that at very high-​end, fine dining establishments, the kitchen and wait staff tend to have more men, reinforcing my theory that the culinary world is still a male-​dominated, sexist industry that rewards men because they have penises rather than because they are more talented than women. Esperanto’s wait staff was 100% female. Yay for women! And there was also a female chef. Yay for the female chef!
Yay for Esperanto!

Original and very very good food