Photograph by Grant Cornett.
José Ramírez-Ruiz and Pamela Yung make their own rules. After stints in high-profile kitchens all over New York, the chefs, who are also a couple, decided to jump on the pop-up bandwagon: their food, their life savings, someone else’s space. “If we’re gonna go down, we’re gonna go down doing exactly what we want,” Ramírez-Ruiz said. More than a year later, Chez José, their roving reservation-only restaurant, is thriving. They started out in a South Williamsburg coffee shop, making do with just a hot plate and a small induction oven, then moved around the corner to Lake Trout, a shuttered fish-sandwich shop they’ve left untouched. And so, for now, their elegant, vegetable-focussed tasting menu is served beneath a Dairy Queen-style menu board advertising “cheese fish” and “Western fries.” (Unwitting passersby occasionally bound in hoping for a sandwich.) The walls are faux-wood-panelled; the orange plastic bucket seats are bolted to the floor; the clean but graffitied bathroom is straight out of a dive bar.
With freedom comes responsibility. Yung and Ramírez-Ruiz work entirely alone, and it’s a small miracle that they manage to serve ten courses—not to mention explain each dish in detail, pour wine (it’s B.Y.O.B.), and bus tables—in between cooking them. One night in late summer, they distributed miniature tumblers of earthy, fragrant chilled tomato-carrot soup, bobbing with cold Sungolds that functioned almost like ice. Bowls of creamy, al-dente risotto came layered with raw mandolined button mushrooms, which cooked gently when bathed, tableside, in molten brown butter. Baskets of warm bread—if Yung is an “accidental baker,” as she puts it, it’s a happy accident—earned a course of their own, showcasing springy sourdough and a decadent green-garlic-nettle brioche, like a savory cinnamon bun.
A few weeks later, tender sweet-potato leaves were fashioned into hand rolls and filled with sweet-potato purée, crisp heirloom apple, and a medley of crunchy seeds. Tangy buttermilk panna cotta, topped with tomatoes confited in caramel-vanilla vinegar and cracked-open figs, successfully pushed the boundaries of dessert. Because they’re harder to source sustainably, meat and fish appear sparingly at Chez José, but Ramírez-Ruiz and Yung are hardly animal averse. In summer, they host a Sunday pig roast in the backyard of a Williamsburg bar, allowing participants to choose their own cuts. Here’s hoping they continue doing exactly what they want.
OPEN TUESDAYS AND THURSDAYS FOR DINNER. PRIX-FIXE $55. RESERVATIONS ARE REQUIRED.
Footnote:
Next time I am in NYC I will be making a reservation !
With freedom comes responsibility. Yung and Ramírez-Ruiz work entirely alone, and it’s a small miracle that they manage to serve ten courses—not to mention explain each dish in detail, pour wine (it’s B.Y.O.B.), and bus tables—in between cooking them. One night in late summer, they distributed miniature tumblers of earthy, fragrant chilled tomato-carrot soup, bobbing with cold Sungolds that functioned almost like ice. Bowls of creamy, al-dente risotto came layered with raw mandolined button mushrooms, which cooked gently when bathed, tableside, in molten brown butter. Baskets of warm bread—if Yung is an “accidental baker,” as she puts it, it’s a happy accident—earned a course of their own, showcasing springy sourdough and a decadent green-garlic-nettle brioche, like a savory cinnamon bun.
A few weeks later, tender sweet-potato leaves were fashioned into hand rolls and filled with sweet-potato purée, crisp heirloom apple, and a medley of crunchy seeds. Tangy buttermilk panna cotta, topped with tomatoes confited in caramel-vanilla vinegar and cracked-open figs, successfully pushed the boundaries of dessert. Because they’re harder to source sustainably, meat and fish appear sparingly at Chez José, but Ramírez-Ruiz and Yung are hardly animal averse. In summer, they host a Sunday pig roast in the backyard of a Williamsburg bar, allowing participants to choose their own cuts. Here’s hoping they continue doing exactly what they want.
OPEN TUESDAYS AND THURSDAYS FOR DINNER. PRIX-FIXE $55. RESERVATIONS ARE REQUIRED.
Footnote:
Next time I am in NYC I will be making a reservation !
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