NIX
photo: urbandaddy
Let me start by confessing that we ate every little crumb right off of the 6 dishes we ordered...
At Nix, everything Chef John Fraser and James Truman's make is unimaginably delicious. I mean mouth watering, still remember, how did you think to pair these ingredients kind of delicious. This 1 Star Michelin vegetarian and vegan restaurant on University Place in the NoHo area in NYC appears tiny from the outside and is narrow, deep and dim inside. The service was definitely flawed with inconsistent check-ins and 3-5 different people serving us from the bus boy to the sommelier. It was a little distracting and off-putting. While the service is subpar, the food is to. die. for. It wasn’t until our second to the last dish that we realized that we weren’t even having any meat!
Here is a run down of some of my favorite dishes:
The sweet potato & ginger dumplings stuffed with snap peas, miso & scallion oil was my favorite dish. It was fresh, it had texture both soft and crunchy. The slightly transparent noodle was beautiful for plating too and plating a dish is just ask important as the food as it is a final goodbye. Plating a dish is putting the cherry on the top. It’s saying goodbye to your art after creating it. From the chef's hands to my mouth. MAGIC!
photo: loyal nana
The burrata with winter truffle pesto, figs, and walnuts melted in my mouth. It was so fresh and easy. So much so that I decided to ask about the ingredients and made the salad at home for dinner with friends! When dishes from a restaurant affect you in the best way long after you've left it, THAT'S an inspirational dish.
As time goes on, my love for avocado, which is immense, slowly diminishes (until I have it with Dominican rice or sancocho, then it increases again) but at Nix, they got so creative with the dish and the ingredients, that I couldn’t not have it. The miso-honey avocado came with daikon, bok choy, and black truffle. The avocado was whole, peeled and covered with layers of shredded black truffle. I died and came back to life.
photo: loyal nana
Their wine collection isn’t impressive but it is not poor either. We ordered two glasses of wine and really, really just focused on the out-of-this-world food.
Before we even put in our order for dinner, we were told that if we wanted the dessert special of the night, we had to order it in advance and we did. That dessert was a quartered tandoor-roasted pineapple crisped and brushed with a tangy tamarind glaze, vegan whipped cream (made from chickpeas), and toasted macadamia nuts, and coconut flakes which takes 20 minutes to make.
photo: nix
When the dish finally came, after dinner, we immediately regretted the order. The dessert was LARGE and looked like a ribeye steak (purposely). However, we had already ordered it and thought we might as well dig in. After one bite, I thought I couldn’t see a world where I could have NIX that night without having this.
I would recommend NIX to everyone, vegan or not, vegetarian or not, weather for lunch, dinner, just dessert or just drinks and apps, if you can resist not ordering everything on the menu that is.