Nougatine by Jean-Georges — Restaurant in New York

Came here recently with a group of 4 to try their lunch prix fixe menu. We had made reservations and we were immediately seated upon arrival. The restaurant is in the Trump Tower. They don't have a big name sign out in front so you can easily miss it.

I ordered the shrimp salad, crispy black sea bass, and pavlova for dessert. I was able to try the tuna tartare, cheeseburger, roasted hake, and warm chocolate cake.

Overall, my favorite dish was the cheeseburger. The meat was super flavorful. I think they add something to the beef before making it into a patty. The yuzu pickles added a different level of flavor profile that really complemented the other components of the burger. One issue I had was the bun. I thought there were too many sesame seeds and there could have been a better choice in bun used for the dish. Despite that, this is an excellent dish and worth the $38 prix fixe.

I thought the tuna tartare and shrimp salad were good but nothing out of the extra ordinary. Everything was fairly spot on. I thought the shrimps were over cooked. They were dishes that work and they are very consistent at making these dishes excellent every time.

The hake is definitely a meatier fish than the sea bass. Both were great dishes. There wasn't a fishy taste/smell to them. The skin on the sea bass was crispy and not soggy at all. I thought the cauliflower taste wasn't strong enough and overpowered by the other ingredients.

Hats go off to the pastry chef that made the pavlova. It was super soft and light. It was contained in this crispy sugar shell (i don't know the fancy name for it) but everything was in harmony for this dish. The choice of sorbet matched the pavlova and the strawberries were fresh and sweet. To me, I thought this was a more complicated dish to make when compared to the chocolate cake. However, the chocolate cake was amazing as well. The chocolate literally oozed out of the cake once you cut into it. The cake was still warm when they brought it out. The cake was so soft and the chocolate was super rich. I initially the cake would be harder that it looked but boy was I surprised. Both were so delicious.

The decor is really nice. The place is spacious with tons of natural sunlight. Everything is "bright" inside.

Overall, great restaurant, definitely worth coming here for the prix fixe. Both of his restaurants are right next to each other and the food come out from the same kitchen. I just wonder if they have a different chef for the dinner menu. I'll come back here for dinner at Jean Georges to see if it's worth it. My suspicion is that you're getting the same chef that cooks for both restaurants. If that's the case, just go to Nougatine to get excellent food at a lower...

I had dinner at Nougatine at 9pm on Aug 4 2019. The staffs and manager are unprofessional for the process from taking orders to the billing process for the following reasons:

Staff/waiter would pose as a manager and gave confusing answers, 3 waiters constantly come to interrupt our conversation to take dinner order while we are still waiting for answers from one of the stuff, posed to be the manager before the real manager finally approached us as the 5th person.

The restaurant is unable to manage their inventory supply for the demand. we picked 2 entries out of their menu, both are sold out. As an experienced chief and renown restaurant, unable to budget for restaurant week traffic seems to be unreasonable for not one, but 2 entries being out.

Billing process is a chaos: the staff does't check the dinner order with the table # when processing the payment. We were wrongfully charged 400+ dollars on our card for somebody else's bill.

When the bill was first presented, it has amounted $89, we gave our card, then the signature sheet came back: there are 2 bills presented (see attached pictures): A. 2 copies of the $518 bill: we quickly checked our bank credit card, 518 was charged through and has already appeared in our bank. B. our own $89 bill's signature sheet: the $89 amount was not charged to the card, but a signature sheet was presented. ( I am not sure how it is possible to have signature sheet without the card being charged)

Manager has poor managerial skills: From what I experienced: staff would bring another staff to pose as the manager. pretending to solve the problem, and the billing mistake for not checking table # for the bill (mentioned above), I am not sure what kind of training is in place for the staff. Instead of dealing with the problem and offer a gesture, the manager asked us/the customer to deal with it and understand that it is a training for the stuffs. It seems to me to understand and excuse their unprofessional doing should be by will, but the manager made me feel like it was an obligation.

I was hoping to come and have a nice dinner, not to treated as a training tutorial for the staff. Based on what I experienced last night, I have a deep concern for the Jean Gorge management and brand...

Came during Restaurant Week Lunch. Food quality on the Restaurant Week menu was very disappointing. My 2 Stars is only for great Staff & Atmosphere - I have no complaints with these. I would not attend for this menu if you have any expectations. I'm going to write out my experience in detail to help explain the surprising 2 star rating. We had: Creamy Tomato Soup, Sea Trout Sashimi, Roasted Organic Chicken, and Wild Gulf Flounder. During bread service, the bread was a temperature of bread that had been left sitting out and did not have a distinct taste. The butter was served rock solid and was very difficult to spread. The appetizers were the better half of this meal, though the soup reminded me of Campbell's not in a childhood reminiscent way but rather as a very real curiosity if they actually began by using Campbell's tomato soup in the back. The sashimi was good, but it was a similar quality to many less highly-regarded restaurants. The Main Dishes: The Roasted Organic Chicken was dry, and the chef appeared to try to counteract this with an overabundance of aromatic (five-spice) broth that did not save the dish. The cut cabbage, onions, and beans were fine, but the monotony of the broth drenching everything was as disappointing as the dryness in the chicken. The Flounder was essentially traditional Fish & Chips, though pan fried in oil instead of deep fried. We did not expect potato chips to come with this dish as they were not listed on the menu. The entire dish was both oily and messy due to the paprika butter. If you have any confusion on what "Potato Ravioli" may mean, it means that there is a fairly large portion of buttered mashed potatoes wrapped in pasta. No discernible cheese. No meat. Just buttered/salted potatoes. It was essentially a mashed potato wanton. Everything felt more simpler than advertised for a restaurant of that caliber. We knew it's a sister-restaurant, but other reviews had reassured us that quality would be similar. I hope that our experience was a one-off rather than the usual, but I can't imagine that this 2020 restaurant week menu will improve by the end...