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Eleven Madison Park is one of our favorite 3 Michelin Star Restaurants in the world, along with Le Cinq at the Four Seasons George V, Paris. But in the pandemic, Eleven Madison Park, whose chef, Daniel Humm, was already a founding board member of Rethink, converted Eleven Madison Park into a commissary kitchen to produce thousands of meals per day for first responders and food insecure New Yorkers.
With Eleven Madison Park at Home, each purchase provides not only a 3 Michelin Star dinner at home for your family, but also 10 meals via Rethink to those experiencing food insecurity.
We recently had occasion to celebrate something, so we splurged on an Eleven Madison Park at Home order, which is $275 + tax and is described as serving 4 guests. Here's our review.
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Ordering Eleven Madison Park at Home
All Eleven Madison Park at Home dinner boxes are ordered via Tock, for pickup at one of seven locations: Thursdays-Sundays 12noon-2pm at the Eleven Madison Park restaurant in Manhattan, Thursdays 11am-12noon at Upper Montclair Station in New Jersey, Fridays 11am-12noon at Bedford Hills Station in Westchester, Fridays 1:30-2:30pm at Greenwich Station in Connecticut, Saturdays 12noon-1pm at East Hampton Station in the Hamptons, Saturdays 12noon-1pm at Sparkling Pointe in Southold, and Sundays 11am-12noon at Manhasset Station. Note that all sales are final and non-refundable.
After ordering, we received a confirmation email, and one day before our scheduled pickup we received a reminder email.
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The Eleven Madison Park at Home Box and Preparation
The box itself was elegant and quite heavy, so it's not something most people will want to walk 20 blocks with. Everything was kept nicely chilled with a couple of small ice packs, but plan on getting most of the contents (except for the granola and seed mix) in the fridge within an hour of pickup (unless it's kept outside in our currently frigid NYC weather).
Everything was well packaged and labeled.
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A blue envelope contained not only the menu, but also the simple preparation instructions, as the chicken is uncooked.
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The preparation is very straightforward: rub the chicken liberally with the included butter, sprinkle with some kosher salt (which isn't included and which we didn't have, so we substituted some truffle salt), and roast it in a preheated 425 degree oven for 20 minutes, before reduced the heat to 350 degrees and roasting it for at least a further 30 minutes, until the included meat thermometer indicates 155 degrees. Note that when testing, the thermometer should be left in for 20 seconds to obtain an accurate reading.
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The Pommes Duchesse (rich mashed potatoes with leeks) needed to be heated up for 20 minutes, although that seemed insufficient, at least in our oven. We'd recommend allowing 25-30 min. for those, and 15 minutes or so for the mushrooms.
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Eleven Madison Park at Home Chicken Dinner
We've attempted a similar chicken dish ourselves, but it was a pale imitation of Eleven Madison Park's chicken, which was superb. The crispy, beautifully burnished skin crowned juicy meat that's easily the best chicken we've ever had, thanks to the foie gras truffle brioche crumbs it's stuffed with.
We'd never had pomme duchesse, and usually I can take or leave ordinary mashed potatoes, but these were on another level thanks to the umami-rich leek fondu (and generous amounts of butter and creme fraiche).
But apart from the incredible chicken, my favorite dish turned out to be the roasted oyster mushrooms, which were addictively glazed with a sauce of smoked butter, dark soy, maple syrup and bonito, before being crowned with pine needle powder. This was so good that even after finishing the mushrooms, we saved two tablespoons of sauce to drizzle over the remaining pomme duchesse potatoes.
These are rich dishes, so at least for us, a little went a long way. Three of us only ate a little over half the chicken and about two thirds of the pomme duchesse, and we have two thirds of the winter greens and vinaigrette remaining–enough for a second meal for all of us.
We also have over half of the chocolate hazelnut tart left, even after three generous sized pieces. My husband claims he prefers my bittersweet chocolate tart inspired by Joel Robuchon's recipe, but I prefer Eleven Madison Park's version, not only because I didn't make it, but because it has a delightful textural contrast of crunchy seeds atop it.
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Just as at Eleven Madison Park, there's a lovely gift for the following morning: a canister of homemade granola, in this case apple. It was delicious atop yogurt.
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The Verdict
Given the quality of the ingredients and culinary expertise contained in the Eleven Madison Park at Home chicken box, and that it's enough for two meals for our family of three, this was definitely a worthwhile splurge. Highly recommended, and hats off to the Eleven Madison Park team for all the great work they do with ReThink Food.
Disclosure: We paid for our own meal. We have no affiliation with Eleven Madison Park, except as satisfied clients.
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