Wednesday, October 30, 7:00 P.M.
Members $85, guests $110

Smack in the middle of the flashing billboards, congested streets, and fast-food chains of the Theater District is one of the last places on earth where you might expect to find a distinct dining destination. But when the curtain went up on Blue Fin at the W Times Square, it proved to be an urban oasis of the most delicious kind. Ever since, chef Paul Sale has been dazzling diners and critics alike with seafood specialties that swim with flavor.

Sale, whose culinary career began at the Connaught Hotel in London, and whose cooking credits include Fifty-Seven Fifty-Seven at the Four Seasons Hotel and Le Bernardin, has learned from the best when it comes to seafood preparation. To add to that, at Blue Fin he has some of the best raw material in town. "Some of the freshest, most pristine fish I've eaten in many months has been at Blue Fin," William Grimes wrote in The New York Times, "where the oysters almost seem to twinkle and the tuna is pure velvet."

The chef previously made a splash at Icon, also located in a W Hotel property, where his sumptuous French-American food, served in a sleek, intimate setting, won over the hip boutique hotel set. Now, at Blue Fin, he has proved that he can please bigger crowds as well. Paul Frumkin of Nation's Restaurant News wrote, "The necessity of cooking in a high volume location…hasn't hampered Sale's ability to create highly flavored, intricate dishes." Sale's less-is-more, innovative preparations include dishes like cumin-dusted big-eye tuna, seared wild salmon over French lentils, and crispy Atlantic black bass served in chive nage; of the last, Grimes wrote, "I have been revisiting this dish mentally since I encountered it on my first visit."

Sale will be joined by recently promoted Blue Fin pastry chef Jim Distefano and Greg Harrington, Blue Fin sommelier and corporate beverage director of B.R. Guest, which owns Blue Fin. Harrington was the youngest American ever to receive the title of Master Sommelier, at age 26. Before joining the B.R. Guest, Harrington worked for the Wolfgang Puck Fine Dining Group, Emeril Lagasse's restaurants in New Orleans and Las Vegas, and Square One in San Francisco.