YingTao

Owner Bolun Yao's beloved grandmother serves as both the namesake and culinary inspiration for this stylish Hell's Kitchen hideaway, an unassumingly ambitious project that aims to reinterpret Chinese cuisine through the lens of Western fine dining. Chef Jakub Baster lends his experienced hand to the effort, composing elegant dishes that blend a wide array of Chinese flavors and ingredients with elements of French technique and a contemporary style. The results are simultaneously inventive and familiar. Flavors tend toward subtlety, with careful attention paid to textures, as in a silky soy milk custard matched with celery root, and savory, mildly spiced doubanjiang, or rich crab noodles with egg yolk and smoked tobiko. To finish, a reimagining of nian gao (sweet rice cake) is sure to delight.

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