NYC: The Bar Room at the Modern

It’s Restaurant Week in New York City—well, technically, it’s been Restaurant Week for a few weeks now, as the event has evolved into a month-long thing with great deals on prix-fixe menus at restaurants across the city.

I met with April for lunch at the Bar Room at the Modern. I’ve previously dined at The Dining Room at the Modern at Restaurant Week, but the 2-starred Michelin restaurant no longer does restaurant week, so we had to make do with the more casual sister restaurant under the same roof. Not that it was a bad option, not at all. While the dining experience at The Bar Room is more casual, the menu and the food definitely have star quality, and I think The Bar Room is on top of the to-do list for most of the Restaurant Week crowd.

We both had our eyes on the steak tartare as a starter, and the lobster ravioli as a main, but decided to each get different dishes so we could try more from the menu. I thus went for the cured arctic char with apricots and smoked eggplant as my starter and April had the sea bass with charred romano beans and sofrito as her main.

I was under the impression that the original plan was to share, but we both liked what we were having so much that only tiny bite tastings were exchanged. So much for sharing…

At the Restaurant Week at The Bar Room you can choose between a 2 or 3 course prix-fixe menu, and we decided to skip dessert and go for coffee at %Arabica instead. Though after having my insta-feed flooded with pics of The Bar Room’s house-made root beer float and peach melba profiterole with rum caramel, I regret that decision. If you go, go all in, and get the dessert too.

The Bar Room at The Modern, 9 W 53rd St, New York, NY 10019