NYC Restaurant Reviews | donuts4dinner.com » roosevelt island
Chef David Santos’s secret suppers, Um Segredo, are the fun of a dinner party (minus the clean-up) combined with the food of a world-class restaurant (not your friend’s thawed lasagna). You follow the signs once you get to Roosevelt Island, hand your wine over to Chef Santos, and settle in at a long table for a night of great conversation, great service, and even greater cooking that all makes for such a good time it’s somehow midnight before you know it. We loved our first time at Um Segredo, but we exclaimed over our second time.
Swinging Summer dinner, $55
Everyone digging in to the homemade bread–called flatbread but actually some of the fluffiest bread around–and “Portuguese butter”, a drippy lard spread that’s heavy on the black pepper and should probably be the only reason you need to attend Um Segredo.
chilled corn soup
Light and fresh but still creamy, almost buttery. So good my friend Anthony couldn’t be bothered with his spoon.
striped bass crudo, tomato vin, candy fennel seeds, pickled red onion
Played with bright and rich with the onion and fennel fronds, slick and crunchy with the bass and the seeds, and sour and sweet with the tomato and the candied fennel. My group of six was split between thinking the fish tasted fishy and thinking it was surprisingly mild, but all of us agreed that it was pleasant, and it managed to maintain a firm texture despite the purposely-thick cuts.
The Cape Cod Headache: dogfish, heirloom potato salad, spicy BBQ sauce, cornbread crumble
Apparently dogfish is taking over Cape Cod and eating everything in sight, especially the tuna. Apparently most people consider it junk fish, and the fishermen want it to die. Apparently we used to sell it to the Brits for mere cents just to get rid of it. This tooooooooootally prejudiced forum thread about eating dogfish has people saying things like, “The Chinese make soup wit the rocks at the bottom of the ocean; they’ll eat anything–dog fish eyeballs, whatever.” My group thought it was like a milder, less-oily catfish. And we couldn’t imagine why people are afraid to eat it.
polenta fritter
The menu said squash blossom tortellini, but the squash blossoms couldn’t be procured, so Chef Santos came up with this replacement spur-of-the-moment to no complaints from us. The fried basil was both novel and added a crunch that the otherwise bready fritter needed.
boston baked beans, crispy pork belly, maple foam
This pork belly was every bit as crunchy as it looks. And the foam really did taste like maple. And it sure shouldn’t have complimented the beans, but it sure did.
I joined Chef Santos in the kitchen for a moment to watch him put the finishing touches on the plum dessert. He had this deliiiiicious bay leaf ice cream that he brought back in to us from the kitchen after everyone had finished their scoop and asked if anyone wanted seconds. My roommate, bless his soul, said, “I’m going to embarrass you and ask for more of the crumble.” Knowing how things are in fine dining and that the kitchen doesn’t just have extras of everything sitting around that they can thaw out for any old customer, I hissed, “DO NOT EMBARRASS ME.”
Well, you might notice the half-filled tray of leftover and available crumble in the background of my pictures. Oops.
plum cobbler, brown sugar crumble, bay leaf ice cream
I’m not sure Chef Santos will ever top the warm, soupy chocolate puddingmoussecake he made at the first Um Segredo I went to, but this was pretty outstanding. The fact that this guy is serving up super-high-end, super-inventive savory courses and then ALSO makes dessert never ceases to amaze my friends and me.
And a good time was had by all.
Um Segredo, a Secret Supper Club
Even though Chef Dave Santos’s secret dinner clubs have been mentioned on the New York Times and BlackBook websites, have their own Facebook page, and are openly discussed on Chowhound and Mouthfuls, you still feel like you’re privy to something pretty special when you reserve a seat at one of these intimate dinners and receive your e-mail confirmation with directions to the private location on Roosevelt Island. I always say that there are no hidden gems in NYC because the ubiquitous review sites inevitably expose them within weeks of opening, but this is fine dining that’s literally hidden.
All of my food-eatin’ friends had been to Um Segredo–Portuguese for “a secret”–months before my boyfriend and I finally went with our pal Nik, but I’m pretty sure we picked the best dinner possible for our first one: the one with the beer pairings. Each course was served with beer home-brewed by Chef Santos’s roommate, and all of the proceeds from the dinner went toward his future brewpub. Between the painstakingly prepared beer and the menu imagined by a former Per Se and Bouley chef, there was no way we were going to walk away disappointed by this dinner. In fact, we brought more friends with us to our second Santos-hosted dinner, and we’re bringing even more friends with us to tonight’s Um Segredo. Everyone wants in on the secret and the opportunity to watch this chef at work.
Here’s a reminder of our first great experience to get our stomach juices flowing:
One Dude Brew $85
April 27th
shandy
oyster
fat butter
Chef Santos called this butter. And then after we’d all tasted it, he told us it was lard. And then we all slathered much, much more of it on our bread.
moules frites (mussels & fries)
crispy duck salad, banana puree, spring rice
fish-n-“chips”, mushy peas, tempura carrot
pork belly, polenta cake, slaw, bbq sauce
spiced molten chocolate cake, vanilla gelato
So good I can still taste it all these months later. It was less like cake and more like thick, hot puddingmousse.
Spanish Hipster and Mrs. Spanish Hipster social media-ing the meal
the moon rising over the Queensboro Bridge back into Manhattan
Put yourself on the Um Segredo mailing list, and I’ll see you at the next one.