CHOCOLATE and roses, heart-shape cards and Chateaubriand. You’ve wooed your sweetie the tried-and-true ways Valentine’s Days past with no complaints. But now you’re ready to spice things up with something a little offbeat. How do you show the love of your life – or someone who could potentially fill that vacancy – just how special you think she is? With a little imagination.
It’s time to get creative. Some chefs have put on their thinking toques and come up with unique – and witty – ways to stir passion with food that go way beyond champagne and caviar.
HAND-Y IS DANDY: “Eating with the hands is romantic because it’s a sensual experience … There’s something primal about it,” says Patricia Yeo. So the chef at Sapa (43 W. 24th St. between Fifth and Sixth avenues [212] 929-1800) created a five-course, finger-food tasting menu ($80) of pick-ups for Valentine’s Day. Foie gras dumpling with plum wine gelee, oysters three ways, lobster and asparagus “moo shu,” cocoa and spice-crusted lamb chops are followed by a trio of chocolate tastes.
SEE ME, FEEL ME: The most sensual menu in town is at CamaJe Bistro (85 MacDougal Street between Bleecker and Houston streets, [212] 673-8184), where chef Abby Hitchcock’s five-course love feast is geared to each of the senses. The sense of sound is tapped with sizzling beef skewers and caramelized shrimp that crunch. The sense of touch is sated by the texture in your mouth of osetra caviar with potato chips and créme fraiche, etc. If you sense this is a romantic opportunity, it’s $75 per person, $100 with wine pairing.
EAT/DRINK, MAN/WOMAN: Celebrate your differences at Frederick’s (8 W. 58th St. between Fifth and Sixth avenues, [212] 752-6200). A four-course “His & Hers” holiday menu ($45 per person) features three different courses for the two of you. While he’s having prosciutto and fig balsamic, she’ll have a Kumoto oyster with lime and Thai basil. Roasted tenderloin of veal with celery root mousseline and porcini mushroom sauce for him, slow-baked halibut with asparagus orzo for her. You’ll both finish up with the chocolate tasting.
NEW FLAME: Put some sizzle in your love life at VietCafe (345 Greenwich St. between Jay and Harrison streets, [212] 431-5888). Saturday and Sunday hands-on couples’ cooking classes at the new TriBeCa eatery’s Gallery Viet Nam next door are $100 per person, including wine and brunch afterward. Classes start at 11 a.m. and each is limited to seven couples. Cooks will take home Vietnamese pastry hearts for preparing the dishes at home.
PRIVACY, PLEASE: Have the second-floor dining room all to yourselves while ex-Lutece chef David Feau tailors a menu to your taste at Orsay (1057 Lexington Ave. at 75th Street, [212] 517-6400). You’ll start with caviar and a bottle of either Cristal Rose or Dom Perignon Rose (each $500 on Orsay’s list) in a candlelit, rose-filled room with the music of your choice piped in. The early reservation (5:30 to 8:30 p.m) costs $600 (plus 20 percent gratuity), the later one, from 9 p.m. on, is $1,000 plus tip.
LIGHT MY FIRE: There’s dining by candlelight; then there’s “A Thousand Points of Light.” Public restaurant (210 Elizabeth Street between Prince and Spring streets, [212] 343-7011) waxes poetic – not to mention saves electricity – by turning out all the lights and setting a thousand candles aglow in the handsome room. The $60 prix-fixe includes a drink and the place’s signature chocolate box, and main courses of steamed New Zealand snapper with sesame broth, or grilled wild boar with plantain chorizo mash and onion-licorice marmalade.
WORDS OF LOVE: Don’t say it with flowers, just say it, at Poetessa (92 Second Ave. between Fifth and Sixth streets, [212] 387-0065). BYO poem or choose from the restaurant’s selection. Recite your sonnet yourself or let the staff be your Cyrano while you nibble on chef Pippa Calland’s dishes du jour, such as “Le amatore (the lover),” wild Belon oysters sauced with warm black truffle and leek vinaigrette, on tables strewn with rose petals and conversation hearts.
HEART-Y APPETITE: All right, your love is not chopped liver. But what deli fan could resist a heart made of it? The Stage Deli (834 Seventh Ave. between 53rd and 54th streets, [212] 245-7850) heralds the holiday for lovers with a heart-shape chopped liver plate appetizer ($8.95) available only on Monday. They promise it’ll be artfully done. Bypass sold separately.
DARK SECRET: Pair sexy cocktails and chocolates on the After Dark Menu at Aix (2398 Broadway at 88th Street, [212] 874-7400). Chef Jehangir Mehta’s signature Kama Sutra chocolates are laced with aphrodisiacs found in the famous Hindu classic on sex, for instance jasmine and beetle nut. Mate them with specialty drinks, perhaps a Pomegranate Lust (tequila and Cointreau) or Almond Nutmeg Tease, made with Nocello. Indulge in the lounge only Sunday and Monday from 5 p.m. on.
RED-BLOODED: It’s red all over for Valentine’s Day at Lo Scalco (313 Church St. at Walker and Lipenard streets, [212] 343- 2900). The new TriBeCa spot evokes the hue of passion with a six-course, red-themed menu. Think red shrimp with red pepper salad, timbalo of tortellini in cardinal sauce, red snapper with salmon caviar sauce and loin of veal with red beet sauce. It’s $105 per person, or $125 with a bottle of Tuscan red called M’ama M’ama, which chef Mauro Mafrici translates as, “He loves me, he loves me not.”
