Atelier - View this location on map Atelier has firmly established itself as one of the city's finest French restaurants. Executive chef Gabriel Kreuther continues to come up with dazzling ideas, achieving exciting flavor effects through unexpected means. He excels at lighter-than-air, herb-based sauces that shine a new, flattering light on the main ingredients of a dish, and his range is impressive. His menu embraces minimalist spa dishes like steamed black sea bass in a lemon verbena jus and a punchy, explosively flavorful oxtail crepinette stuffed with wild mushrooms and coated, almost like a candy apple, in a sticky, syrupy reduction. It's a profound meat experience, as though a 20-ounce ribeye has been compressed into a container the size of a squash ball. Perhaps most impressive is the featherweight fine-herb jus pooled around slices of pink muscovy duck, baked in a clay papillote. The restaurant has a new pastry chef, Eric Hubert, who delivers fireworks and a sense of fun: his cherry sampler is a whirlwind tour of cherry flavors expressed in gradations from tart to very sweet, in a vacherin, a terrific clafoutis, a savarin, and, amusingly, a little scoop of chopped-up relish billed as a tartare. It's perfect for Atelier, whose refined aesthetic places a premium on pure pleasure and the shock of the unexpected. So says the New York Times. 50 Central Park South, Ritz-Carlton Hotel, New York, New York Restaurant

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