DISH OF THE WEEK: Carrots Wellington at NARCISSA

Every week, I document another dish that impressed and satiated me during my food adventures around New York City

Vegetables are all the rage today. Forget barbecue or burgers. Restaurants are opening all across the city dedicated to making the healthiest food group taste as delicious as a slab of bacon. Well, almost.

And I’m not talking about vegetarian restaurants, but carnivrous chefs who elevate beets or kale right alongside duck and lamb.

One of the new (and hippest) restaurants in town to do this is Narcissa. It’s located inside The Standard Hotel in the East Village (a place to go just to be seen) and it’s where Chef John Fraser is making the city go ga-ga for veggies.

He (and the warm service) completely won us over from a starter of rotisserie-crisped beets with shaved horseradish to a spinach pie that accompanied a perfectly cooked lamb loin to an herbaceous and tart fennel cheesecake.

But the dish that has been getting so much press and will get more press in this post is the inventive Carrots Wellington. The beef version, as most people probably know, is a classic British dish featuring filet topped with paté, wrapped in puff pastry and baked until golden. This much lighter (and healthier) version is just as delicious and maybe even better without the beef.

The glazed and roasted carrots are incredibly tender with the rich dough and feature a surprising layer of an espresso and walnut crumble. It gives the dish a rich sweetness that stands in for the caramelization of actual meat. Around the wellington are bluefoot mushrooms, an earthy sunchoke puree, baby leeks, and pickled pearl onions. It would make even the staunchest of British meat eaters think twice about their diet.