Tag Archives: bars
Zum Schneider MTK
Zum Schneider in Montauk is one of those rare imports from Manhattan that actually fits into the neighborhood. The German beer hall – not a beer garden, since it is entirely enclosed – is luring in summer share house renters and local families alike for foosball, wiener schnitzel ($21), local scallops ($16/21) and German been on tap. (more…)
Rosemary’s
In any other town – even in other parts of New York City – it would be a sad tale of recession-era urban blight: a decades-old family business burns down, leaving a blackened shell of a building that sits empty for years.
But not here. When Village Paper burned down over a year ago and the owners relocated to 8th Street, several restauranteurs started vying for the burned out shell of a building on a prime West Village corner, only to be rejected by Community Board 2. You’d think the community would be thrilled to be rid of a burned out shell of a building, but no. (more…)
Posted in food, Italian, New York restaurants, restaurants, West Village
Tagged antipasti, bars, Bobo, Eataly, New York, pasta, porchetta, wine bars
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Back Forty West
When the beloved Savoy closed, there was a glimmer of hope on the horizon: the original chef and owner Peter Hoffman would be opening another restaurant in the same space. Before the phrase “farm-to-table” became ubiquitous, it was just this guy riding his bike to the Union Square Greenmarket every morning in the ’90s, picking out fresh local produce to serve that night at the restaurant. (more…)
Posted in American, food, New York restaurants, restaurants, Soho
Tagged Back Forty West review, bars, burgers, New York
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The NoMad
Not only is the NoMad a shiny new restaurant in a shiny new hotel, it’s the reason Danny Meyer sold Eleven Madison Park, to avoid the competition from another high-end place up the street. And the buyer of Eleven Madison Park, Daniel Humm, who just won the James Beard Award for Outstanding Chef, is now in the kitchen at the NoMad. The buzz about this place has been huge, and the stakes are high. (more…)
Posted in American, food, New York restaurants, NoMad
Tagged bars, beef, Daniel Humm, marrow, New York
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Lani Kai
CLOSED
It’s almost that time of year again – time for rum drinks, coconut-scented suntan lotion, the cool sting of salt water and the sleepy heat of the beach. But until you’re actually lying on a stretch of sand as pretty as Lani Kai in Hawaii, there’s a bar and restaurant by the same name right here in NYC where the drinks are garnished with flowers, the bartender’s wearing a Hawaiian shirt, and the potted palms and pink blooms could be in the lobby of a tropical hotel far, far away. (more…)
Alison Eighteen
CLOSED
Just mentioning that you remember Alison on Dominick marks you as a Diner of a Certain Age. (I am one of them.) In the restaurant’s heyday on Dominick Street in the ’90s, Tribeca had more homeless people than millionaires, and taking a cab down there for dinner was an exotic, perhaps life-threatening adventure. Fast forward to now, when restaurants can only appear mysterious by not listing a phone number, papering over their windows to discourage the B-list or serving dinner in the dark. (more…)
Amélie
When New Yorkers talk about our favorite French restaurants, we’re usually talking about the type of creaky old (looking) bistros that aren’t exactly au courant with young people in Paris. So where would your average Parisian hipster actually go? Someplace a lot like Amélie, the new wine bar that opened quietly on West 8th Street a couple of weeks ago. (more…)
Posted in food, French, Greenwich Village, New York restaurants, restaurants
Tagged bars, New York, wine bars
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Sneak Preview: Pok Pok NY
We had the pleasure of attending a friends and family dinner at Pok Pok NY last night. Chef Andy Ricker is bringing his hit Portland restaurant east with this new venture, opening in Red Hook on Monday. The menu is nearly a duplicate of Pok Pok PDX and includes the Thai fish sauce wings at Pok Pok Wing on Rivington Street. This isn’t a full review, since the restaurant isn’t even open yet, but one thing seems certain: Pok Pok won’t be just a “great new place for the neighborhood,” as they like to say in Brooklyn, but a destination restaurant worth seeking out. A pictorial tour, after the jump.
Posted in food, New York restaurants, Red Hook, restaurants, Thai
Tagged bars, Brooklyn, New York
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Whitehall
Usually when friends want to go out to dinner, “British” is not on their top list of desired cuisines. Nevertheless, the buzz about British restaurant Whitehall has been building since it opened six months ago, and it’s full almost every night. We stopped by recently to see what gives. (more…)
Posted in British, food, New York restaurants, restaurants, West Village
Tagged bars, beef, burgers, Chris Rendell, New York
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Empellon Cocina
Empellon Cocina is not a Mexican restaurant.
If you’re looking for a big, messy plate of chicken enchiladas for cheap, head elsewhere. The East Village may be Mary Ann’s territory, but at Empellon Cocina, chef Alex Stupak doesn’t do enchiladas – or messy, or cheap. What he does do is use Mexico as a jumping off point for incredibly creative, globalized cuisine. (more…)
Posted in East Village, food, Mexican, New York restaurants, restaurants
Tagged Alex Stupak, bars, beef, New York
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Il Buco Alimentaria e Vineria
I get a little nervous about going to an Italian restaurant in New York after getting back from Italy. If the meal is bad, will it somehow wipe out the memory of how real Italian food should taste? And just as knockoffs look particularly awful after you’ve seen beautifully-crafted designer goods up close, the comparison to the real thing often doesn’t do a New York restaurant any favors.
So by the time the check came at the Il Buco Alimentari e Vineria on Great Jones Street, I breathed a sigh of relief. This new restaurant and Italian grocery, the younger sibling of Il Buco on Bond Street, may not be exactly like Italy, but the differences are purely New York. (more…)
Posted in food, Italian, New York restaurants, Noho, restaurants
Tagged bars, New York, wine bars
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The Bowery Diner
When Mathieu Palombino, the French-trained chef who conquered the genre of pizza at Motorino, decided to turn his exacting attention to the American diner, it was exciting news. To what heights would he take the lowly tuna melt, the burger, the “diet plates” heretofore characterized by Jello and cottage cheese? The almost comically varied menu of your typical New York diner, which includes everything from fried eggs to the rarely-ordered fish of the day, seemed ripe for transformation.
But the menu is a blessing and a bane. Just as, when you sit down at your corner diner, you view the various categories on a multipage menu with skepticism – can they really make pad thai as well as they can make pancakes? – the scope of dishes the kitchen must do well proves daunting here. (more…)
Posted in American, food, French, Lower East Side, New York restaurants, restaurants
Tagged bars, burgers, duck, Mathieu Palombino, New York
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Corkbuzz
“Buzz” is the key syllable in this new wine bar by sommelier Laura Maniec, former wine director of the B.R Guest restaurant group. Since Corkbuzz opened in late November, it’s gotten dozens of press mentions and seems to be constantly packed. Certainly an upscale wine bar by one of the few female sommeliers is a nice addition to Greenwich Village. But there are already lots of wine bars in the city, so what gives?
Maybe what New York’s wine bars needed all along was a feminine touch. They’re mostly patronized by women, yet the owners and wine directors of most serious wine-centric places are men. It seems like a type of machismo for a sommelier to push an intimidating, challenging wine list that does more to prove his own wine knowledge than satisfy the customer. Corkbuzz represents a kinder, gentler approach. (more…)
Posted in food, Greenwich Village, Italian, New York restaurants, restaurants
Tagged bars, New York, seafood, wine bars
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Buvette
Buvette is easy to overlook. Situated on a quiet block in the West Village, it’s narrower than most coffee shops. The bar takes up nearly half the space in a restaurant lined with little cafe tables on one side and a communal table in back. It’s so petite it’s practically miniature.
Recently a French expat we know recommended Buvette as one of the most authentic French restaurants in Paris. Vraiment? Chef Jodi Williams wrote the book on small Italian plates at Gusto, Morandi, Gottino and more. And now she was cooking the most authentic French food in the city? There have been several positive reviews of Buvette, but this recommendation was what convinced us to go.
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Posted in food, French, New York restaurants, restaurants, West Village
Tagged bars, New York
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Scarpetta
To paraphrase Yogi Berra, nobody goes to the Meatpacking District anymore. It’s too crowded. This is one reason we haven’t gotten to Scott Conant’s Italian restaurant on West 14th Street until now. When it opened five years ago, New Yorkers were outnumbered in the Meatpacking District by touring Sex and the City fans, and the resulting atmosphere was decidedly unsexy.
But that’s the good thing about January: Everybody leaves, and suddenly the city’s not so crowded anymore. There was even an available 8:30 reservation at this critically-acclaimed Italian spot in the Meatpacking District on a Saturday night. It was like the ’90s all over again. (more…)
Posted in food, Italian, Meatpacking District, New York restaurants, restaurants
Tagged bars, New York, Scott Conant, seafood
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