Aquavit

It's not as interesting as it used to be. Not sure why. Still excellent but no longer worth the premium.

Fantastic Fish. Really outstanding and I love the waitstaff.

I had an incredibly delightful experience at here. The food was exceptionally umami and delicious. Celebrating my birthday here was truly special, and the restaurant even surprised me with a pretty little cake. Highly recommended!

The Scandinavian cuisine was exquisite, with the duck from New Zealand being my favorite. The ambiance was relaxing, perfect for dates or catching up with old friends. However, I felt a bit embarrassed being surrounded by couples, especially since there weren't any counter seats available for solo diners to enjoy watching the kitchen action. I didn't mean anything other than recommending that you come with companions.

I recently went to another two-star Michelin restaurant, so I can compare it to Aquavit almost side by side. 1) Service was better in other one. I am NOT saying that here it was terrible, but it's just ordinary. Sometimes waiters were just running around and didn't notice that we had no drinks. 2) The food was fantastic, but the menu (CHEF'S TASTING MENU) is very similar to Saga, which was surprising. It felt almost like plagiarism. 3) The interior is a little old. But the food was unimaginable. Cocktails were good and relatively cheap for such a place. And DESERT was a lot better in Aquavit. Probably will return back in some time.

Ok, this is for two separate things. I have gone to this place every year for my birthday for the last 6 years and a couple times for my wedding anniversary. I found this place because they are only one of two places on NYC that makes my favorite cake Princess Tort. Fika is the other, but I found their cake a bit dry. Since moving here 6 years ago I have bought a Princess Tort cake from them every year for my birthday, and have enjoyed many dinners here. My birthday dinner here was awesome. The main hostess always recognizes me and says hello, even if she only sees me once a year. The wait staff was not as friendly as I’m used to, but did a fine job serving and announcing the dishes and non alcoholic drink parings. The food was amazing as usual, and came out within a good amount of time spread out over time. I was a bit upset that I was charged $100 just to reserve a table and none of it was put towards the food when I showed up to eat! I understand the $100 charge and then you don’t show, they get to keep your money, because that seat could have gone to someone else. But just being charged $100 ON TOP of your meal that is already really expensive, that’s a bit greedy. We had the tasting menu and had a reservation for 9:15pm, so we were there a LONG time. We saw many folks came after us and leave before us in our long sitting for the tasting menu, so maybe keep that in mind when I talk about the desert Aquavit is know for, the birds nest. My companion and I were very disappointed with this year’s birds nest. In the past we got three small “eggs” on our bird’s nest all with their own little yellow yoke inside. This time felt like a lazy substitution. Each of us got a single giant egg instead of three which was quite hard to break and had no “yokes” inside either of our eggs to speak of. It was still yummy, but lacking in the bird’s nest presentation I’ve come to expect. My full Princess Tort cake I bought for my birthday was a bit of a disappointment this year. I didn’t have the option of a bigger cake, and the cake itself was really dry. Other than the marzipan outside, it didn’t taste anything like I had expected or experienced in years past. The cream layer usually rests on the top of the cake between the cake itself and the marzipan. For some reason a thin layer of cake was set between the cream and the marzipan. There was way too much cream in this cake for the normal cream layer. And the cream was too fluffy (it’s usually a bit more dense) and was overpoweringly flavored with vanilla. What ever happened to the simple stand alone sweet cream flavor? The other fillings between the layers of cake were almost nonexistent. The thin layer of custard was so small it was overpowered by the huge amount of vanilla flavored cream sitting on top of it. And the raspberry filling was so thin, it just got absorbed into the dryness of the surrounding cake layers. Normally there is twice the amount of raspberry preserves where I can feel the bits of raspberry in my mouth, not just enough to make a thin line of red in the cake. Super disappoint this year. I feel like they have a new pasty chef this year who has no idea what they are doing and just cutting corners like with the birds nest or trying to change the classic recipe of the Princess Tort cake.