Beauty & Essex (New York City)

Beauty & Essex- what an interesting name. What would you instantly think of when you hear such a name? Well, this name reflects a funky and very happening restaurant. The intriguing bit is that the shop front is actually a pawn shop. YES, you read it right! A pawn shop!

As I mentioned before in previous posts, we meet up as a group for dinner. This time Sami organised for us to have dinner at Beauty & Essex. Once I stepped into the pawn shop, there is a door at the end of the small store and a burly but well dressed security man standing in front of this door. He opened the door and I stepped into another world. Seriously!

This place has a very popular bar and 2 levels of dining space. The ladies restroom is a story in itself. I walked into the restroom and at the end of the room there is a counter of champagne glasses waiting to be filled and served to any of us by an attendant. Imagine that! Champagne in a public toilet!?!?

When we finally got to our tables, we were then challenged with deciding what to order. Tonight is pay what you order and I decided to not go overboard and just have one dish. I decided to ignore what our waiter recommended as the house specialties of Grilled Cheese, Smoked Bacon and Tomato Soup Dumplings; and the Tuna Poke Wonton Tacos.

Instead I ordered Lobster Tacos which consisted of beer battered Maine lobster and red cabbage slaw. Two of the other ladies on our table decided to heed the waiter's advice and selected the Grilled Cheese dumplings.

Before my ordered dish arrived we were served what I would call Tomato Gazpacho. It was quite palate cleansing.

My lobster tacos was delicious. I couldn't find fault with it. But when the Grilled Cheese dumplings arrived for my dining mates and they were raving on about how good it was, I felt compelled to order the dish for myself too. How could I not?

The dumplings were served in the Chinese style spoons with the tomato soup as the base and the bacon as little bits on the top of the dumpling. Was it good? Oh yes! Delicious and quite unique. I don't know all the dishes that were ordered by the rest of the group as we were split into 2 tables but I think I was lucky in ordering the right dishes.

When we left later on, I still couldn't get my head wrapped around the fact that I was exiting a pawn shop at the front. Just weird but very New York!


Beauty & Essex
146 Essex Street
New York
NY 10002
Website: beautyandessex.com