L'Ecole at the Frech Culinary Institute! Best Restaurant Week Deal Ever?

All I can say is WOW!  Thanks to my brother for finding this gem of a deal for restaurant week!  The normal price for a hearty and generous five course meal at L'Ecole is $42 (Restaurant week menu here), which is a great deal in itself.  The restaurant week deal shaves that price by $7 per person.  Why so cheap you ask?  The prices are reasonable since the cooks at the restaurant are the actual students from the French Culinary Institute in Soho, where high standards are expected.  There were three of us in our group and each of us got a different dish so we could sample all of them...and they ranged from good to spectacular!

Amuse Bouche:  

Roasted Butternut Squash soup with pumpkin seeds

Appetizer Courses: 

Oxtail Ragu with Gnocchi and Tomato Jam

Warm potato salad with goat cheese and tomato jam

Smoked Trout with sea urchin cream, seaweed, and salmon roe

Fish Courses: 

 Seared tilefish with jasmine rice, shiitake mushrooms, and cocunut milk veloute

Butter poached lobster with seared scallops and cauliflower puree

Seared striped bass with celery root puree and shiitake mushrooms

Meat Courses:  

Lamb chops with goat cheese agnolotti and lamb demi glace...this was probably my favorite dish.  

This can easily be $30 by itself in any French restaurant.

Seared pork chop with green peppercorn sauce and crispy potato cakes 

Duo of Duck: Duck leg confit and seared duck breast with curried leeks

Digestive:

Digestif salad with roasted pear and goat cheese

Desserts!  

Molten chocolate cake with goat cheese ice cream

Hazelnut raspberry torte with earl grey tea infused ice cream

Ricotta dumplings with honeyed ice cream, grape compote and candied orange chip

Yuuuum! Don't those dishes look good?  It's definitely one of the few times when I can say that I've eaten at a fancy restaurant and can genuinely say that I was STUFFED!   Restaurant week or not, I highly recommend this L'ecole and will certainly be back some time in the future!

L'Ecole
462 Broadway
(between Grand and Broome)
NYC