CityZen, a transcendental experience

There are a million reviews of CityZen out there already, so I won't be writing about how great my pork cheek salad was. Rather, I'm going to talk about what I didn't order.

The thing that struck me is that CityZen really does an excellent job of telling a culinary story. Every course builds upon the previous one and at the end, you kind of feel like you've been taken to a different place and have come back. It's trite, I know, but it's really the only way I can explain what it's like to eat there. And to be honest, I can't recall ever having an experience like this eating anywhere else.

The thing they don't tell you is that our three-course meal was actually a six-course meal because of the amusées that came before the salad: a stem of sauteed mushroom with a wild mushroom purée, followed by an olive-oil custard topped with a Spanish-spice butter sauce. During the meal, they brought a small wooden jewelry box of twelve miniature Parker House rolls that were heavily brushed with melted butter and liberally salted with fleur de sel. These were unbelievably good; once you have one, you and your dinner companion will fight over who gets to eat the rest.

After the entree and before the dessert came a small scoop of watermelon sorbet floating in a hyssop liqueur, and after the dessert came two little madeleines with a single blueberry in each, two tiny, TINY vanilla rum cakes (about the size of a Rolo each) and a plate of assorted sweets ranging from cherry jellies to chocolate truffles. Amazing.

That's all of the stuff we DIDN'T order.

To get the obligatory information out of the way, you can either get the six-course tasting menu for $125 per person, or you can do the three-course menu, from which you pick an appetizer, entree, and dessert, for $75 per person. I had the aforementioned pork cheek salad which was grilled pork cheeks served on top of a vinagarette of parsley, coriander, and a demi glaze; it was all topped with some microgreens and wild mushrooms. For the entree, I ordered the wild king salmon which was served rare and topped with a type of green bean and morel mushrooms. Finally for dessert, I had their take on the famous Nestlé Drumstick ice cream. I know their menu changes regularly so if you don't see something you like one day, go by the next week to see what's up.

To sum up: transcendental food, service and atmosphere. If you can go, you have to go. Don't even bother thinking about it. Why are you still reading and not on the phone making a reservation?

CityZen
1330 Maryland Avenue, SW
Washington, DC 20024
(202) 554 8588