Last year, I celebrated my birthday at Riverpark, a Tom Colicchio restaurant that serves produce from the adjacent urban farm with a modern American menu highlighting seasonal ingredients. It was so good that my friend took me back there again for this year’s celebration.  Executive chef Bryan Hunt didn’t disappoint.

This time since it was a humid evening, we sat inside looking out over the sparkling East River. Like last time, they handed me a special menu with “Happy Birthday Bonnie” printed on the top. (After ordering, they returned it to me rolled up and tied with a red ribbon.) 

We started with warm ewe’s milk Camembert in a tiny hot cast-iron skillet ($18) topped with shaved grilled asparagus, thinly sliced American Prosciutto and green garlic, served with housemade crisp croutons. I’d highly recommend.

We couldn’t decide which of the two pastas we wanted so we ordered half orders of both the rye campanelle primavera ($19) and the Fiore di Sardi ($19). The former consisted of a medley of green and white asparagus, carrots and sugar snap peas all cooked in a smoked cheese, butter and olive oil mixed with a flower-shaped pasta; the latter highlighted grilled and hence smoky flavored spring ramps and onions with thick spaghetti and Castelmagno cheese, all sprinkled with bread crumbs. They were so good we cleaned every drop of sauce from each plate!

We then shared the perfectly cooked to medium-rare duck breast ($38) accompanied by white asparagus and rhubarb, sprinkled with chopped pistachios and seasoned with lemon thyme.

We tried to save room for dessert, as I knew they would write happy birthday to me in chocolate on the plate – and deliver it with a lit candle. We tried the cookies n’ cream ($14) asking to replace the coffee-cardamom ice cream with the chocolate chocolate chip we noticed elsewhere on the dessert menu. That came with crisp chocolate shortbread, a rich dulcey chocolate gananche, some sliced strawberries and chocolate mint. Yum!

 

– bonnie

BonnieBOTB
Instagram

 

Riverpark
Gramercy/Flatiron
450 E 29th St.
New York, NY 10016
Click to add a blog post for Riverpark on Zomato