Try the Deconstructed Eggs Benedict Casserole at Nikki Beach

At first glance, it looks like a bowl of yellow mush. There’s a sunny-side-up egg on top, but what surrounds it is unclear. You dubiously take a bite, hoping it doesn’t taste the way it looks. A few minutes later, the bowl is empty.

Nikki Beach calls the dish a deconstructed eggs Benedict casserole — where the gooeyness of a Benedict collides with the design of a casserole. Though it’s hard to tell, it encompasses all the ingredients of a Benedict, including the egg, meat, English muffin, and hollandaise sauce. 

The bizarre brunch plate was developed by chef Frank Ferreiro, an Italian-born, Argentine-raised cuisinier with stints at Prime Italian, the Shelborne, the W, and now Nikki Beach. He says any diner who enjoys an eggs Benedict will fall in love with the beachside eatery’s new dish. It’s the latest addition to Nikki Beach’s Sunday brunch feast, which Ferreiro oversees.

“It’s our spin on the original,” he says. “It contains everything that makes a Benedict so popular. And we really just wanted to add something special to our Sunday brunch that doesn’t exist anywhere else.”

When Ferreiro conceived the idea of deconstructing eggs Benedict and transforming it into a casserole-like dish, he says it was all about rearranging and revamping the age-old favorite. 

“It was a challenge,” he says. “Though it’s similar, a lot sets it apart from a Benedict.“
The dish features an egg cooked sous vide, a broken biscuit, and signature hollandaise sauce baked together in a terra-cotta cazuela. Containing either serrano ham, spinach, or salmon, the multistep casserole is made to order, from sous-vide prep to pan to oven, for each guest.

Ferreiro suggests pairing the egg-centric plate with a bloody mary from the brunch’s bloody mary bar. 

“One of my favorites,” he says, “which would be a great complement, is the BLT mary, made with Nikki’s handcrafted mix brewed with bacon and poured over vodka, with cherry tomatoes and fresh lemon.”

It’s included as a part of Nikki Beach’s ongoing Sunday Brunch buffet, which is a prix fixe priced at $49.95 per person. It features myriad stations and includes a variety of dishes, including prime rib, whole roast pork, paella, handmade pasta, custom omelets, and a medley of sweet treats such as Nutella waffles, fluffy pancakes, and crepes.

Snag the eggs Benedict casserole this weekend at Sunday brunch, offered from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

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