On the menu at Garces' new Volver
Hours before the restaurant's opening night at the Kimmel Center, we can get a look.
Given the triple-digit price tags and the anticipation, the menu at Jose Garces' Volver has to be a Big Deal.
And now, hours before the restaurant's opening night at the Kimmel Center, we can get a look at our town's priciest restaurant.
Volvér - where Garces himself will cook with a kitchen team under chef de cuisine Natalie Maronski - offers two ticketed-only tasting-menu experiences: "pre-theater" ($75 a head, plus wine, tax and tip, served at 5 and 5:30 p.m.) and "performance" ($175 a head, plus wine, tax and tip, at 7:30, 8 and 8:30 p.m.).
As of early this morning, a 5 p.m. pre-theater table for four was available for tonight, as well as a 7:30 p.m. performance table for four and a deuce at 8 p.m.
No walk-ins will be accommodated, the Garces Group says.
To get into the atelier, whose seats have good views of the open kitchen, you pass through a bar - which opened last week. Bar Volvér specializes in sparkling wine, caviar and small plates.
I have not seen a preview or presentation of the menu, so I have only descriptions to go on (click on the link below to view). It's also not clear how long this menu will be offered.
The pre-theater starts with a Siberian sturgeon caviar, carnitas popcorn and "deviled egg" duck liver mousse, segues into Tsukiji market fish; a dish called Milk & Cereal (rice flakes, quail egg, bacon, chicken oyster, truffle, thyme marshmallows, white asparagus milk); a salad built on "live lettuce" from Garces' Luna Farm; a Spanish-inspired fish dish called Veta la Palma; Wagyu beef cooked on embers; and panna cotta, chocolate and petits fours for dessert.
The performance menu adds ham selections; bacalao; sardines; live sea scallops; fried squab; petit pois; Monterey Bay squid; and an additional dessert, carrot cake.