Betony
In late February my mom, Alysia and I went to Betony for my mom’s birthday. This was a few weeks after our meal at Eleven Madison and we had high standards. They were completely met and more, each bite was better then the next. They caught me the second I walked in, with the pretzel thins handmade served at the bar with my glass of wine, while I waited for the rest of the guests at our table. Simple but done to perfection, I was tempted to ask the chef for the recipe to make regularly. The menu has a few options, all tasting menu style, depending on how hungry you are. We went with the 5-course option.
First we were served a glass mug with a tea bag in it at the table. We all assumed tea, but it turned out to be filled with herbs and a hot broth was added to it. Just a taste, and I wanted to bath in the crisp and broad flavor of the broth, it was a tease that they didn't give us more. This was followed by 4 bite size treats, all savory and all not even one course of the 5 we were expecting.
My first course was the fluke carpaccio flavored with meyer lemon and beautifully arranged with a Korean radish. The plate was a piece of art, or to continue with the weird bathing thing I started with, a lily pad over a lake I wanted to dive into and eat every day the rest of my life. Between our next courses the chef, Bryce Shuman, came out with “coleslaw" which was plated like a basket and contained around 10 different vegetables, each with an abundance of flavor and pickled or marinated in different herbs or methods.
I then had the homemade ravioli in a Consommé, which was little pillows of heaven, and they sent over the cauliflower blanquette with an almond sauce and black truffles, the three flavors meshed perfectly.
my moms lobster
This was followed by the chicken, my mom has a saying that if a chef can’t do chicken perfectly then something is wrong, and this chicken was cooked flawlessly.
At this point we were all very full, but had 3 different desserts sent over and then followed by a cheese course. We thought it was all over, but we were then sent exploding dessert truffles and when we went to the kitchen to meet the chef we had horchata mochi, which was one of my favorite bites of the night.
All in all, the three of us were extremely impressed each unable to decide what our favorite flavor was and slowly rolling to our uber home because from the amount we ate. If you are looking for an Eleven Madison level meal for slightly cheaper, don’t look any farther then betony, highly recommended and I will dream of some of the bites for years to come.