Daniel

60 East 65th Street between Madison and Park
212/288.0033
discounted for about $200 for two, with matching wine, without tip
♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Daniel is one of Daniel Boulud’s New York City restaurants and has been rated by Michelin and The New York Times with four stars more than once. It’s that kind of restaurant with those kind of people–my boyfriend and I needed a big event to have an excuse to eat there. The best we could do was to celebrate finishing his first year of medical school.

A few weeks before our date, I met chef Alex Lee to interview him for an online magazine, generationrice. We talked about his becoming-a-chef story and his history with Daniel Boulud. We were also given a tour of the Daniel kitchens. It now counts as one of my most amazing experiences in New York City. He let us in before dinner time and we saw the production kitchen, the coffee kitchen, the French and the American kitchens, plus the dessert room where we tasted chocolates on layers and layers of trays made in-house.

All that only added to our actual dining experience. We returned a few weeks later for dinner and chef Alex Lee did not forget us. Our waiter kept serving us complementary dishes from downstairs even though we’d already ordered our appetizers and main dishes. Wine was brought out to match each course, and in between meals, there were cheeses, soups and chocolates.

We were just delirious with the whole experience. When the bill was put on our table three hours later, we could have detached our arms and legs or promised to sell my future children to pay for it, but it also noted that 70 per cent of it was already covered.

You see? It’s all about who you know!