Rouge Tomate

I had often wondered in the past couple of years or so as to what?? had replaced Nicole Farhi's retail store and fantastic restaurant. Today after a pleasure filled sojourn at Barney's, browsing through the latest in shampoos and perfumes, I was going to find out.

The first Rouge Tomate opened in 1999 in Brussels and in 2008 in New York, a concept based on the belief in creating a socially responsible company by the Belgian entrepreneur Emmanuel Verstraeten. With it's balanced approach to sourcing, preparing and enhancing food, based on a charter called SPE (Sanitas Per Escum) and with the aid of a brilliant kitchen and front of the house staff, Rouge Tomate NY won it's first Michelin star in 2010. The kitchen follows the market/farm/ to table trend that has hit New York city with a storm in this past decade. The difference here is that Rouge Tomate's food is also overseen by an in house culinary nutritionist who collaborates closely with the executive chef and the executive pastry chef to ensure that each dish is the perfect balance between seasonal cuisine and optimal nutrition. The beverage department is just as important as the food department, all the cocktails and non alcoholic cocktails are based on fresh produce and mixed in a separate glass encased juice room. The eclectic and continuously developing wine list is over seen by Pascaline Lepeltier whose advocacy of natural and bio dynamic wines is reflected on her wine list and on the many different personalities of the wine world that visit her on a daily basis. You can have a good or great chef in the kitchen but without a fantastic or imaginatively constructed wine list you are still just another restaurant in the New York city list of over 10,000 restaurants.

At this particular meal the Rabbit Agnolotti dish was my favourite item, and I was quite wowed by the presentation of the imaginatively concocted non alcoholic seasonal cocktails.


10 East 60th Street
New York, NY 10022
Tel: 646 237-8977