Per SE Restaurant   

10 Columbus Cir
New York, NY 10019
212-823-9335
www.perseny.com

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In the same way that a hit single can sustain a musician throughout a career, a signature dish can catapult a chef to the top of the charts. For Thomas Keller, of Napa's unparalleled French Laundry, that dish is Oysters and Pearls. In a small ramekin, a savory and warm custard of tapioca pearls coddles two raw oysters and a slash of Iranian caviar. Everything's pearl-shaped, but each bursts differently on the tongue: the tapioca bursts creamy; the oysters burst fresh and briny; and the caviar bursts salty and fishy. It begins the nine-course chef's tasting menu at Per Se, where a meal cannot cost less $100/person and a reservation cannot be secured without constant vigilance. It also takes vigilance to enter Per Se, since the gold-handled blue doors are fakes: You enter through automatic sliding glass panels on either side. Once inside, the organic-material-designed dining room is arranged stadium-seating style around the view of Columbus Circle and the lights across Central Park South. With dinner taking an average of three hours, Per Se is so distinctive it ought to be called something other than a restaurant. As you ramble through your tasting -- foie gras, raw tuna, poached lobster, seared duck, roasted lamb, cheese, sorbet, chocolate -- the staff pours impeccable wine pairings that match the innovative food: piquant Estonian whites, spicy Australian reds. As you'd expect from Per Se's perfectionists, the service is clairvoyant -- just when you're thinking you'd like the check, it's there.