• davidburke & donatella

  133 East 61st Street, 212-813-2121

  Really good lobster, as any aficionado knows, rarely goes down without a fight. That seems to be the idea behind the inspired “crisp and angry lobster cocktail,” served as an appetizer at David Burke’s eponymous new restaurant davidburke & donatella’s (Donatella is Burke’s partner, Donatella Arpaia). Burke steams his lobster, quarters it, rolls the shells in a mixture of hot red Cajun spices, then spikes them upright, in attitudes of anger and distress, on a large flower holder. The result is an inventive, challenging mess of a meal, an ingenious combination of food art and pure eating pleasure. You’ll need many napkins to tackle Burke’s whiskery dish, and possibly a bib. Have all your friends order it, then engage in that rarest of events: an Upper East Side lobster wallow.

From the 2004 Best of New York issue of New York Magazine