I have long followed the culinary career of Anthony Gonçalves since, as a self-taught chef, he owned a popular restaurant in the New York suburb of White Plains named Trotters, before being hired as executive chef at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel that went up nearby. His talent was evident immediately, proudly based on Iberian traditions, although in the aerie on the 42nd and 43rd floors of the hotel, his cuisine became more expansive and a bit self-consciously modernist, based on the fad for extravagant compositions pioneered by chef Ferran Adrià. Gonçalves also had an adjunct where he served tapas in wistful ways.
Now, with a new owner and a name change to the Opus Westchester as of last May, the former dining room is all event space, with an adjacent hallway that is now Gonçalves’s most impressive and personal effort yet, called Kanopi, whose altitude (reached by taking two elevators) and wall of windows allows a panorama that stretches from the Hudson River to the cityscape of Manhattan. As spring comes on, a table at twilight is quite beautiful.
The space itself, with just six tables, each oddly blocked from view of each other, used to have a bright open kitchen on the opposite wall, but Gonçalves says he hated being gawked at and now it’s just a gray wall. The table settings, with white tablecloths, set with little Jeff Koons-style figurines, glow nicely in the soft lighting. Stemware is of good quality, and various dishes are served on various china.
Kanopi offers three tasting menus, whose dishes change often. (Gonçalves says he keeps track of guests’ meals and vows never to repeat a dish when they return.) The six-course vegan menu is $145, with $100 wine pairings available; the five-course “Bem Vindos” menu of mixed foods is $145, with wines at $95; the seven-course Chef’s Tasting Voyage is $195, with wines at $125.
While I have my reservations about proselytizing vegans, I am as delighted as any to feast on vegetable presentations as delectable as Gonçalves’s, all of them richly flavorful (without dairy) and texturally refined.
I haven’t the space to do justice in describing all the many dishes from the three menus my party of three enjoyed, so I’ll focus on those most representative of the innovation and quality of ingredients.
We began with richly creamy cow’s milk cheese, roasted garlic, lardo and anchovies (these last extremely salty) as a fine rustic beginning squarely in the tapas tradition, as was tempura-fried shitake mushrooms, string beans and eggplant with Marcona almond butter and a touch of Catalonian honey mustard. There was more goat’s cheese with beautiful magenta beets, lightly smoked trout roe and yogurt, and then a hamachi ceviche tangy with finger limes and a Meyer lemon-honey vinaigrette. Ricotta was combined with black truffles along with São Jorge cheese tortellini in a sprightly, refreshing lemon-dashi cacio e peperendition. A nicely chewy risotto obtained its chocolate brown color from mushrooms.
Perfectly grilled branzino with a crispy skin came with sweet parsnips, the scent of garlic and an enoki mushroom escabeche. A beef dish was made from the deckle (which is the basis of pastrami) sliced away from the loins and possessing a tremendous amount of sweet fatty marbling, accompanied by Yukon gold potato, scallions and grilled romaine lettuce.
The desserts were playful: banana flan and ice cream, chocolate, chestnut, pistachio and black truffles; and a surprisingly tasty foie gras macaron, with tomato and toasted sesame seeds.
The menu says that a meal at Kanopi may take two to three hours, and the latter is far more likely, and, with many glasses of wine (there is a specialty cocktail list, too) and so much food, it may seem laborious to some. Service is cordial and sommelier Danny Martins is very knowledgeable about the extensive wine list of Portugal’s finest bottlings.
I keep my use of the word “extraordinary” to a minimum in my reports, but no other word so well describes the food that Gonçalves is producing at Kanopi, with every dish impeccably thought through, balanced and presented with imagination and remarkable technique.
Although the Michelin Guide has little of the credibility it used to, the company has in recent years recommended a few Westchester County restaurants as good choices. With the opening of Kanopi, the Guide might well want to award a star or two this year and suggest a trip to White Plains for anyone interested in food at this level.
KANOPI
The Opus Westchester Hotel
1 Renaissance Square, White Plains, NY
914-761-4242
Kanopi is open for dinner Wed.-Sat. Free valet parking.
