Central Michel Richard

Reviews 4

AL

Alice Wang

My boyfriend and I had dinner here in celebration of my birthday. This is a brasserie that serves both American and French food, and has won the James Beard Award for Best New Restaurant and Best Chef. Chef Richard calls it, "my American bistro, with a French accent." We had a wonderful table directly in front of the kitchen, so we got to see the action (which we love). Service was interesting; we were attended to by at least three servers throughout the course of our meal. Our first server put in our orders for salads and then we never saw her again. Our second server brought us bread and our appetizers, then fled away like Cinderella at midnight. Our third server brought us our entrées and dessert. It was like a tag team operation and while all of them were perfectly polite, it was a strange dance of servers. I ordered a frisée salad with bacon and poached egg. It was divine. I absolutely loved my salad. I thought all the flavors worked harmoniously and goodness, the poached egg. It was small and delicate but just so delightful. Honestly, if I had just ordered frisée salad alone, I would have been a pretty happy camper. I opted for the iconic Michels fried chicken, which is Central Michel Richards signature dish. Southern style fried chicken inspired from KFC (hence the extra crispy texture which is actually made from old bread crumbs, raw chicken shavings, chicken stock, and milk) that sits on a fabulous potato purée. The chicken skin is crispy, meat is juicy, and did I mention the potato purée? Its amazing. But to me, the potato purée was more amazing than the fried chicken, which was essentially a more expensive, less unprocessed, "elegant" fast food dish. I guess its hard for me to be crazy about one $25 fried chicken no matter how you try to put it on a pedestal. My boyfriend ordered the other iconic dish of Central Michel Richard, lobster burger. Unfortunately, his lobster was undercooked and overall, he was a little disappointed given the hype and smell of this burger. We also shared a plate of mac and cheese, which was decent enough but nothing too extraordinary. +Frisée salad with bacon and poached egg: $15 +Michels fried chicken: $25 +Lobster burger: $30 +Mac and cheese: $9 For dessert, we decided to share the celebration cake. Its an ice cream/sponge cake with tons of fruit encased in a crunchy chocolate shell. Best of all, its topped with a sparkling candle that looks like a mini-4th of July at your table. We broke open the chocolate shell and ate the ice cream/sponge cake housed inside. To our delight, blackberries, raspberries, and strawberries tumbled out. The cake is also topped with more strawberries and blackberries. Its a great birthday cake to share amongst your table. Since it was just the two of us, we barely made a dent in the cake and since it was an ice cream cake, we couldnt take it to go. Overall, a 3.5 star experience.

MA

Max Joseph

Great food and great service! We had no reservations and got in by sheer luck. (We sat in the waiting area and pulled together tables). The night began with a platter of pâté, sliced meats, and pickled vegetables. All very good, but I was expecting something a bit more varied. That being said perhaps the fault was mine because the menu said exactly what was on the platter. We had a salad with soft boiled egg, a great salad but a little on the salty side. Also we ordered their tomato mozzarella salad. The tomatoes were out of this world, as was the cheese, but the whole salad was very small. This one was so good I could have eaten a main portion of it! We all had cocktails, one was called a gin fizz, this was served at room temp and took me for surprise. I thought perhaps it was just a mistake, but we had two people order the drink and both were the same. We also had a blueberry drink, waaayy too sweet for me but the girl who ordered it seemed to like it. We also had two bottles of wine, both very reasonable. For mains we tried their famous lobster burger. This was the low point of the meal. I was very disappointed with this, it seemed like a really poor effort, fried, and put on a bun. If you didnt charge me for it, I wouldnt have known there was lobster in there. Not worth the 28$ price tag. We also had the steak Tartare, it was very good, and a very large portion. This was served already dressed, and not with the traditional garnish. Beef cheeks were nice, but again the temp was an issue. One of the girls ordered the mussels in a pot. This was the highlight for me, too many mussels to count, and huge. They were all cooked perfectly with not a hint of rubber-ness. The only drawback was that there was not enough bread to soak up all the goodness left behind by those little devils. All in all a great meal. I would recommend this again without any reservations. All my notes are minor and didnt disrupt the meal in any measurable way. The next time I go I know that Ill try a whole new set of items, and have no doubt that they will be great.

CA

Carol Chan

My husband and I came to Central for a quick pre-celebratory anniversary dinner before catching our flight out for the long holiday weekend. We made our reservation at 6:15pm just so we could catch the pre-theater 3 course special. My husband and I couldnt agree more that our dinner was well worth the sprint out of work right on the dot. Central made every simple dishes that my husband and I usually wouldnt even consider to dishes we couldnt stop dreaming about. His poached egg salad was explosive in flavor. My yellow tomato gazpacho burrata was licked off the bowl worthy. Our fried chickens - we could understand why people claim them to be THE best of DC! Even the buttery whipped mashed potato side was beyond words. Who can forget desserts? The signature chocolate bar reminded us of giant deconstructed ferro rocher (who doesnt love them?). And the raspberry tart - not only did I enjoy it more than I initially thought I would but I loved it! Perfect amount of sweetness and tartness! I thought I would regret not getting the chocolate bar too but I couldnt be any happier with my choice! Our hostess purposely sat us with her favorite server and I couldnt agree more - he topped one of our favorite servers of all time too! I wished I asked for his name because he definitely need the recognition (if it helps, he has an European accent!). And bonus points to the warm housemade sourdough - we must had polished 4 baskets - talk about a light pre-celebratory dinner. Central might come close as my favorite restaurant in DC! Learning that they have a $28 3 course brunch, You know where I will be for my group birthday celebration!

A

A Private User

A handsome modern space, but very loud when filled. Our service was lackadaisical at best. The wine selection was sparse, though nicely weighted to less expensive (and less compelling) wines in keeping with the bistro theme of the restaurant. Our food was mediocre - a great disappointment. The only standout was the burger, which was superb (as has been widely reported). The french fries were warm and tasteless; the side salads overdressed; the fish overcooked; the rotisserie chicken bland; the steak au poivre overcooked and bitter from too much pepper; and the NY sirloin a great surprise - a thin, utterly ordinary supermarket steak (for $26), like something from Giant or Safeway, nicely seared but tasteless. The iceberg salad with blue cheese was well made and a good version of the classic. The cheese plate was tiny: four bite size pieces of undistinguished cheese (undescribed by the waiter - a brie, a goat, a hard cheese and something else) and served with apple slices and grapes, but no offer of bread or crackers. The banana split was beautifully presented - like everything else - but the ice creams were gooey. The total bill for 4, with a glass of wine per person, four appetizers/salads, four entrees, three side vegetables (at $7 each - unprepossessing), one cheese plate and one dessert, was about $80 per person. And not worth it. Maybe we choose all the wrong menu items except for the burger and salad; the menu certainly was very interesting. But we were deeply disappointed.