The Carlton Hotel, New York, NY USA

Ordered via in-room dining from Millesime at The Carlton Hotel, a Marriott property in New York City.

There were two parts to my New York City trip: 2 days of work, 2 days of vacation. I hadn’t been on a business trip in a while and I hadn’t been on a non-family related vacation since Asia, so both reasons for traveling were due.

This club sandwich happened right during the transition.

I was exhausted from some fantastic meetings Thursday and Friday and finally checked into our hotel: The Carlton, a Marriott Autograph Collection property right off of 28^th and Madison, a perfect location in the city for getting everywhere. I’ll be honest: I never would have stayed at this hotel, however thanks to a free 70,000 Marriott points for signing up for their credit card, I had 2 free nights at any property of theirs in the city and chose The Carlton for its solid location.

I threw my bags into our room and left for New York’s Penn Station to pick Rachel up. We worked up a bit of an appetite during the 20 minute walk back to the hotel with all of her luggage and decided at around 5pm that we should probably snack. Dinner wasn’t until after 8, and there was no way I was going to last… and I wasn’t going to snack alone.

I ordered Rachel the ceaser salad and I went for The Salon Chicken Club Sandwich. I had read on the hotel’s website something about the menu being created by a 2 star Michelin chef; no idea if they did any quality control on the items being served, but that was a solid sign that their club was going to be a stellar creation.

We waited a long hour for our food to arrive… which did not excite me in the slightest bit. But I was patient and it was nice to catch up with Rach as we waited (and waited) for our food. And as we waited, we grew hungrier. And after 6, Rachel decided to get a snack elsewhere… me, I decided to wait. And wait I did.

Millesime, The Carlton hotel’s restaurant, was voted by Esquire Magazine as best restaurant of 2011. And as I read the menu in the room I realized the current executive chef was a 2 star Michellin award winner himself. Ooo this club sandwich has to be good! Menu created and food crafted by an expert in the industry. I had higher and higher expectations as I waited.

And then it came.

As the silver cover was taken off the plate, both Rach and I were taken aback by the boring presentation: a quartered club sandwich with seemingly way too much bread being held together by giant toothpicks… alright, not much thought had been put into this presentation, but maybe a 2 star Michellin chef isn’t concerned with presentation (sarcasm). On to taste!

The chicken itself was delicious; we can start with that. Moist, perfectly cooked (grilled maybe?), and full of flavor. The saffron aioli really added a nice touch to the chicken, and the combo was the perfect blending of flavors. Loved that taste. The rest? Well, sure, they used a nice multigrain toast, but it was a similar toast I had eaten with my eggs earlier (breakfast room service  and didn’t really add much to the sandwich. There was also too much of it; the ingredients inside the club were clearly bunched together directly in the center club before it was quartered leaving way too much bread on the outskirts without ingredients between the slices. For example, the tomato confit was an interesting and lovely take on the traditional ripe tomato, but there was only one bites worth of it in the tip of each quarter. Imagine ordering a pizza and there was only tomato sauce on the first bite… probably a bit unsatisfying, even if the sauce was delicious on that first bite. The lettuce did a better job covering the sandwich, however didn’t add much in regards to flavor. We (by now Harry and Gabrielle had joined us in our room) all swore the sandwich had bacon bits in it, but we called in-room dining (and also double-checked the menu) and both said no… BUT, I decided to call the restaurant and found out, even though it wasn’t on the menu (and the hostess had no idea – spoke to a chef), that this club sandwich had pieces of crispy shaved pancetta in it. Yum. The fries tasted delicious (which I needed to eat considering the fillings in this club didn’t really fill me up) and again, while the in-room dining just called them French fries, the chef at the restaurant I spoke to said they were hand-cut on property and house smoked in their paprika and herb rub. I began to realize quickly there might be a strong disconnect between the room-service operation at the hotel and the 2 star Michellin chef restaurant located in the lobby.

The Carlton Hotel was lovely and we very much enjoyed our stay. With all of the options available in New York City, most likely I won’t stay again at this hotel anytime soon but rather try one of the other “cool” and “hip” and “trendy” options in the city. Over my 4 day visit, I saw about 10 different hotels, all of them unique, and all of them very “now” – I couldn’t imagine many of these “super cool” hotels had solid longevity… at least I could tell The Carlton was a more timeless hotel that would live through the next century.

I’m not sure I’d go for the Millesime Salon Chicken Club Sandwich again, but honestly, with the very few options they had on the in-room dining menu, I just might have to.

Location