Blue Hill - a review

Blue Hill restaurant in Greenwich village was a place that my girlfriend and I wanted to try since we saw the farm featured on Top Chef, and other cooking shows. I made it a point to bring Tiffany out to BlueHill for her birthday dinner, and it a great meal.

I had a reservation for 9 pm. The restaurant occupies a landmark "speakeasy" near Washington Square Park, hidden three steps below street level.We arrived a bit before 9 and waited at the small “cozy” bar for about 20 minutes for our table. The ambiance was nice, dimly lit, lots of people, and a nice feature was that the tables not too close together (as is sometimes the case with a small restaurant trying to pack in customers). The beverage selection was a pleasant surprise, there was a very large wine selection and some micro brewed beers as well, which worked out for both of us. We were seated in the back right corner of the restaurant (in the front room) and it was the best table in the house. I request back corner tables (away from the kitchen) when ever I can in order to a)have the most privacy and b) take in the entire dining experience. Our placement was great, we had a view of everything, and were out of the way of the bustle of the kitchen staff. The waitress was friendly, not overly attentive but that suited us fine. One area where she fell short was that I felt she could have shared more information with us regarding the origination of the food. (Being that it is shipped in daily from their private farm, it would have been nice if she had shown some passion for their sustainable ideals) The food itself was made of some of the most fresh ingredients Ive had the pleasure of enjoying. The vegetables were incredible (spinach and pancetta dish to start). Tiffany had the lamb which was very tender, albeit a bit gamey. I had the pork, the lamb was lean and perfectly cooked, the pork was excellent. Fattier and Salty. The vegetables blew the proteins out of the water, this would be a vegetarians dream. The vegetables possessed such clear, potent tastes and really were the star of the show. Looking around the dining room, it seemed that most of the main dishes were served over a polenta type bed. The taste on the polenta on my plate was good, but tiffanys had an odd finish. We each had a glass of wine with our main course. All In all the dinner ran about 95$ a head, and was good. I would give the meal 6.5/10, the ambiance an 8/10, and service a 6.5/10.

I would love to take a trip up to the farm to get a better understanding to the amount of work that went into our dishes, as well as the servicing of the restaurant as a whole.