NOTE: THIS PLACE IS CLOSED

As usual my bargain hunter wife found a nice Gilt City deal for a three course meal for two here at Beautique.

It included two drinks per person, which is unusually generous.

Apparently the place turns into a sugar daddy lounge after like 9pm, where young girls try to score rich older men (according to reviews I’ve seen online). We went at 6pm, so there wasn’t too much of that going on at that time.

I wasn’t expecting much given that lounge atmosphere. As it turned out, the food was pretty great. So let’s get down to business.

I started with a red an yellow beet salad. Beets are all the rage these days. They were a little more stiff here than at other places, and cut into rustic chunks rather than thinner slices. But they retained a more natural flavor as a result. They were dressed with pistachio nuts, yogurt, lemon and rosemary.

My wife ordered the Beautique salad, which was radicchio, pear, gorgonzola and walnuts. This was a bit bitter for my taste, but the ingredients were all fresh, crisp and high quality.

For my entree, I had the hanger steak. This was super tender and cooked to a perfect medium rare. I was expecting some chew to this but every bite was extremely soft and had a good char on the outside. This would be 10 out of 10 if it weren’t for a slight lack of salt on that crust. But otherwise this was incredible.

It was served with a peppery gravy and on top of a bed of sweet corn and mushrooms.

My wife went with the branzino. This was plated beautifully.

As you can see, the skin was crisp and well seasoned. The meat was cooked just right, and it was served on top of some potatoes, tomatoes, baby leeks and artichoke in a rosemary sauce.

For dessert, we had cheesecake with oreo ice cream. The ice cream was awesome. It was super flavorful and almost fudgey, but without being overly sweet. The cheesecake had a nice thick, but not heavy, consistency, however the cracker crust was too hard to get through with a fork. It may have been a peanut brittle type of thing, because it didn’t taste like graham cracker.

Overall this was a great deal, especial given the fact that my wife paid much less than the asking price due to coupons and other shit like that. If it is still available by time you read this, I recommend trying it out.

UPDATE 9/16/16

My wife and I went back with another Gilt City deal to try a few different menu items and see how well this joint has been holding up. I think we went with better choices the first time around, because this time wasn’t as good as we remembered.

We started with the duck wonton tacos. The sauce on them tasted like McDonald’s BBQ sauce. Nothing wrong with that except that it seemed to clash with the asian toppings. Also there was a strange flavor that reminded me of the scent of wet dog.

The other app was tune tartare. This was a bit lacking in flavor and a bit small and uninspired in the presentation.

For my entree, I went with the burger. The menu said there were brandied onions on it, but I didn’t find any. The tomato was cut way too thick, but the bacon was nice and crisp. Also the cheese didn’t taste like gruyere either, as mentioned on the menu. It was cooked perfectly, however, the the rosemary fries were awesome.

My wife had the roasted chicken. This, too, was a bit small. Luckily it wasn’t dry and the skin on it was deliciously crisp and well seasoned.

Beautique really shined with the desserts, which took forever to come out because the place was starting to get jammed. First was cheesecake with oreo ice cream (same as last time) with strawberry and mango sauce.

Next was chocolate lava cake with vanilla ice cream and caramel popcorn. I usually dislike lava cake, but this was really soft like a brownie, and the fudgey melty stuff inside was tasty.

BEAUTIQUE
8 W. 58th St.
New York, NY 10019