The concept behind Feast is banquet style dining, where you are able to taste and share a wide slew of dishes with your friends. Feast offers 3 different menus for your table to choose from, and the menus change every so often, so it’s nice to see the restaurant strive to use what is fresh and in season. Keep in mind the entire table has to go with one menu, so come with like-minded or rather like-palated people. I was very enamored with this whole concept and got to try the Farmer’s Market (vegetarian) feast with a friend.

Ultimately, we were served 9 dishes: 4 appetizers, 4 entrees, and 1 dessert. GIven the huge repertoire, there’s bound to be both hits and misses. Appetizers started out with a tomato tarte tartin. Sweet and tart, this was a good start to the meal.

A excellent salad of burrata, endive, baby beets, and watercress. All the components worked really well together. I have grown from not liking beets to quite enjoying them, and these beets were beautiful and fresh.

The white gazpacho made from cucumber, almonds, and grapes was refreshing and cool. It also was a cute little surprise to find grapes on the bottom of the soup.

My favorite appetizer is this pea falafel topped with pea greens and radish strips. Falafel made of peas? So whimsical and so delicious. I wish pea falafel was something I can get regularly because this beats regular falafel by a wide margin.

Compared to the appetizers, the main dishes didn’t measure up as well. This summer vegetable gratin fell flat for me. The gratin was watery and was hard to eat as the layers fell apart. Flavors were one-dimensional and needed something extra to amp it up.

I had similar feelings towards the stuffed artichokes. The artichokes were filled with a tabouleh salad, which was bland and boring. I don’t think I finished mine because I was getting full and wanted to use my remaining stomach space on these other dishes that I liked.

Thankfully, the remaining two dishes fared better. A fava bean agnolotti in a parmesan sauce and garnished with pistachios. It’s a tasty combination, and I liked the contrast of the soft pasta with the crunchy pistachios.

These grit cakes with corn and mushrooms were really good! We scooped up every last bit of this dish.

While there were highs and lows in the 8 dishes above, dessert hit it out of the park. We have mixed berry shortcakes with vanilla bean whipped cream. The shortcake and whipped cream were amazing, and I loved that the whole thing was not too sweet.

It’s nuts that this meal consisted of 9 different dishes – that’s a lot! We ate a lot! Not every dish came up to expectations, but I thought the menu was whimsical and creative. The pea falafel, grit cakes, and of course the shortcake certainly left an impression. I still love this feasting concept, and I would love to try their non-vegetarian menu next time.

Feast

102 3rd Ave (btw 13th & 12th St) New York, NY 10003