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⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 🥂🦪🍟🗽
I’ve been going to Balthazar for 25 years, and the beautiful thing is this: it still has it. Not the fake “New York institution” label people throw around. I mean the real thing. The room still hums. The bar still crackles. The mirrors, the noise, the servers flying, the plates landing, the feeling that something is happening all around you and you’re lucky to be sitting in the middle of it. Balthazar is still a proper bistro, still a scene, still one of the great New York dining rooms.
And the food still knows exactly what it’s doing. This is not the place for restraint. This is the place for oysters and shellfish piled on ice, steak tartare, onion soup, escargots slick with garlic butter, moules frites, and of course steak frites, because if you’re in Balthazar and there’s a steak and a pile of fries in front of you, life is probably going just fine.
The seafood is always one of the reasons I come back. Start with oysters or one of the shellfish platters, order something cold and sharp to drink, and let the room do the rest. If you’re eating alone, all the better. There’s something deeply civilized about sitting at Balthazar solo with a glass of champagne, watching the circus move around you, while your steak frites arrives like an old friend.
In a city obsessed with the next thing, Balthazar is still the thing. Still delicious. Still glamorous. Still worth it. After 25 years, I love it maybe even more.
