The Golden Swan

This is the 11th Street address The Spotted Pig left in January 2020. Amber Sutherland-Namako gave what replaced it four stars out of five for Time Out New York.1

Why go

Doug Brixton was cooking here at that review, straight off the now-closed Batard.1 His steak tartare is minced tenderloin under garlic aioli, a brown butter emulsion and Parmesan flakes. It and the caviar are the only things served in both rooms. The Crescent duck arrives in two wedges, the skin crisp and the fat rendered. Beside it sit beets sliced thin and folded. They are filled with shallots that have been buttered, herbed, slow-cooked and pureed.1

The Wallace Room on the first floor is the bar half, in emerald and chartreuse. The Dining Room upstairs is warm beige and built for sitting still.1 2

Matthew Abramcyk named the place for a saloon that stood at West 4th and Sixth Avenue. By the house's own account it ran for nearly fifty years under Thomas Wallace, a blind prize fighter out of the Hudson Dusters street gang. He kept two doormen, and two pigs in the basement to eat the rubbish. John Sloan painted it. Eugene O'Neill drank in it and built Harry Hope's saloon out of it. Prohibition shut it, and the subway took the building.2

Order this / avoid

Order: the Crescent duck. Sutherland-Namako priced it at $48 in August 2023 and called the beets beside it a banner moment.1
Order: the steak tartare, $34 at the same reading, in either room.1
Avoid: the cocktail list. Her line is that it is twice as long and half as good as it needs to be. The Manhattans and martinis ran $19 to $23 then.1

What locals & experts say

Amber Sutherland-Namako, in Time Out New York, on the host posted outside the door: It's dated, alienating and impractical. She adds that what is inside is rather nice and that the pomp does it a disservice.1
Matt Abramcyk, to The Wall Street Journal and quoted in that review, on what he was after: We're trying to create a clubhouse without being a membership club.1
The Infatuation carries the room as French-Mediterranean in the West Village and says plainly that it has not been.3

Good to know

Sides are separate. The tri-color cauliflower with garam masala, labneh and mint was $15.1
The original saloon's site is now the Golden Swan Garden, a small park at West 4th Street and Sixth Avenue.2

Verdict

should-visit — Pick your floor before you book. The Wallace Room downstairs runs a shorter and cheaper card; upstairs is where the money goes.

The Golden Swan.