Caviar Kaspia At The Mark. Discover Sensational Caviar In New York

Anthea Gerrie visits Caviar Kaspia at the Mark and Feasts On Fish Eggs And Lobster At The Manhattan Outpost of The Parisian Legend.

I could not have picked a more picture-perfect location than Caviar Kaspia at the Mark to join the Ladies Who Lunch on New York’s Upper East Side for the first time since the late legendary cosmetic doyenne Estee Lauder took me to her own favourite haunt, Le Cirque.

While that was firmly rooted in the old world, the Manhattan outpost of the famous Paris caviar house, installed within another legend, the Mark Hotel, is an elegant classic tailored for 21st century dining. Although you can eat on a terrace shaded in the brand’s signature turquoise to take in the street life of upscale Madison Avenue, it would be a shame to miss the wood-panelled dining room with its abstract art and teal velvet banquettes set off by turquoise linen.

Only what you’d expect from an interior by Jacques Grange, whose past clients include Princess Caroline of Monaco, couturiers Valentino and Yves Saint Laurent and yet another legend, the French writer Colette.

When it comes to the menu, caviar is obviously the thing, and given nothing washes down tiny rare fish eggs better than ice-cold vodka, I accepted the suggestion of a vodka martini pre-infused and chilled with lychee syrup with a refreshing whole fruit in the bottom of the glass.

Being used to tasting caviar atop a just-boiled new potato, the starter of miniature baked potatoes topped with five different varieties from Kaspia’s wide selection ($90) made an appetiser on which to feast the eyes as well as the tastebuds. I requested and was served a little pot of creme fraiche, which for me makes the perfect foil for the salty black gold, and a little smattering of finely-chopped raw red onion would have made the dish perfect for this descendant of Russian peasants.

You don’t have to be a fan of sturgeon roe to enjoy Kaspia’s New York menu, and my companion generously offered a taste of his equally luxurious Milan’s salad, a combo of silky smoked salmon, white crab meat and green beans atop a pile of well-dressed leaves ($65).

For my only meal of the day before flying home from a steamy New York City it had to be a taste of unsurpassable lobster from Maine ($68), served here with the kind of delicate light dressing ladies who lunch tend to prefer, but for me enriched by the kind of robust, French-mustardy mayonnaise I feel chilled lobster cries out, and brought on request without so much as the raise of an eyebrow I might have encountered from my imperious hostess at Le Cirque.

It was a beautiful plate, thanks to dots of green and orange herb gel echoing the bright coral of the lobster and the bed of green beans on which the medallions were laid to rest after being expertly excised from their shell.

There was a final surprise with dessert – who would expect cannoli to be decorated with a decent slug of caviar at either end, a perfect foil for the creamy filling? Salty as well as sweet, delicate enough to tempt the LWL yet rich enough to thrill the Siciians who invented the pastry, it was a perfectly on-trend 21st century ending to a meal at a restaurant due to celebrate its centenary in 2027 while remaining forever young.