Tag Archives: cocktails
Quality Italian
Returning to New York after a long trip can be a shock to the system, like stepping out of a perfectly ordinary afternoon and into a Baz Luhrmann movie. It’s the world as you know it, but bigger, louder, shinier, like an advertisement come to life.
Quality Italian is not just an Italian restaurant, it’s a very New York Italian restaurant, with a brashness that can wow you in small amounts or turn you off in excess. It’s helmed by Michael Stillman of Quality Meats, who opened this Italian spin-off in a bi-level space smack dab in the land of big business: 57th and 6th, home base for many financial firms, talent agencies and luxury brand headquarters. Many of these banking and business power players are already in the house, probably drawn to an upstairs dining room that’s hidden to any tourists ambling by on the street, where only the small downstairs wine and espresso bar are visible. (more…)
Posted in Cuisine, Italian, Midtown West, New York restaurants, restaurants
Tagged bars, cocktails, Italian food, pasta, pork chops
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Estela
It’s hard to believe that Estela, the bright and airy new wine bar and seasonally-inspired tapas place on Houston Street, used to be the Knitting Factory, the alternative music space whose soundproofing consisted of sweaters stapled on the ceiling. All traces of grunge are gone, replaced with white marble countertops, globe lighting and brown leather banquettes more suited for a tête-à-tête than rocking out. (more…)
Posted in Cuisine, Neighborhood, New York restaurants, restaurants, Soho, Spanish
Tagged cocktails, Estela review, steak, tapas, wine bars
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Manzanilla
CLOSED
There’s very little in the food department that’s too crazy for New Yorkers. Pigs’ tails, chicken feet, durian ice cream, cronuts: all can be found on a menu near you. So it came as a surprise that a new restaurant by Andalusian chef Dani Garcia, the molecular gastronomy expert credited with inventing the use of liquid nitrogen in cooking, serves Spanish cuisine that errs on the side of caution. (more…)
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged cocktails, dessert, molecular gastronomy, shishito peppers
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Alder
When Wylie Dufresne’s 71 Clinton Fresh Food opened in 1999, it was notable – and notorious – for luring wealthy uptown diners to the Lower East Side, then the land of artists and immigrants. Blocks away from early hipster hangout Max Fish, Clinton Street was clogged with black Town Cars loitering outside while their well-heeled charges dined inside, drawn by news of Dufresne’s molecular gastronomy. (more…)
Posted in American, Cuisine, East Village, food, Neighborhood, New York restaurants, restaurants
Tagged cocktails
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Cherry
Try as I might, I could never be a sushi purist. As much as I appreciate the exquisite creations at places like Neta, where local fish gets molded onto a bed of perfectly seasoned rice right before your eyes, there are some times you just want a deliciously inauthentic spicy tuna roll. To paraphrase the Paul Newman paradox: why go out for a hamburger when you can have steak at home? Because sometimes you just want a hamburger. (more…)
Posted in Chelsea, Cuisine, food, Japanese, Meatpacking District, Neighborhood, New York restaurants, restaurants
Tagged cocktails, foie gras, sushi
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Lafayette
For the last ten years, one man has dominated the French restaurant scene for downtown New Yorkers: Keith McNally. It’s hard to imagine the Meatpacking District without Pastis or SoHo without Balthazaar, two highly stylized restaurants that stole Paris bistro decor and food so effectively that the trend of antiqued mirrors, subway tiles and flea market fixtures has been stolen back by a copycat place in Paris.
But with Pastis closing for nine months in 2014 as a new building is constructed above and longtime chefs Lee Hanson and Riad Nasr leaving McNally’s empire, change is afoot. Now popular local chef Andrew Carmellini (Locanda Verde, the Dutch) is throwing his hat into the ring with the opening of French mega cafe Lafayette. The old Chinatown Brasserie (and Time Cafe/Fez) space has been overhauled with no expense spared, columns covered in glossy Art Deco patterns of inlaid wood, red leather banquettes ringing the raised dining level, walls opened up with huge plate glass windows, copper pans glinting in the saucier and rotisserie station and glassware glimmering above the bar. Baz Luhrman could walk right in and film another scene for the Great Gatsby. (more…)
Posted in Cuisine, food, French, Neighborhood, New York restaurants, Noho, restaurants
Tagged Andrew Carmellini, bars, bread, cocktails, croissants, dessert, oysters, seafood, steak
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The Marrow
If it’s true that “you are what you eat,” we also are what we grow up eating. Harold Dieterle, the chef behind the Thai restaurant Kin Shop and American restaurant Perilla, has gone back to his roots with the Marrow, with a menu that highlights German offerings from his father’s side, “Familie Dieterle,” and Italian dishes from his mother’s side, “Famiglia Chiarelli.” (more…)
Posted in Cuisine, food, German, Italian, Neighborhood, New York restaurants, restaurants, West Village
Tagged bars, beef, beer, cocktails, duck, Harold Dieterle, marrow, schnitzel, seafood
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Neta
There are a couple places near my apartment where I would eat once a week if money were no object. One is Blue Hill, another is Neta, the sliver of a sushi restaurant opened on an unlikely block of 8th street populated by defunct shoe shops and a Gray’s Papaya. The omakase, made by Masa alums Nik Kim and Jimmy Lau, will set you back $95, but it is money so well spent that, as at Blue Hill, you will start plotting your next meal here before you even walk out the door. (more…)
Posted in Cuisine, food, Greenwich Village, Japanese, Neighborhood, New York restaurants, restaurants
Tagged cocktails, crab, sushi
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Cafe Tallulah
It was like watching a bomb explode in slow motion.
When the first piece of shrapnel flies by, you just think: that’s odd. In this case it was a mix-up with our cocktail order. Six of us sat down for dinner in the prettily decorated new French bistro Cafe Tallulah on the Upper West Side, but there were only four water glasses on the table. When I asked for water, our server said: Should I cancel your cocktail order then?
Hmmm. (more…)
Posted in Cuisine, French, Neighborhood, New York restaurants, restaurants, Upper West Side
Tagged bars, bistros, cocktails, steak
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Maysville
First and foremost, Maysville is a great business idea. A bar and restaurant dedicated to bourbon, the fastest growing spirit category in the U.S., situated in the up-and-coming neighborhood of NoMad (the Breslin, the John Dory Oyster Bar, and of course the NoMad), is just the right concept in just the right location. Maysville just opened a couple of months ago, but it’s already a popular after-work destination for a grown up crowd – the sort who can afford to pay $16 for two ounces of bourbon. If you can secure a seat at the bar here (go early), the glowing wall of backlit bourbon bottles that give off the same psychological warmth as a roaring fire. (more…)
Posted in American, Cuisine, food, Neighborhood, New York restaurants, NoMad, restaurants, Southern
Tagged bourbon, cocktails, duck
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Bill’s
Though a number of historic New York restaurants closed over the last year, a lucky few were given new life. One that rose from the ashes is Bill’s, formerly Bill’s Gay Nineties. The 1850s brownstone it occupies, a five-story anomaly crouched next to a skyscraper in Midtown, was leased by John DeLucie and the Crown Hospitality Group, who have a knack for collecting beautiful old New York spaces (the Lion, Crown). (more…)
Posted in American, Cuisine, Midtown East, Neighborhood, New York restaurants, restaurants
Tagged cocktails, steak
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L’Apicio
It’s hard to believe that Gabe Thompson and Joe Campanale’s new southern Italian restaurant L’Apicio, on the ground floor of a sleek new luxury condo building, is just two doors down from what was once the ultimate dive, Mars Bar (demolished to make room for another luxury condo). Somewhere the ghosts of Mars Bar drunks are spinning in their graves as the new visitors plunk down $13 for a cocktail, but that hasn’t stopped oodles of New Yorkers from descending on L’Apicio. Pretty attracts pretty, and the lofty ceilings, candlelight and rough hewn wood paneling of this restaurant’s interior have drawn a well-heeled crowd – some of whom may happen to live in the luxury condo above. (more…)
Posted in Cuisine, food, Italian, Neighborhood, New York restaurants, Noho, restaurants
Tagged cocktails, pasta, wine bars
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Colonie
The owners of Colonie, a continental restaurant on the border of Brooklyn Heights and Cobble Hill, have been getting a lot of press recently for their most recent openings Gran Electrica and Governor. But before we tried the latest incarnations, D. and I wanted to sample the original, which opened right after D. moved out of the neighborhood and I therefore lost my Brooklyn pied-a-terre. Too bad, because we would have benefitted from this place: Colonie brings a new level of dining sophistication to an area that really needed it. (more…)
Posted in Brooklyn Heights, food, French, Italian, Neighborhood, New York restaurants, restaurants
Tagged beef, cocktails, oysters, steak
1 Comment
The Rum House
In New York, when the going gets tough, the tough get drinking. Despite – or perhaps because of – the many obstacles posed by Hurricane Sandy, New Yorkers have been flocking to bars and restaurants wherever they are open. Unlike restaurants, all a bar really needs to open is ice, drinks, candles and a working bathroom, so some bars have stayed open downtown, beacons of light and a promise of community in the eerily dark streets. (more…)
Posted in American, food, Midtown West, New York restaurants, restaurants
Tagged bars, cocktails
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