Emmerson

There are restaurant "concepts" — easy to define in a word or two, recognizable in format by potential customers — and then there are restaurants. For a new eatery aiming to serve breakfast, lunch and dinner from a team of creative and forward-looking chefs and bakers, a pat definition isn't easy, or even desirable. That's the case at Emmerson, which opened in August 2017. Under executive chef/partner Michael Gibney and pastry chef/partner Jeb Breakell, the cuisine careens between the familiar and the astonishing. A straight-up bodega breakfast sandwich appeals to the New Yorker in all of us, and croissants crackle in a pitch-perfect French accent, but dinner challenges guests with unusual combinations of flavors and textures. On the opening menu, jiggly raw oysters robed in velvet sheets of raw beef shouldn't have worked, but they did, tied together with sharp mustard, radish and scallions. Fresh pastas are dressed in both simple peasant wear and stylish modern couture. Emmerson offers something edgy lacking in many other establishments: excitement and anticipation — for the next dish out of the kitchen and the next visit to see what's new.