We ordered a few items from their lunch menu – so I could try a little bit of everything. We started with the Burnt Carrot Salad ($9). Just the name – Burnt. Carrot. Salad. It didn’t light my fire by the name and then I tried it.
HOLY MOLY – AMAZING! The salad has wheatberries, avocado, goat cheese, parsley, pepita, pickled onion and garlic chips.
Seriously – I can’t even tell you how much I loved this. It’s served at room temperature and was just simply delicious. I would NEVER think to put all this stuff together…Chef Michael Paley is a wise wise man! 😉
Next up were these Burrata & Rice Fritters ($9) with caramelized cauliflower puree, salsa verde, lemon & arugula. These were okay – I think the sauce was really good but didn’t like the fritters as much.
Next up was the Sweet Potato ‘Triccheroni’ ($14) – this dish isn’t available right now and let me say – too bad for you. The Triccheroni pasta is handmade and mixed with duck pistachio sausage, sage and lioni ricotta. This was DELICIOUS and a little reminiscent of Romy Jung’s old dish from The Palace/Aroma/etc…
Last up was the Farm Egg Omelet ($12) which changes seasonally. The one we had was shaved vegetable salad with leek fonduta. I enjoyed the omelet a great deal. My coworker was there on the same day ironically and had this omelet and still says it was the BEST omelet she’s had in all of her life. Big praise there!
The kitchen was a piece of art in itself. Chef Paley came out to chat with us and then showed me to the kitchen. He wanted to have a restaurant with a giant fire grill. Everything here was hand-forged and specially made for their needs. The key is to have the embers moved under the grills and that’s what actually cooks the food. Pretty damn cool. The kitchen is also very open – so you’re able to go back and peek in even without getting behind the scenes like this.
Why Should You Go? Well this is why I like to go to non-chains – if you look at the prices for lunch – they’re not much different than a sit-down chain. This was a delicious lunch and I encourage you to go with a couple of friends and share like we did. Although – you might be hogging the Burnt Carrot Salad like I did. 😉 I really hope you’ll check it out – and definitely be sure to check out the gallery/hotel as well. I hope the folks at Metropole invite me back soon!
Disclosure: The Metropole provided this lunch for me free of charge but all opinions are my own.
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