{"id":264,"date":"2008-04-05T04:31:53","date_gmt":"2008-04-05T04:31:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/updates.xephalon.net\/?p=264"},"modified":"2008-04-05T04:31:53","modified_gmt":"2008-04-05T04:31:53","slug":"lespalier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/2008\/04\/05\/lespalier\/","title":{"rendered":"L’Espalier"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>To celebrate the last birthday of her 3rd decade, I took Melody to L’Espalier<\/a>, where the 6-course Spring Degustation<\/a> lunch menu sent her into dreamy-eyed contentment. The meal began with an amuse bouche: a duo of spring radish soup with sherry vinegar mignonette and Skip’s Island Creek<\/a> oyster shooter topped with Italian caviar. The oyster was fresh and briny, but the soup was a tad sour. Next came a “B.L.T.” for her (lobster salad, tomato, smoked bacon and avocado butter on toast) and a parsnip and cepe (tasty, earthy mushrooms) flan with balsamic caramel for me. This was followed by her pan-seared skate wing on Chantenay carrot puree and my Ricotta and spinach ravioli in a sweet onion broth. Compared to my only other experience with skate wings in Paris, which was rather uninspiring, this chef’s take on it took the fish to a whole new level. The 3rd course was a rare but salty grilled hanger steak with pommes frites and a dreamy mushroom risotto with asparagus. Melody then went into raptures over the cheese plate, which included the Lakes Edge<\/a> goat’s milk cheese from Vermont (mild but yummy), Pecorino Ginepro<\/a> from Italy (salty but tasty around the balsalmic and juniper berry-rubbed edges), and Big Woods Blue<\/a> (in your face with a spicy kick). These were paired with condiments of preserved plums, pine nuts in honey, and golden raisins in liqueur. Dessert was a trio of hazelnut praline cake, buttermilk lemon zest panna cotta with blueberry compote, and chocolate decadence cake with chantilly cream and raspberry. The decadence cake was so out-of-control intense, finishing the thing felt like a battle against chocolatiness itself. Luckily, some Earl Grey soothed our palates. Definite recommendations: the cepe flan, the skate, the risotto, and the panna cotta. This will probably be our last time at L’Espalier in its current location in Back Bay – the restaurant is moving to its new digs in the Mandarin Oriental<\/a> in July. Although I’m sure they’ll enjoy their new home, we’ll surely miss the character of the original space.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To celebrate the last birthday of her 3rd decade, I took Melody to L’Espalier, where the 6-course Spring Degustation lunch menu sent her into dreamy-eyed contentment. The meal began with an amuse bouche: a duo of spring radish soup with … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}