Le B. — Restaurant in New York

Review: Le B — $62 Burgers, A Cold Seafood Sausage Roll, and the Art of Serving Chaos with Rosé

Angie Mar once lit up New York’s dining scene with unapologetic decadence. But at Le B, her latest venture, all that’s left is a luxury illusion held together by branding, candlelight, and a deeply overworked front-of-house staff.

We booked Le B for my partner’s birthday. A big night. I even prepaid for two of their “only-nine-a-night” LE BURGER

Things unraveled before we even arrived.

At 6:30pm, I get a missed call and a text: “Your table is ready.” Our reservation? 8:30pm. I call back. The message: “We’d like you to come earlier.” No apology. No context. Just pressure.

We arrive at 8:30. We're seated. And then… silence.

30 minutes pass. No menus. No acknowledgment. By 9:00pm, we’re finally handed menus. By 9:15, we abandon the tasting menu, that we were looking forward to and opt for the Restaurant Week prix fixe, hoping to salvage the evening and be out before midnight.

We order a two cocktails.

For starters: foie gras and seafood ravioli. The waiter returns: “No ravioli.”

And let’s be clear: we get it. It’s New York. It’s a Friday. Food runs out. But when you’ve got a full tasting menu of starters, and your only offer is a green salad or another foie, that’s not hospitality, it’s contempt.

Moments later, the table next to us, seated after us, orders and gets the ravioli.

We ask. The waiter replies: “They called ahead for it.”

I ask, flatly: “Are we really going with the idea someone called ahead to reserve a starter ravioli?”

He doubles down, runs to the kitchen, and we watch the argument unfold from our table. He returns, foie in hand, and admits it wasn’t true. Then, to his credit, he apologised profusely, saying:

“If I could have gotten it for you, I would have.”

And you could tell he meant it. He looked mortified.

After the foie, came the LE BURGER. Forty-five-day dry-aged Angus blend. Fromager d’affinois. Cabernet. $62.

What we got: A stale, cracking bun Cheese so salty, it bulldozed any nuance A bland, under seasoned patty, dry-aged but dead inside Fries like brittle chip sticks, as if scooped from a forgotten box in the back of a catering van

Then came the mains:

Rabbit confit, flambéed table-side with all the copper pan drama you could want

And the infamous Seafood Wellington

Let’s start with the rabbit: all performance, no payoff. Then came the Seafood Wellington, a dish that belongs in a cautionary tale.

You didn’t even need to cut into it to know it was wrong.

The seafood mousse had completely pulled away from the pastry, creating a gaping void you could’ve parked a bicycle in. That kind of separation usually happens from moisture in the duxelles or poor wrapping technique, but there was no duxelles. Just a cold, dense, flavorless seafood mousse that had clearly been set in advance, then wrapped, baked, and hoped for the best.

It wasn’t a Wellington. It was a cold seafood sausage roll in pastry drag.

No chef with standards would have served it.

Before the mains arrived, we ordered another round. They didn’t appear… until dessert.

Dessert, at least, was flawless: a passionfruit soufflé, tart, precise, and technically perfect, the only dish that deserved to be served that night.

As it hit the table, so did our long-missing drinks. And then, in a move that bordered on parody, the maître d’, who had ignored us the entire night, suddenly appeared to drop off two glasses of rosé champagne, without so much as a word. No acknowledgment. No apology. Not even a forced smile.

It was the kind of gesture that says: “Something’s gone terribly wrong but I don’t know what to do about it, so… here’s this.”

Then: the check. $440, with a mandatory 20% gratuity.

A forced service charge for a night that had failed at every turn, except for the soufflé and the waiter, the only person who actually tried.

We didn’t fight it. He was left high and dry, and I hope he knows he’s better than what Le B...

Ignore the haters and negativity in some reviews. Le B is the chic and intimate place you’ll want to return to again and again for warm hospitality, incredible food thoughtfully and precisely prepared with a story behind each dish, and a sexy vibe with a touch of whimsy.

I recently dined at Le B for the first time, and I cannot wait to return and to host a party there some day. The burger has a lot of buzz, and it did not disappoint. It was hands down the best burger I’ve had maybe in my life — and that is not hyperbole. The dry-aged beef imparts a rich umami that you just don’t find in other hyped burgers around the city. It was cooked to medium-rare perfection and topped with a velvety dollop of d’affinois cheese — “cheese of the angels” as my best friend and I have called that cheese for years. The warm and pillowy brioche bun absorbs all of the beefy and cheesy goodness to curate the perfect bite. Chef Mar has also perfected the art of frites allumettes — or shoestring fries. They were served dramatically in a stunning crystal bowl, and they were perfectly crispy with a delightful chew and balanced seasoning. This burger and frites combo needs to be on every “best burger” list.

Let’s set aside the burger that everyone else in the dining room ordered too when I ate there and pivot to Chef Mar’s broad talents as it relates to French techniques and cuisine. We decided to order a sample of what our server highlighted as the “best hits” from the more comprehensive à la carte menu, and we were simply blown away by the creativity, complexity, flavor, execution, and stories behind each dish. We began with Onions Nancy — an ode to Chef Mar’s mother and a childhood memory the chef had of her mother’s Lipton onion soup dip. She placed a French twist on it by using beautifully caramelized onions, crème fraîche, and foie gras drippings to put an elegant twist on that childhood memory, and she paired it with exquisitely thin homemade potato chips. We loved learning about stories behind each of the dishes we ordered, and hospitality is all about those stories, cooking from the heart, and connecting with people across the table from you and around the room with you as you enjoy beautiful food. We knew this was the beginning of a memorable meal.

We next tried the calf’s brain ravioli. Light and succulent with a decadent dollop of caviar on each raviolo. Heavenly. Next we opted for Chef Mar’s signature bread course: “TFC” — freshly baked bread laced with Perigord truffles and topped with caviar. The bread is served with a partial lobe of foie gras stuffed with porcini mushrooms, and the combination eaten together is heaven on your tongue. The burger and frites came next (see above for the description) as our primary course. With a meal so carefully and perfectly executed and scrumptious, we could not leave without dessert. So we opted for tableside crêpes Suzette and a light-as-air strawberry rhubarb soufflé featuring wild strawberries and rhubarb that Chef Mar selected that day. Both desserts were divine.

Beyond the fabulous food, the service was warm and welcoming. The maître’d was extremely welcoming when we arrived, escorted us to our table, was politely attentive when my friend excused herself from the table so he could help with her chair and refold her napkin, and conversed with us at the end of our meal. The two servers who helped us were delightful, attentive, and provided wonderful recommendations and guidance throughout the evening. Chef Mar circulated throughout the dining room and was approachable and conversational. And the bartender crafted a lovely gin martini with a dramatic presentation of six olives to garnish the beautiful drink.

I hope Le B thrives because it is a gem in the city and a place to go when you feel like a warm hug — from the food...

Review

My boyfriend and I booked this dinner to celebrate our three year anniversary and moving in together. We were so excited to go as it is restaurant week and this is a great opportunity to try a restaurant that would normally be out of our price range. We scoured open table, resy, the restaurant week website, and the Le B website to see if there were any details on certain dates being excluded etc but found nothing. A couple hours later we received a confirmation text and my boyfriend messaged confirming that we would be able to order from the restaurant week menu to which we were told no. We immediately called to try and remedy the situation and see if there were any other options. We were met with a very cold attitude despite calmly trying to explain our confusion about the restaurant week menu. The woman on the phone told us any changes to the reservation would result in a $250 charge PER PERSON. We asked if there were any other solutions or anything we could do as the restaurant week menu aspect wasn’t clearly communicated on either open table, resy, or the Le B website. The person on the phone very quickly told us in a stern voice “it is on the NY tourism guide website”. Meanwhile this information is buried in two subpages under learn more…not easily found unless at all. As we calmly tried to ask what our options were we were accused by the woman on the phone of trying to STEAL BUSINESS from the restaurant and harm the wellbeing of their employees and directly take money from them by canceling our reservation?! I then had to calm the woman down and reassure her we were trying to come to a mutually beneficial solution where her staff was able to get a customer tonight who would be able to spend much more than my boyfriend and I would while we would be fine rescheduling the reservation to a night when the restaurant week menu was served. After going back and forth a couple more times the woman then continued that we were stealing business and that this change was disrespectful because they had a “waitlist for the table we booked”. Meanwhile, we had booked the table maybe two hours prior and there were still tables available every 15 minutes on resy and OpenTable. The woman then resorted to trying to guilt trip my boyfriend and I into keeping the reservation asking about why we wouldn’t be able to come tonight and prying as to why the restaurant week menu was so important - putting us in an INCREDIBLY uncomfortable position and forcing us to explain that we were both in our mid 20s and this restaurant would typically be out of our price range. At this point in the interaction I am fully crying on the phone due to the sheer lack of understanding and human decency. Only after I was crying and clearly upset and uncomfortable did the woman finally agree to move the reservation to next week for a night when the restaurant week menu is available. Right before hanging up she revealed that she was actually THE OWNER OF THE RESTAURANT. The entire interaction was incredibly immature, not accommodating, rude, accusatory, and off-putting. To find out this was coming from the owner of the establishment put an incredibly bad taste in our mouths. Needless to say we will be giving the reservation to a friend of ours as this entire customer service experience cannot be remedied by even...