Élan

Hen of wood mushroom with soy and butter– it was way too salty

The food was phenomenal. So sad they are closing. Looking forward to them opening up some new venture in the future!

I finally made the effort to explore this restaurant on what I thought was the last day. The restaurant was only serving a prix fixe menu — 3 course meal for $ 40. I had the privilege of meeting one of the owners — George. George informed me that they are extending business. Meg, my server for that evening was good, but she could be better. She neglected to inform me of the other specials that was off the menu that evening. However, her accommodation and hospitality towards was good. Meg provided a great sales pitch on the popular dishes to try and her recommendations were on point.
The first dish I ordered was the Sea Urchin Guacamole. The dish caught my eye and I was immediately curious. I asked Meg, my server, about the dish and she highly recommended it so I went with my gut plus her approval and ordered it. The dish was beautifully presented, approximately 1 cup of guacamole with a sea urchin in the middle surrounded by taro chips heavily seasoned in sea salt. Personally I am not a salt fan, but the dish was well balanced. The saltiness of the taro chips complemented the acidity and sourness of sea urchin mixed with the guacamole. I devoured the dish.
While feasting on my appetizer dish, Meg served me a house made everything pretzel with whole grain mustard butter, which was delicious. Hands down.
For the main course, I followed Meg’s recommendation of the chef’s special of the day dish, which was off the menu. I ordered the striped bass, which is pan seared star bass on top of a delightful red wine butter sauce. I loved the red wine butter sauce. The fried sage potato chips were cleverly made, a piece of fresh sage leaf sandwiched in between two very thinly sliced potatoes and deep fried. The dish was beautifully presented and tasted even better than the guacamole appetizer.
After reviewing the drink menu, I came across this sherry wine that cost only $ 6 I had to try it. The sherry wine was just right for my tolerance and went well with what I ate so far.
For dessert, I decided to once again follow Meg’s recommendation of the milk chocolate mousse. George, one of the owners, served me the dish. The dish hit the spot. It had the right balance of the natural sweets of the passion fruit with the milk chocolate. What I learned is that this was the first day that they were serving this dish and I was satisfied. I would definitely order it again.
Overall this was one of best prix fixe meals I have had in a while because every dish tasted better and better. The food experience left a lasting impression and I am sad that this place was closing. I told three of my friends and convinced them to come to this restaurant. Therefore, I will definitely be returning. Hopefully, they will extend their business until the end of the month.
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Really as good as it gets! Saturday was my second trip to Élan, my boyfriend (chef by profession) and I fell in love with it on our first trip. So, I brought my sister, brother in law and some friends who were equally impressed. The seafood sausage and sea urchin guac were our starters, my meal was followed up with a pre fixe of potato croquettes, duck confit and complemented by endless marys featured on the brunch menu. Each dish is carefully placed, and is an edible work of art. Every bite was savory, packed with flavor and expertly curated. Élan is perfect for dates, family gatherings, and for a casual brunch. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED! I’ll be back for more! Magnifique!

Elegant with good service and good food. Nothing spectacular. You will try it say that it was good and never crave to go back

My expectation for this place was really high given all the raving reviews. I was so psyched when I scored a reservation during the 2016 Winter RW.
The RW menu was not impressive. It didn’t showcase any dishes from the regular menu but did allow for some substitution for an extra cost.
I of course substituted my RW appetizer with sea urchin guac… while it was a very delicious guacamole, I didn’t taste any uni in it and nor would I agree to the high price tag of $ 19!
Next was my entrée, which was mediocre in my opinion — skate with angel hair pasta. Other member in the dinning group got the chicken and they seem to be fairly happy! My husband went off the RW menu and got the braised short ribs from the regular menu. It was at best a meh…
Dessert was another disappointment.
The only highlight was the «general tso’s» sweetbreads. And this was my first time trying sweetbreads. If I ever return in the future, it would be for happy hour only.

Good ambiance, but that’s the positives ended. We are the restaurant week menu. Dumplings were nice, but they more like bar food snacks. The mains and desert left a lot to be desired. Service was glacially slow.
Given the many positive reviews on here, we are unclear if we went to the same restaurant!

EDIT: Dropping to 3 stars, not because of an indictment on the food, but because they overcharged me $ 25 on a $ 50 bill. The manager, «George,» claimed he would take care of it but didn’t. I had to have Amex issue a chargeback to the restaurant. Not fun.
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Went for Restaurant Week (Winter 2016) – it was quite good! Couple of misses, but mainly on-​point deliciousness. Didn’t see anyone else review this year’s RW menu, so here it is!
I went with a couple of friends and we tried different items for the first course – lentil soup with a harissa drizzle, curry puffs with tamarind dipping sauce, and we splurged for the sea urchin guac ($ 6 supplement).
The guac is a MUST GET – what everyone else here is saying. The combination of the urchin and avocado is delicious, and well worth the $ 6 extra. They give you a lot, too. Curry puffs were really nice and the tamarind dipping sauce solid. The lentil soup was too cumin heavy (even though I love cumin) and I didn’t get any of the harissa they said was on it.
We were all boring and got the roast chicken with black trumpet mushroom coulis for dinner. Other items were butternut squash ravioli or skate w/​angel hair pasta and a clam sauce. Chicken was delicious, although maybe a little over-​brined. Super moist, crispy skin. The coulis was outstanding!
Dessert was a milk chocolate mousse with raspberry foam or a pavlova served over fruit. The mousse was good but nothing special, and the pavlova was so-​so.
I’d go back, probably not during RW. If anything, I’d get 4 orders of the guac. Goddamn.

I was surprised it was only half full when we went. Some dishes were very good and interesting combination, i.e. striped bass with red wine and their app special dumplings. But some were a miss, i.e. sweetbreads.
Friendly but unpolished service. It’s still new, so hopefully that will be smoother.

We wanted to love this place. Love the neighborhood. Love the atmosphere — beautifully lit and cool music. Our evening started questionably when we were served an overpriced ($ 17) martini — half the size of what we usually drink on a Saturday night for less — by an inexperienced and sloppy bar tender. The bar did have some good spicy peanuts and rosemary almonds though! Not a person other than us on a Saturday night (the bar across the street at Gramercy Tavern was packed!) at the bar. Our first warning sign which we should have heeded as we went into the not-​even-​half filled restaurant.
We were hoping for great things after enjoying a warm pretzel with dijon mustard butter (amazing invention!) as the bread offering. The curried chicken dumplings sounded amazing but in actuality came so fried you couldn’t even taste the filling. As a dumpling maker myself, you never need nor should deep fry and at the most should pan sear them after steaming. These were left in the deep fryer and then forgotten about. Not to mention the tamarind sauce accompanying the fried dumplings tasted like bad ketchup without the slightest hint of tamarind. Inedible.
Then came the $ 20 seafood sausage appetizer. Mediocre and extremely expensive for a boiled piece of sausage in a bland hollandaise-​like sauce. But honestly, yet sadly, the over-​priced sausage was the best of the meal. The side order of hash browns fried in duck fat was basically fried and more fried sitting in a pile of grease. The butternut squash ravioli — only three in an order (again stingy) — came undercooked and sat in a sweet pile of I don’t know what. Yuck. The rice paper wrapped salmon was more fried with an intolerable crunchy texture and a bland and flavorless piece of fish floating in what tasted like cheap Chinese food sauce.
The only things worth mentioning were the pretzels and the two complimentary truffles at the end of the meal. With tip and two drinks each our dinner was $ 235. Not worth even half that. I’d never go back. I’d suggest that they try other methods rather than frying to cook their food.

I didn’t come to Élan with some preconception from having heard or gone to Chanterelle. I came upon Élan backwards. I needed a restaurant that was 1) in the Flatiron area 2) open on Christmas Eve with open reservations available 3) was not doing a $ 150 a person prix fix, 4) had decent ratings. Élan hit all of those criteria, but I didn’t expect to have the best meal of my visit to NYC — but it was!
Only one disappointment, the butternut squash ravioli had a very strong tomato sauce that overpowered the ravioli. The nature of innovation means sometimes you miss, and that was the case for us on that dish. But the rest was superb. I had the clam chowder, strong, rich flavors. For entre, I had the short ribs, tender in a tasty sauce. My dining partner ordered three sides as her meal. She got the hen of the woods in paper, she loved them. The hash browns, of which I ate half. And the creamed spinach. A good selection of beer.
Service was excellent. Everyone worked to make sure our needs were met. A wonderful meal for Christmas Eve. I look forward to returning.

This place has a nice size and ambiance to it. They were able to fit 7 of us at a few tables and we weren’t sitting on top of all the tables next to us so that was nice. They offer a brunch pre-​fixe which comes with an appetizer, an entrée and a choice of 2 bottomless cocktails (bloody mary or a drink with sparkling wine and brandy) for a little over $ 20 which is a good deal. They are a little picky about substitutions though. A few friends don’t drink and they weren’t able to provide bottomless juice instead of the alcoholic drinks, but they were able to provide tea so it worked out.
I ordered the mushroom croquettes and my husband tried the yogurt parfait as our appetizers. I have to say both of them were quite delicious. My husband devoured the yogurt parfait which surprised me since he can be particular about his yogurt. Our entrees were a bit of a let down in my opinion though. I tried their famous duck hash with a fried egg and a sauce made from duck fat, I believe. The sauce was a bit too creamy for my taste and although it didn’t come smothered all over the food thankfully, I still wish I had asked for it on the side. The hash was a little too burned and I only found a couple pieces of duck in it. My husband’s lamb burger was pretty good, but he didn’t seem blown away. It came with some polenta fries which were an interesting twist on normal fries. For the bottomless drink I chose the sparkling wine and brandy and I will tell you they are strong! After the first one I asked for one with less brandy and they were happy to oblige.
Overall it’s a pretty good place if you’re in that area and you want a relaxing brunch in a spacious place.

Stopped in here for a drink and found out they have great happy hour beverages AND oysters! Great bartender and delicious fried oysters, as well as raw. I highly recommend the fried oysters. And the pretzel rolls and mustard butter are amazing… would go back to check out their dinner…

I had read the history of Chanterelle prior to coming here and, supposedly, Élan was supposed to be the heir apparent since both were opened by the same Chef. Unfortunately, I never had the pleasure of dining at Chanterelle, but based on photos I’ve seen it was much more upscale, more expensive and ‘fancier’ than Élan.
I had the chance to visit Élan for a group dinner this past weekend. The restaurant opened at 5:30pm and it was a pretty casual environment, yet elegant. Most patrons wore jeans, but were dressed very nicely still. Our group was the first customers at the restaurant, but as the night wore on, the restaurant eventually became packed. Since my group had made a reservation for a very special occasion, the owner and multiple employees were very accommodating for our ‘group leader’ who had reserved the large table.
As we stood and chatted at the front table near the entrance of the restaurant, they first served us a few creative appetizers. Unfortunately, it was hard to hear the exact ingredients, but all I remember was that the appetizers were excellent! And the rest of our party felt the same. We absolutely obliterated all of the food that they gave us, especially the Uni chips and guacamole dip!
After about 45 minutes of eating appetizers, having some drinks and chatting, they sat us in the dining room. The dining room was small, but large enough to fit about 40 people still. It wasn’t too cramped inside as the spacing was just perfect between tables. We were given a pre fixe menu for our party with a few options for each course. After we ordered, they presented us with some pretzel bread and warm butter to start the dinner. I can’t speak for the dishes I didn’t order, but I did order the following:
Curry chicken dumplings with tamarind dipping sauce — Although they were good, there was nothing extraordinary about these dumplings. They gave 3 fried dumplings that had curry filling and I devoured them very quickly since they were so small. I was in need of more, not because they were great tasting, but because I was starving!
Pan fried chicken with crispy noodle cake, kung pao sauce — They served a very big piece of chicken. The chicken was tender, juicy and very flavorful. The kung pao sauce was actually a bit tangy, but went very well with the chicken.
Duck fat hash browns — We all shared this as a side and I was one of the few to really dig into it. If you’ve had hash browns before, then this won’t do it for you. It really was just a round hash brown, albeit cooked better than most at diners, but nevertheless there was nothing real great about it except for the fact it was cooked in duck fat.
Élan was a very nice good restaurant, but I was sort of confused by what type of identity this restaurant had —– does it want to be fancy? or casual? Just bar drop-​ins? I felt it had an identity crisis. To top it off, I was under the impression it was a French restaurant, but there were Asian-​inspired dishes on the menu. At the end of the day, the food was solid, but I can’t say it was a great restaurant or close to any of my favorites.

My husband and I went to Élan for our second visit, this time for the Merry Edwards wine event. The food was just as incredible as the first time, and it was so much fun to try out different wine pairings with a tasting menu! Like last time, the staff were very helpful and friendly and took time to explain the various courses and wine pairings.
The highlights for the evening were:
1. The pretzel bread with the mustard butter.
2. Striped bass with red butter and sage potato chips: Really enjoyed this. I read about the sage chips in one of David Waltuck’s books, so I was excited to try it out. Everything was perfect about this course.
3. Peppered roast venison: Done perfectly. It was a cozy cold-​weather meal.
4. Cinnamon ricotta cannolis: Yum! It had poached seckel pears, which were adorable AND tasty. Made for a great presentation.
This was a special event, so you might not find all of these selections on the usual menu.
Our first time at Élan, however, I tried the duck and fell in love. If there is duck on the menu, just get it. It was perfect.
It was also fun to see new art up on the walls and the music was on point.
Overall, an amazing experience.

A very small restaurant with a bit of a sterile feel.
We came with a Travelzoo deal and after adding a small order of sweetbreads and drinks, it came out to about $ 200 total for the meal. The staff was not the most welcoming, but our server was courteous.
The five course was filling, but I don’t think anything was especially memorable in a good way. My favorite part of the meal was probably the complimentary pretzel bread that they serve at the beginning. The General Tso’s sweetbreads was probably the worst tasting sweetbreads I have ever had. I am a huge fan of sweetbreads because of the texture and usually it is just simply grilled or fried, but this style was so overly battered and sauced that I couldn’t taste the sweetbreads at all. The seafood sausage also had some flavors that I really disliked and the texture was way too soft for me.
The Travelzoo deal seemed like a good way to try out the restaurant, but I don’t think I would come back.

Really 3.5 stars but I’ll round up because the complimentary chocolate truffles that came with the check were delicious.
My boyfriend and I came here tonight for our anniversary dinner. Pretty good overall! We wound up getting a bunch of different things to try:
Fried oysters — Very good, ordered more at the end
Terrine Forestiere — ehhhh. Liked the pickles.
Miso Eggplant — ehhh, the first piece I had was undercooked. A bit salty, not enough
sweetness to balance it out, not worth it for the price. I like the miso eggplant from my
local sushi joint better
Seafood Sausage — Very good, but a bit too salty. Had nice large pieces of seafood.
Boyfriend liked the texture. The sauce was good.
Duck Fat Hashbrown — Let down. Very oily, but not very crispy. However, the potatoes were
seasoned very well.
Crispy Gnocchi — Boyfriend liked the sauce. It was just OK for me.
Didn’t get dessert — nothing was really jumping out at me tonight (wound up getting gelato from Eataly on the way home instead)
Service: Servers were friendly, but were a teeny bit disorganized. Started coming out with our 2^nd round of food but then turned right back around because our plates and flatware had been cleared but we hadn’t been given new ones yet. Halfway through my boyfriend couldn’t figure out why his water suddenly started tasting funny. He thought it was the food reacting to the water. He made me try it –_​– Turns out they accidentally refilled his glass with sparkling water (but it wasn’t bubbly, maybe it was flat or just turned flat from mixing with the plain water already in his glass).
Would perhaps be back in the future to try some other items (general tso’s sweetbreads).

Came here after realizing it was almost last day of Restaurant Week. Made a reservation just 2 hours before dinner so happy we got a table. Saw they have $ 1 oysters at the bar so we started with 6 raw oysters (fresh & delicious) beer and rose wine. Ambiance is relaxed and cozy. The hostess was great and came over about 30 min to take us to our table.
I ordered the $ 38 Restaurant Week menu, we paid $ 6 extra to substitute appetizer with the Sea urchin guacamole. Since saw so many reviews that this was a must-​have. It was worth the $ 6 additional, the portion was huge (only 2 of us) and loved the taste of the guacamole and taro chips. For main I had the tea salmon which was delicious, I ordered it medium rare. The vegetables that came with the fish were amazing too. My husband preferred this dish so much he switched his duck with mine. He had a la carte of the duck medium rare, I would have liked the skin to be more crispy but it was juicy and sauce complimented the meat well. The veggie spring rolls were savory and I loved the mushroom stuffing.
Dessert was flour-​less chocolate cake which was fine considering we were pretty full. Would have liked a more interesting selection of dessert for a la carte.
Service was superb. Will definitely return.

3.5 stars.
Although we happened to be there for restaurant week, we agreed that the RW menu looked boring and unappealing. Instead we ordered four apps and an entrée to share between two. Over eating to the max!
Élan is known for their sea urchin guacamole with taro chips. If you know me, you know I love taro chips, love uni and love guac. This dish sounds exactly like what I would like. The guac came with generously sized full pieces of uni. None of that blended in «oh can’t you taste the uni» b.s. I’ve been seeing lately. Taro chips were made in house, thin and salty just like I like em.
I wanted to get foie gras pops but apparently they stopped making them during the summer because it melts. So they replaced it with a foie gras roulade, the roulade part made with prosciutto, around fig paste. I wouldn’t get it again. The prosciutto and fig overpowered any foie there was :(
We also got the mushroom truffle croquettes, freshly fried. I really liked these and dining companion said he would order those again. The truffle flavor is strong and enhanced by the mushrooms. Who doesn’t like fried food?
The seafood sausage was very interesting, filled with pieces of shrimp, lobster and scallop. Its kind of unfair that everything with lobster gets an automatic price mark up regardless of how much there is. The binder tasted like scallop paste and it was stuffed into a pork casing.
Entrée we agreed that the tea smoked duck was the only thing that sounded interesting. The duck was cooked medium rare as requested. I liked that the skin wasn’t too fatty, almost like a roast duck, Chinese style. You could taste the tea in the sauce which I really enjoyed. And it came with vegetarian spring rolls!
For dessert we decided to go to the bar for dollar oysters Only we would have oysters and call it dessert.

I came here to see what a (what I initially perceived as) hoity-​toity restaurant like this is made up of, so we took advantage, since it is «restaurant week» in NYC. It turned out to be incredible: D
My experience from beginning to end was quite enjoyable and the staff there was very nice. We started off at the bar as we were very early to our reservation. The bartender attended to me quickly and gladly helped us decide on appetizers. We ended up going with the Korean BBQ Short Rib Tacos (with kimchee and avocado) that were wrapped in a tortilla and pressed; so a pressed burrito of sorts. The meat was tender and flavorful. We also went with the fried oysters (with cucumber, wassabi, and tobiko). They were displayed very nice on a bed of seaweed and looked very delicate and carefully prepared. Once our table was ready, we moved to the dinning area.
I ordered the tomato and watermelon gazpacho to start off with which was very savory. The light pesto cream paired well with the chilled soup and I held myself from gobbling it all up. The main course was the salmon (the official name escapes me) cooked medium rare. The skin was perfectly crispy with fish temperature just the way I liked it. The fish lay on a bed of veges that balanced very with with the taste and texture of the fish. I’m not sure if the veges had been slightly pickled or lightly sauced, but it worked well.
The waitress took the time to explain any questions we had as well as what was included with the restaurant week promotion. We were unsure of what wine to have even her thorough explanation so she let us have a taste. They had a nice handful of craft beers and I went with the Joly Pumpkin Artisan Ales — Bam Bière. The super aromatic and Farmhause ale nature of the beer paired perfectly with my food.
This would be a perfect 5 star experience for me if I didn’t notice leaving, that the oysters that we had at the bar should have been $ 1 each. The sign outside the business (was not there when we initially walked in) shows a special for $ 1 oysters between 5:30−7 (at the bar only) and we were within that time slot. Our bill showed the full price for each oyster. Once we were outside, we were ready to nap so contesting the bill seemed like a energy draining venture; so we just left.

The food here was incredible!!! We got the restaurant week menu which they had explained is a selection of popular items off their regular menu (they menu changes each week). The crispy duck spring rolls were amazing and they paired so perfectly with the sauce. The gnocci were also incredible — they were crispy and in a polenta type sauce — definitely recommend. The chicken was also great but we had a huge issue — it came out raw in the middle. We told the waitress and she made it like we were being fussy but it was completely raw! That really upset me. She also told the table next to us they made a good decision not getting the chicken since «you can get it anywhere». Um ok. That really turned me off and I’m not sure i would come back because of the way she acted so nonchalant and annoyed that we had pointed out our raw chicken.
Back to the food– the vanilla semifreddo was literally so incredible i wanted to bathe in it. It is creamy and delicious and i would come back just for this.

Super delicious! It is an interesting restaurant as the clientele seems to be on the older side. As someone who is in my mid 20s, I felt a little out of place, but thankfully the service was super attentive and the food was wonderful!
Food:
— Sea Urchin Guacamole — If you love guac and you’re not shy about seafood and particularly sea urchin, this is a must get! It is large and could be more appropriate to share with 4, so take that into consideration if you have fewer people in your party.
— Kung Pao Fried Chicken — this is your elevated kung pao chicken, so no worries on its title! Really different and fun.
Overall, fun restaurant with delicious food. It is rich and on the more expensive side, so beware of that when considering!

What brought me through the door was the happy hour dollar oysters. What kept me was the delicious food that came after. How does sea urchin guacamole even work? If you like sea urchin, you’ll love this dish. If you don’t, I would pick something else. The taro chips was very crispy and with just a hint of taro taste that complemented the guacamole. I am not a fan of taro flavor but this wasn’t overwhelming at all.
The oysters tasted plump and fresh. I didn’t taste any grit and with a squeeze of lemon, it was really good. I polished off a dozen myself. This is great quality for dollar oysters.
For my main course, I went with the spanish mackerel risotto. The risotto sauce was made with clams which is one of my favorite seafood things (what isn’t really.). There were decent pieces of clam in there that you can have with every bite of risotto. The mackerel was melt in your mouth good! I don’t usually order fish at a restaurant since it tends to be overcooked but this was a really good combination with the risotto.
If you want to have fancy food without waiting come here on a weeknight. The bar service was great and they really take into consideration of what you ordered. I had a cocktail made off the menu with rum, egg whites, and jalapeño. It could be a bit spicier since I actually enjoy tabasco in my cocktail, but for the non-​weird people, it would be perfect.
(Forgot to add, due to my gluttonous self, I ordered the brulee rice pudding dessert with blueberries. That is a great way to finish a meal after overeating!)

I’ve been wanting to come here since it first opened, I could hear the sea urchin guac was calling my name.
I came with a friend on a Wednesday night and we got a few things to share:
— Sea urchin guacamole with taro chips ($ 19)
— Steamed scallop and foie gras dumplings ($ 18)
— General tso’s sweetbreads ($ 35)
— Shredded brussels sprouts with Chinese sausage ($ 10)
The guacamole was definitely the highlight of the meal. The portion is a bit on the small side imo, but the flavors are wonderful and the taro chips that accompanied it were thick and not greasy at all.
Unfortunately though, the other 3 things we got were disappointing. Everything was so salty and drenched in sauce that I couldn’t taste any of the underlying ingredients. The shredded Brussels sprouts was the worst offender — it came in a sopping pile that I would expect from my local greasy Chinese spot.
Would have only given 2 stars for the food, but +1 star for our fantastic waiter and the little pretzel bites they bring at the beginning and the salted chocolate pretzel bites at the end (both delicious).