This Season, a Shareable Feast at Park Hyatt’s Blue Duck Tavern

Just in time for your next holiday feast — and all of those end of year gatherings with family and friends — Blue Duck Tavern in the West End Park Hyatt takes the table share to its elevated extreme.

From contemporary classics to modern casual bites, there is something for everyone to enjoy, but new Executive Chef Adam Howard really sears his signature into a refreshed upscale menu of wood-oven fired family-style entrée favorites.

To start, don’t pass up the Autumn Garden Salad, a mix of baby beets, squash buttermilk mousse and coffee soil root vegetable granola regionally-sourced nearby in Mustard’s Garden, Maryland.  For all out decadence, the Foie Gras Mousse melts in your mouth, curiously — but delightfully — paired with Jimmy Cakes which ground its rich flavor.

But it is the shared entrée meats to boast about at Blue Duck’s holiday banquet. Roast Lamb Breast (Elysian Fields, PA) merguez-stuffed, with cucumber yogurt, and an Herb Roasted Chicken (Bell & Evans, PA) served with charred escarole, sweet prunes and pears are menu standouts, but the plat de résistance is definitely Howard’s 100-Day Aged Dairy Cow Prime Rib (Lancaster, PA), slow cooked in a sous vide to soak up all of the butter and herbs before receiving a finishing crisp in Blue Duck’s 800 degree wood burning oven.

Since you’re sharing, there will be room enough to taste a few finishes — like both the elegant Candied Pecan Custard (almost like a nut butter and jelly dessert) with its accompanying concord grape sorbet, and the Stout Espresso Pot de Crème, a tempting dark chocolate flourless cake with smoked salt caramel and malted milk ice cream.

Every sharable plate is a sensation to savor.

ProTip: To get the full Blue Duck roast-y, toasty and smoky holiday experience, start or end your night swathed in blankets, sipping warm mulled wine, and wrapped in seasonal spirit on the terrace Fire Garden where flame furnaces offer a most festive ambiance.