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Let’s face it: this neighborhood really doesn’t need another trendy restaurant. The Bowery between Houston and Astor Place is already home to restaurants by Daniel Boulud, Scott Conant and Keith McNally. Nevertheless, the partners behind trendy Freeman’s, Taavo Somer and William Tigertt, picked the Bowery for their new restaurant Peels, and what it became is something of a surprise: a neighborhood restaurant, the only thing the neighborhood lacked.

Perhaps because New Yorkers are constantly subjected to an onslaught of modernity – HD video advertising in Times Square, PDA menus – we’re suckers for old timey things like tin ceilings and Amish beards on hipsters. Step into Peels and you feel as if you’re stepping into a diner-like place that existed out on a rural route 50 years ago. There’s a wooden counter perfect for lunching alone and a communal table in the center. The walls and yes, tin ceilings are whitewashed and inlaid with mirrors, and a whole roomy third of the downstairs is allocated to a coffee bar, so you don’t have to battle your neighbors for the urns of half and half and retro aluminum sugar bowls. (more…)