Aska

For my partner’s birthday, I decided on this 2 Michelin Star restaurant located in the Williamsburg area. What appealed to me originally about this was that it was not just another French restaurant. French cuisine is great, but there are so many high end French restaurants around the city. Perhaps I am getting a little burnt out of having the same French tastes over and over, so I wanted something that was less normal. I’ve never really had high end Scandinavian, so I thought today could be a good day. And to add, I had heard that they have non-alcoholic (juice) pairings, so I was excited to check this out.

Ambiance

Aska means “ashes” in Swedish.

The restaurant is located in a restored 1860s warehouse building near the edge of the Williamsburg bridge. The outside is very dark, and it’s not firmly lit, but it definitely creates a very subtle curious atmosphere that draws you in more.

The interior is quite interesting. It’s a little gloomy and dark, but it creates a very modern noir type of feeling. There is a lot of exposed brick that have been painted over with a dark charcoal grey color. The decor felt very minimalistic, but very on point with the restaurant’s theme. There appears to be a few private rooms. In the back towards the restrooms, there’s a table with display of Michelin Star stands. We saw an older couple get situated in a different room towards the front of the restaurant.

I’m not sure if it’s due to COVID, but the space between the tables were very large. We were also seated at a round table that can easily fit 4-6 people. If you’re worried about comfort, there’s plenty here.

The quality of the wait staff exceeded my expectations. They were friendly and never really gave off any pretentious vibes for a 2 star restaurant. As silly some of our questions were, they understand we were there to learn, experience, and just have a good time without any forcefulness.

One note that I was mildly disappointed about was that they did not, in fact, have juice pairings available. In lieu, I still ordered 2 drinks off their list which were good.

The total price for the dinner for 2 people not including drinks was about $749. This encompassed the cost of the $590 meal ($295 per person) + 18% service change ($106.20) + 8.875% ($52.36) tax. This was all paid through Tock at the time of reservation. The drinks we ordered were a glass of skin contact wine ($23), non-alcoholic spritz ($16), and a cocktail ($20).

Food

The left was freya which had vodka, elderflower, and licorice root. Elderflower has a pretty strong floral taste to it, so the vodka blended well with it. I could not taste the licorice root, so I imagine it was mild. The drink was very smooth.

The right non-alcoholic drink was elderflower fiz which had Cyrille Sevin and ‘Pétillant de Sureau’ from the Loire Valley of France. This tasted like the freya above just without alcohol and with some fiz from the apertif. It’s a very nice drink in that it opens up your palette and makes you feel very refresh.

The bladderwrack was served at the same time as our other starting appetizers. It was a blue mussel emulsion. The whole thing is edible, and had some interesting smokey and fish sensations to it. I definitely did not get much “mussel” tastes out of it, but it was pretty good. I liked how the flavors were all very concentrated and focused. The little white things on the twig was basically this fishy creamy concentration.

The kohlrabi was served at the same time as our other starting appetizers. It was kohlirabi, a German tunip, compressed with linden leaf oil and linden flower vinegar. This tasted like a pickled vegetable with a strong sense of floral vinegar fusion. It was really good.

The vendace was served at the same time as our other starting appetizers. It was a small tart with vendace roe marinated in horseradish oil and lilac vinegar. Vendace is a freshwater whitefish commonly found in the UK. The roe itself was salty by itself, but with the oil and vinegar it was a perfect harmony of sweetness and salty pop.

The caviar came with mackarel from Maine, oscietra caviar from Belgium, and green gooseberry and juniper. They gave a nice lump of caviar on top of the fish. This was another seafood highlight for us in that it was light, delicate, and had a lot of flavors in it.

The squid came with Long Island squid with white turnip and black currant leaf. The very thinly sliced squid was very delicate and tender. The broth itself gave a very nice complementary aromatic flavor to the raw squid.

The hake came with onion, flowering dill, and Swedish dark beer. Hake is a member of the cod family, so you can imagine the texture of the meat being chunky. The combination of the sauce flavors in the broth reminded me of a wet tartar sauce. With the fish, it felt like I was eating a delicate piece of fish with a soupy tartar sauce sensation. Even though this sounds comical, I think this dance of flavors created a very memorable experience for me.

By now, I’ve already finished my elderflower fiz, and I’ve asked for the skin contact Grüner Veltliner wine from Hager Matthias, ‘Seeberg’, Kamptal, Austria. The wine was very crispy with a very distinct bold color and flavor. The smell reminded me of apple in a way, but the taste slightly steered towards a refreshing white chardonnay but far from sweet.

The trout came with salted white currant and flavors of northern New York. The trout was so very tender and deliciously sweet. The “moss” was actually a very crispy garnish, and the broth reminded me of a salty light colored soy sauce flavor.

The roasted bun came with the belly of the trout, gently smoked and whipped with golden sorrel. I was surprised to see something that resembled more Chinese, but this was pretty good. The green herb on top reminded me of the smell from Christmas pine. The bun itself was very soft, and the fish flavors were nicely balanced.

The carrot came with Siberian sturgeon caviar and a sauce made from wild carrot flower and preserved white truffle. My partner has allergies to lobster, so this was the replacement. The carrot itself was crispy and not with a whole lot of carrot flavors. But the sauce was quite delicious in that it was very buttery. I did not taste much noticeable white truffle, and thus my partner was very happy with it since they are not fans of truffle.

The lobster came with the same sauce as the carrot except it had lobster from Maine. The lobster itself was pretty raw (maybe poached?), but it was deliciously sweet and worked great with that sauce.

The quail came from Vermont and was served with capered apple, black walnut, and a sweet bun. The quail was pretty tender, but it was not as flavorful by itself without its sauce and garnish. The sauce itself reminded me of a very salty thickened soy sauce like flavor.

The sweet bun was served along with the quail, and they asked us to soak the sauce with this. The buns were lathered with sweetness, so you can imagine the flavor profile being very sweet and very salty together. It was not my favorite for the night, but it was decent.

The roasted venison came from Hudson Valley and was served with black sunchoke and winter truffle. The venison was very tender and rare. It was superb with the salty sauce and truffle. I found the winter truffle to be very mild, so if anything it added some very subtle earthy flavors.

Along with the venison, they gave us celery root which was folded with truffle and cured dried leg of deer. The same sauce that was poured for the venison was also lightly poured over this. I didn’t realize how salty the venison sauce was until I poured that sauce into this. It was like eating a super concentrated salt dressing. I was expecting the dried elg of deer to have some flavor, but I think the sauce completely overwhelmed.

The crispy black mushroom trumpets came in a tart filled with pine mushroom and woodruff. I generally hate mushroom, but this was so very mild that it was actually quite pleasant.

The bedstraw came with ice cream made from fermented bedstraw with caramel foam from meadowsweet and wild chamomile. The ice cream was not that sweet, so it paired beautifully with the hot sweetened caramel. They definitely were not stingy with it either.

The rye leaf & clover came with the other confections as our final course of the night. This was interesting as it reminded me of a marshmallow sponge with very light sweetness and herbal esssences to it.

The madeleine & sea buckthorn reminded me of those bread cookies that have light salt sprinkled on it.

The beet & black currant (left) tasted like a cookie with some fig jam between it, and the canele swedish punsch (right) tasted like a pastry cake that had some subtle sweetness to it. Neither were very sweet, and they were quite delicious.

The salted licorice was really not that salty nor was it sweet. It definitely had a light jelly gum texture to it.

Final Verdict

Aska is a very pleasant restaurant that I think really stands out on its own. The food here is not out of this world unique, but it had some different flavor profiles that were not common in other Michelin restaurants. The service was impeccable, and we would love to try other Scandinavian centric restaurants to continue to expand our palette. We were not as full as other experiences, but that created a pleasant experience for us to walk back to the G train which was a mile away.

Yelp Jabs

And we couldn’t register a oh we love this or an oh this is odd but I guess good or maybe just odd. Regardless, we had a great time. We left quite hungry and ready for our second dinner. Street parking wasn’t too bad that night.

I’m not sure if “odd” is how I would describe. I’d probably lean on it being “different” than the norm.

When a restaurant asks about dietary restrictions and then bluntly ignores such restrictions- a piece of your soul dies.

I am not sure what happened here, but my partner’s dietary restrictions were met. Perhaps this Yelper had no soul to begin with because they had a numbered list of restrictions.