The first meal of the year at Next was their version of a French Bistro. This was the shortest meal they've ever done and also the one where you have the most choices. The primary menu was six courses, but each of those courses had four or five substitutions that could be made for an additional fee, there were also seven different side dishes that could be added.
The table when we got to the restaurant. Yes, that's a free form baguette in the middle, and there was also some homemade butter on the table. We didn't finish our whole loaf but based on the tables around us they would bring as much bread out as you wanted.
The Amuse-Bouche course, basically a course to whet your appetite. This is an egg custard topped with hollandaise sauce, crispy chicken skin and chives. This course and the next one were served with a hard pear cider cocktail that was quite delicious.
Hors-d'Oeuvres, this is a lentil soup that had some whole lentils, bacon, dates and turnips underneath. I don't generally like lentils but this was really good. The substitution options for this course included a headcheese with watercress and cranberry, an endive salad, foie gras torchon or a shellfish tower that would have been for the whole table.
This photo is called stock footage, for the first time in all my trips to Next I forgot to take a photo of a course. This is the Poisson or fish course, in this cash Skate wing with capers, brown butter, lemon and brussels sprouts. Skate wing is a species of sting ray that I've had a couple times before and I'm really kind of indifferent about it. The version that Next did in this case was a riff on fish meuniere with ais a classic French method. They served this course with a white wine from Alsace in France known as a Gewurtraminer. The menu says there were substitutions available for this course but the back of the menu wasn't clear as to what they were specifically.
The first main course or Premier Plat. this is a carmelized onion tart with gruyere cheese and white anchovies. This dish was fantastic a perfect combination of sweet from the onions and acidity from the cheese. The drink for this course was a twist on the wine that was served with the last course. The brought out a little carafe of Creme de Cassis, sage and spruce which turned the wine into sort of a kir royale. The available substitutions for this course included individual portions of roasted snails with herbed butter sauce and pull apart bread, Lobster with artichokes, puff pastry and sherry cream sauce, blood sausage with hazelnuts, leeks and truffle, and turbot with wild mushrooms, fennel, pernod and sunchokes. The whole table option included a fried guinea hen with thyme, braised radishes and roasted potatoes.
The second main course or Plat Principal. This is a roasted and sliced leg of lamb with roasted vegetables similar to a ratatouille and a olive and rosemary sauce. The lamb was cooked perfectly and the sauce was absolutely delicious. The subs available for this course were veal cheese and sweet breads with cream sauce and root veggies, beef tenderloin with foie gras, black truffle and potato puree and poached dover sole with razor clams, salsify, pear and cider vinegar sauce. There were two whole table options as well for this course. The infamous pressed duck and potato gratin or a duck cassoulet. This course was served with another cocktail that was a riff on a manhattan. Armangac, bitters and vermouth with an armangac soaked prune at the bottom.
The final course, entremets or desert. They offered a desert of the day, and on this night they had two to choose from. The top picture is what I ate which is a cake doughnut with raisins and an armangac sauce on the bottom. Highly alcoholic but highly delicious. The second photo is what my brother ate which was an apple tart of some sort. He didn't let me have any so it must have been good. The pairing for this course was a mixture of pear brandy, raspberry brandy and grapefruit juice. You had the ability to swap these deserts out for a cheese plate.
So, this was one of the more unique trips to Next. I wasn't sure how they were going to pull it off, but they did it well. I'm not going to lie, the menu seemed a bit reserved, the dishes were good but nothing blew my mind.
I put version 1.0 in the title because this menu will change more than any other menu that Next has done in their 4 years in business with new dishes coming on the menu about every week or two. Generally, the menus are designed for people to enjoy once, and are priced accordingly. This menu is considerably cheaper than just about every other menu they've done which is partly because it's only 6 courses, but partly to get people to come back. I'm still debating whether I'll go back a second time, but we'll see.
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