Beauty & Essex

Goodbye meatpacking district, hello lower east side. To some extent still bad areas, cheap real estate and chinese signs but now also filled with amazing restaurants and a vibrant bar life. This is also the location of Beauty & Essex The owner is the same as Stanton Social, and like Stanton Social Beauty & Essex is trendy, classy, elegant and combines wonderful food with well made coctails.

Two stunning observations off hand. The entrance does not look like a restaurant, because it isn't.
Beauty & Essex is a pawn shop. Wonderful if you feel like shopping and eating at the same time. Behind the pawn shop doors, the actual restaurant opens up.

The food is tapas style, and with a big group of people it was an excellent opportunity to try almost the entier menu out. Everything from fried oysters, to dumplings. My two especial favorites, which will forever stay in my mind were  the Oven Braised Chicken Meatballs, topped with

sheeps milk ricotta, wild mushrooms, and truffle oil. This is a recipe I will try to recreate some time.

The other absolute favorite was the roasted bone marrow with a rioja based shallot marmalade, and parsley. The idea is to spread the bone marrow on to the crostini and enjoy. Incredible.

Prices are acceptable, here is the benefit of paying for what you order. More tapas more dollars, the budget is up to you. For a NYC restaurant, it isn't that expensive.

To finish the night off, us girls went to the ladies room, to powder our noses and get ready for some clubbing. To our wonderful surprise, pink champagen was served there. Yes, in the ladies room. No better way to start off the night.