Since we moved to the DC metro area, my wife Jun and I hadn’t been to too many new restaurants whenever we visited NYC. Given the limited amount of time we often had while visiting the city, we would rather re-visit our old favorites where we personally know the chef or manager. Toward the end of last year, we had a last-minute trip to spend the New Year’s Eve with our friends living in Brooklyn. As the plan happened at the last minute, we of course were unable to secure reservations at one of our favorite restaurants and had to find a new place for dinner with the friends the day we arrived in Brooklyn. There was an opening at One White Street when I was browsing Resy. I looked it up and it turned out the restaurant already has one Michelin star and is led by an Eleven Madison Park (before the ill-fated transition to vegetable-only menu) vet who also worked at the highly acclaimed Frenchie in Paris. We figured we would have at worst a decent meal (at the end of the day, catching up with our friends was more important); One White Street, however, turned out to be a pleasant surprise.  

The restaurant, located in a historic townhouse in Tribeca, offers both a la carte (which we chose) and a tasting menu option. You probably have seen dozens of farm-to-table restaurants in New York City by now, but what distinguishes One White Street is its smart precision in globally influenced cooking, using the ingredients directly sourced from its farm in the Hudson Valley. While the cooking here was not something we hadn’t seen elsewhere before, I was rather impressed with the surprisingly high level of execution and thoughtfulness behind each dish. If it’s on the menu, I recommend starting your meal with smoked carrot focaccia with carrot muhammara that made me realize that this was no ordinary restaurant.

A citrusy dish of Long Island flue crudo with kohlrabi and vadouvan curry was a nice appetizer, as was the chilled foie gras that one of our friends who is French Canadian enjoyed with approval. The mushroom stuffed pasta was another solid dish with aromatic porcini beurre blanc sauce. We also split two main dishes, grilled striped bass with Manila clams and crispy pork with polenta and turnips, that I thought were also generally well-executed in both flavor and texture without serious issues. The addition of fresh vegetable side dishes like roasted cabbage and glazed root vegetables of carrots and turnips to the main dishes certainly helped, too.

The dining space on the first floor (which is for wine bar and a la carte diners, while higher floors seem to be open only for tasting menus) is somewhat modest in size, so if you are looking to secure seats for prime-time dinners, you could consider making a reservation in advance. There is a full bar at the restaurant with surprisingly expansive list of wines curated by a wine and beverage director who also worked at EMP as well as its sister restaurant The NoMad. One White Street was the last restaurant meal for us in 2023. It doesn’t take itself too seriously while also showing all the positive qualities that make NYC dining so exciting all the time.  

Address: 1 White Street, New York, NY 10013

KenScale: 8.0/10 (Jun’s Score: 8.0/10)

Website: https://www.onewhitestreetnyc.com/

Reservation via Resy