Gage and Tollner
Gage and Tollner has been on my list for quite a while now. I was casually browsing for restaurants with baked alaska, and this had shown up high on people’s list. Whenever I had tried to look at reservations, it was pretty booked. I was very lucky to have found an open reservation for 2 at 5 PM on a Sunday the night before. So how did it go?
Ambiance
The interior has a very old school prohibition feel. It definitely reminds me of NYC chophouses in Midtown. They sat us in a booth which was fairly comfortable. When the crowds start showing up, you start hearing the bustling noise which can drown out your conversation.
The service was fairly prompt, but the food was slightly slow in pace.
Food
The Manhattan ($16 - left) tasted pretty good. It was smooth, and whatever they used for the whiskey in this was nice.
The Champagne Cocktail ($16 - right) was also decent. It was a bubbly champagne drink that had subtle sweetness to it. My partner thought this was appropriate for our occasion.
The She-Crab Soup ($21) came with blue crab and a side of sherry. The staff helped split the soup in half. This soup had plenty of good flavors and little bits of crab meat.
The Veal Chop ($58) came with roasted shallot porcini verjus. This was ordered medium, and it was fairly tender and had a nice char to it. I did not read carefully that the sauce had mushroom in it, so I was a little surprised. It was edible enough where it didn’t bother me that much. The verjus sauce was actually very flavorful, and my partner was spooning the sauce to drink it. I don’t remember how many ounces this steak was, but I’m a little indifferent on if it was worth it.
The NY Strip ($64) came medium rare with roasted garlic and some butter. The strip had a nice char to it, and this all tasted pretty good. Despite that, I think I have some hesitation on the value of this.
The Butter Roasted Hash Browns ($14) had some sort of white cream sauce around it. It did remind me a bit of the she-crab soup that we had earlier. The hash browns was actually just thin sheets of potato stacked, similar to mill cake slices. It was good.
The Baked Alaska for 2 ($26) came with fresh mint, dark chocolate, and amarena cherry ice cream layers, chocolate crunch, and toasted swiss meringue. Unlike other baked alaskas, this one did not come with a flambé. Regardless, it was good. The meringue was actually overly abundant and a slightly over sweet for me. Despite that, I really enjoyed the ice cream underneath. If you like maraschino cherries, you will taste a lot of that here. The mint is not like normal store mint ice cream, but instead, it tasted like fresh mint ice cream which was different than I’m used to. Overall, this is what we came here to eat, and we did enjoy it. Compared to the other baked alaskas I’ve had, this was probably slightly above average.
Final Verdict
Gage and Tollner is a very decent chophouse in the downtown Brooklyn neighborhood. The food here is not spectacular by any means, but it does have a decent baked alaska if that was of interest.
Yelp Jabs
G&T is one of the restaurants that lives up to the hype. The food is rich and flavorful.
I definitely disagree with this Elitist. I didn’t find the food to be rich and flavorful. It didn’t leave a lasting impression as a whole.
Baked Alaska - had homemade mint ice cream in it which was off putting… I really did not enjoy this and took only two bites.
I definitely did not think the mint ice cream was off-putting. It could be that this Elitist simply does not like fresh mint.
Revisions
- Oct 16, 2022 - Initial revision.