Celebrating at L2O

It’s become a tradition for us to celebrate D’s birthday at L2O – certainly no hardship for me!  


I was particularly excited about this most recent visit, since I’ve been following Chef Matthew Kirkey’s latest kitchen project – a tank system split into Pacific and Atlantic sections – on his blog.  (I really highly recommend reading it, by the way.  It’s fascinating to see “behind the scenes” reflections directly from such a talented chef.)


The canapé is a very clever trio of what appear to be miniature fruits, but are in fact hollow spheres of melon and cucumber filled with various delicacies – honeydew and oyster, canteloupe and foie gras, and cucumber and smoked salmon mousse.  The honeydew and oyster combination was my favorite, light and sweet and briny.

To make D’s birthday extra special, we added a caviar course.  The osetra caviar was accompanied by toast points, creme fraiche, and little bowls of egg salad – all a bit extraneous beside the lovely caviar.

After a bite of “mussel tart” – actually a sort of very light mousse – we received our first dish made with tank-fresh seafood, this time geoduck clam sliced ever so thinly and served with a manilla clam gelee.  Perhaps not surprisingly, it was utterly pristine.

Chef Kirkley, like me, is from Maryland – and the next course was definitely inspired by our home state.  Do you recognize this guy?  A Maryland blue crab, whose shell was lifted to reveal a little glass of crab meat en gelee with fennel cream.

Next came a stunning little disc of foie gras mousse, lightened with argan oil (that also added a really interesting flavor).  On top, a jewel-like mosaic of diced scallop and cubes of sherry vinegar gelee, and hon-shimeji mushrooms so tiny they could only have come from some enchanted forest. 

There was more scallop, this time in a cute little dumpling covered in green polka dots – a pretty dish but perhaps the least exciting of the evening.  


Our fish dish offered one last gasp of summer, with a south of France sort of feel – black bass with cherry tomatoes and black olive puree, transformed into spheres to masquerade as more cherry tomatoes, with miniature basil serving as stems.

After the fish, we each received our own hot pot for shabu shabu, to cook thinly-sliced abalone (also straight from the tank), kampachi, and cold foie gras, along with some vegetables.  The abalone cooked almost instantly and curled slightly, but was still delicate and tender, as was the kampachi.  I found the foie gras a little too heavy and rich, though.

Finally, there were two courses of Maine lobster, the first of claw meat with grilled potato, mushrooms, and a hollandaise sauce, and the second of lobster tail layered grandly between dry-aged ribeye with a rich sauce.


For a palate cleanser, we had a black walnut foam with honeycrisp apple.  Then our first dessert arrived, a showstopper with flavor to match: raspberries in a cold yuzu soup, with mascarpone sorbet, a white chocolate rosette, and glimmering gold leaf.  The sweet, citrusy tang of yuzu is wonderful and refreshing.

As usual, no meal is complete without chocolate!  To finish, we had a chocolate egg filled with manjari chocolate mousse, surrounded by coffee foam and icy malt “snow.”

After mignardises, we had a true after-dinner treat – a tour of the kitchen to see the new tanks in person.  In the Pacific tank, a menagerie of abalone, two langoustines, and a lone, extraordinarily peculiar-looking geoduck clam.  In the other tank, a pair of blue lobsters enjoyed their less crowded surroundings.