Chambers restaurant

94 Chambers Street #1

New York City, NY

Tel. 001 212 5803572

The dishes

Norwich Meadows carrots, local ricotta, pistachios

Hamachi, cara cara and miso

 Gulf prawns, saffron mayo, pickled peppers

Monkfish, fennel, kalamata olives,mint

Boudin blanc, Brussels sprouts, honeynut squash, foie gras

Ribeye, buttered potatoes, béarnaise butter

White sweet potatoes and fried sage

Tarbais beans and pecorino

I dine out all the time.That simple statement is about as true as it gets: literally, I dine out seven times a week, though not necessarily always for dinner. What that means is that I get to see and try a lot of different places, all over the world. In just the last two months for example, that means restaurants in Shanghai, Harbin, Rome, Venice, Montefalco, Cagliari, Santadi, Mogoro, Treviso, Houston, New York City, Tokyo and I’m probably forgetting a few right now. What that also means is that when I say I have rarely had as much fun while dining out as I had a few weeks ago at Chambers in NYC, it’s probably worth making a mental note of.

Chambers is the quintessential neighbourhood upscale NYC bistro. Clearly, the refined settings; the quiet atmospheres; the textured, carpeted, interiors, the seventeen people to a table type service (or so it seems to be) are not the coin by which these smaller, boisterous, crammed gastro-bistros function by. But the better ones represent wonderful alternatives to places that require you to dress up and treat your meal as a somewhat special, more serious moment that you don’t necessarily want to have. That’s not necessarily a bad thig of course, it’s just that sometimes you just want to kick back and relax while reveling in some loud fun, rather than calmly letting an afternoon glide by in whispered pomp and circumstance. By contrast, all the neighbourhood NYC gastro-bistros you can think of have more or less the same few things in common: small dining rooms (sometimes very small), packed tables (sometimes very packed and very tightly spaced), a healthy vibe, friendly service, good food and wine lists. The really good ones have really good food and even better wine lists, and that is precisely the case of Chambers, where both food and wine are several quality notches above even very good NYC bistros. In other words, Chambers should be on your personal list of must-visit, must-go to dining destinations when next in NYC (and even more so should you live there).