Results tagged “restaurant”

Two Upper East Side restaurants refuse to deliver uptown to East Harlem, but they willingly schlep longer distances downtown to service a more affluent and more white neighborhood. An investigation by the Post reveals that both Chinese Mirch on Second Avenue between 94th and 95th streets and One Fish Two Fish on Madison Avenue and 97th Street declined to deliver to addresses located 15 blocks to the north, but readily fulfilled orders 20 blocks to the south — a delivery discrepancy that "smacks of racism," according to state Sen. Bill Perkins (D-Harlem). "The difference between north and south is black and white," he said.

Ugh, servers. After they bring your food they're always butting in asking if you're "still working" just as you're reaching the punchline of your most well-rehearsed anecdote! Weren't we supposed to eliminate the human element from the dining experience with computers and conveyor belts by now?! While the world waits on that technology, would-be Hamptons restaurateur Bruce Buschel has completed his list of 100 things servers should never, never do. For instance:

This week in the Times, Sam Sifton reviews the newly-opened midtown outpost of French mini-chain Le Relais de Venise L’Entrecote, which serves just drinks, salad, fries, steak, and dessert. "Women in French maid outfits serve the stuff as if they were characters in an early Preston Sturges film," says Sifton. "And you know what? It’s terrific." Meanwhile, the Times's Oliver Strand is in Williamsburg to rave about the gourmet sandwich shop Saltie, from veterans of Marlow & Sons and Diner: "It’s a lot of talent for one cramped kitchen. So they overachieve." (He also has kind words for Crosby Connection and Barros Luco.)

Yaargh, the frothing 17,000 square foot vortex at Third Avenue and 40th Street has swallowed up many an ambitious restaurant, and even left jaunty Jeffrey Chodorow with nothing but an ivory stump for a leg. Some say that spot on the map is cursed by a foul wind, and no one's been fool enough to set sail for it in years, ever since that monomaniacal Captain Chodorow lost his leaky Wild Salmon to tropical storm Frank.

       

Click on the images for more details on truffle specials at Bottega Del Vino, Sapori D'Ischia in Queens, Marea, Gilt, Scarpetta, David Burke Townhouse, and Craft.

You wouldn’t know it today walking down West 46th Street in Manhattan or Smith Street in Brooklyn, but until 1827, New York City did not have a single restaurant. That's the year when a pair of Swiss brothers named Delmonico opened their eponymous William Street confectionery and café, ending 200 years of restaurant-less history and setting "the tone for fine dining in New York almost overnight," according to a new book detailing the city's evolution as a restaurant capital. Before then, anyone forced to eat out had two choices at their local boardinghouse or chophouse: “a slab of beef or mutton with potatoes and gravy."

The Argentinian opera star who was nearly arrested after throwing a tantrum at an Upper West Side restaurant had her day in court yesterday. Soprano Gabriela Pochinki had been carrying on a noisy cell phone conversation via speakerphone at restaurant Nice Matin when a manager asked her to pipe down. When Pochinki blew her off, the manager asked her to leave—four times, and then Pochinki allegedly flew into a rage, shoved her, and refused to pay her bill.

A sexy South American opera singer who behaved like a real diva in an Upper West Side restaurant is due in court today to face charges of trespassing, theft of service, and disorderly conduct. It all started when diners at restaurant Nice Matin complained that soprano Gabriela Pochinki was carrying on a noisy cell phone conversation via speakerphone. And when a manager had the nerve to tell Pochinki—a Fulbright scholar who was the toast of Vienna for her portrayal of Maria in West Side Story—to pipe down, she got quite an earful!

    

Click on the images here for more details on The Vanderbilt in Prospect Heights, Bill's Burger in the Meatpacking District, Corsino in the West Village, and Giano in the East Village.

New York's Adam Platt files a twofer on twee West Village restaurant Joseph Leonard and Civetta, an Italian restaurant on Kenmare Street. Each gets a measly one star out of five; "Joseph Leonard’s very standard bistro menu isn’t inspired enough to add to this festive atmosphere, but neither is it so horrible that it detracts from the proceedings." At Civetta, "if you choose wisely, it’s possible to have a decent meal." Meanwhile, Jay Cheshes at Time Out finally gets around to reviewing Graydon Carter's Monkey Bar, giving it three out of five stars and noting that, "There are still some rich people in New York City, and they eat here."

       

Exuberant chef David Burke is no longer involved with Hawaiian Tropic Zone, and that's probably for the best, since he's had his hands full with plenty of other projects anyway. Last fall his sustainable seafood restaurant Fishtail opened on the Upper East Side to favorable reviews, and his restaurant at Bloomingdale's continues to give shoppers the sustenance they need to keep our economy afloat. Burke, who first made a splash at the River Café in Brooklyn in the '80s, has recently finished changing up his other serious venture in the neighborhood, which opened in 2003 as "davidburke & donatella." Restaurateur Donatella Arpaia is no longer involved (the partnership is said to have ended amicably) so it's now simply called David Burke Townhouse, and has reopened with a new menu after renovations.

     

Click on the images above for the scoop on 'Wichcraft's dinner, Harbour's lunch and "Mai Tai Tuesdays," brunch at Charles, speed lunch at La Fonda del Sol, and "Moules Frites Monday" at Bar Blanc Bistro.

The city's recurring "restaurant weeks" are all about getting your money's worth by visiting an establishment that would ordinarily be beyond your reach; there's no sense paying $25 for a prix-fixe at a place that ordinarily charges about that about much or less, which is why the Water's Edge is an ideal choice for Queens Restaurant Week. Situated literally on the edge of the East River in Long Island City, next to Deitch Studios, the three decade-old restaurant could easily be misidentified as a private catering hall—which it is. But it is also an Asian-inflected seafood restaurant with three star ambition, and it re-opened a few weeks ago after an extensive face-lift.

Would a Tavern on the Green by any other name fare just as well in Central Park? The NY Times digs into the latest debate over the restaurant's name, which is reportedly appraised at $19 million.

Abe & Arthur's: This big, beautiful new restaurant exorcises the old Lotus space, with "contemporary American cuisine...that evokes the nostalgic feeling of 1930s and 1940s New York City dining." This means leather, low lighting, and a varnished zinc bar. So zinc was 1930s? The menu is contemporary American with seasonal leanings, masterminded by Franklin Becker (Brasserie, Trinity). Starters average around $15, with tuna tartare tacos looking particularly enticing. Fresh market seafood changes daily, but pan-roasted sea scallop & foie gras with chantrelles is seasonal mainstay. Steaks and chops range from $18-$72 with your choice of six sauces. 409 West 14th Street; 646-289-3930

We recently interviewed chef Saul Bolton, whose eponymous restaurant in Boerum Hill just celebrated ten years in business. Today Pete Wells at the Times bestows two stars on the place, where the elegantly understated atmosphere provides a modest frame for Bolton's culinary ambition: "One of the first restaurants to bring a contemporary sensibility to Brooklyn when it appeared on Smith Street in 1999, it has neither faded, nor stood still, nor sought a personality transplant. Instead Saul Bolton, the chef and the owner with his wife, Lisa, has upgraded just about everything in their modest storefront. Saul is the same restaurant, but better."

After two entertaining yet vicious slams on Hotel Griffou and Gus & Gabriel, interim Times dining heavy Pete Wells throws a one-star bone to The Standard Grill, which has been winning over critics despite the grotesquely exclusive velvet rope scene at the door. Wells declares that "it is not the place I would send friends who want to study the latest contortions of the yoga masters of haute cuisine. But it is exactly where I would direct anybody who needs to recharge by plugging straight into the abundant, renewable energy source that is downtown Manhattan." And yet! "The tiled, barrel-vaulted ceiling makes for treacherous acoustics. At times conversations across the room are beamed directly to your table. Sitting by the open kitchen one night, we heard an expediter shouting out orders as if he were communicating with cooks in Jersey City." Still, "with 100 seats in this room, another 100 in an even noisier antechamber, and 85 more on the sidewalk, it is a marvel that the kitchen reliably bangs out solid, flavorful food."

After years of protests and a long, drawn-out lawsuit, the city is moving forward with a plan to convert a large part of the 80-year-old Pavilion in Union Square park into a restaurant. The Parks Department recently put out a request for proposals to operate a seasonal café in the park's refurbished pavilion; the deadline is in two months. According to the Post, the winning bidder would secure a 15-year contract to run the private café six months out of the year, and also have the option to operate a satellite cart or kiosk.

Chef Wolfgang Puck opened Spago in LA back in 1982, and, to this day, it remains the prototypical Hollywood hotspot. The chef, originally from Austria, later went on to open the steakhouse Cut (replete with celebrity headshot menus for the celebrity diners), Chinois, an Asian fusion restaurant in Santa Monica, and myriad other fine dining and casual restaurants nationwide. Yet he's still largely an unknown entity to New Yorkers, unless they make a jaunt down to his American Grille in the stellar Borgata Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City.

This week the Times's Pete Wells (filling in before incoming chief dining critic Sam Sifton takes the reins) reviews Hotel Griffou, the trendy speakeasy-style restaurant from veterans of the Waverly Inn, Freemans and La Esquina. He finds the plating "scattershot" and the service "wildly inconsistent." But the place "does have its allures. Each dining room has a different motif, as if the restaurant were trying to ignite a collect-them-all frenzy. A friend described the Library as 'very man-cavey,' outfitted with wooden ducks, a manual typewriter, a fiddle, a saddle, shelves filled with law books, a football that looks as if it was in play when F. Scott Fitzgerald was at Princeton, and four fox pelts." The Times also has a roundup of the new street food vendors, just in time for the Vendys this weekend.

The union that organizes restaurant workers at Tavern on the Green is spoiling for a fight with the new leaseholder, who's trying to renegotiate the union's contract. The new operator, Dean Poll, was awarded the license by the Parks Department last month, but he's under no obligation to honor the previous labor contract. So he wants the workers to agree to a pay cut, agree to no advance notice for layoffs or reduction in hours, and a change to the banquet staff to a vague new hourly rate, without tips. They're currently paid $5.26 an hour with tips.

Does David Chang know we're still in a recession? Momofuku Ko has announced that starting next week, lunch prices will go up $15 and dinner prices up $25. This means lunch tops out at $175, up $25 from just last year. Apparently, this is to provide them with "the opportunity to cook with a greater variety of ingredients." Keep in mind, this is $15 more for a meal that still takes three hours to serve.

       

Remember Center Cut, the eco-friendly but still murderous steakhouse that restaurateur Jeffrey Chodorow opened last year? It looked spectacular, but some critics found the space cold, the menu uneven and overpriced. So Chodorow cut it from his portfolio and changed the emphasis to bounty from the sea. The new venture is called Ed's Chowder House, and the eponymous "Ed" is chef Edward G. Brown, who's well-respected for his meticulous seafood sourcing; he also runs the kitchen at Michelin Star-rated restaurant eighty one.

Celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck, the man behind restaurants like Spago in Beverly Hills and a product line ranging from coffee to canned food, may finally be coming to NYC. After a recent book signing, Puck told us, "We're talking about something [in New York], and I can't say we're in the advance stages, but these people really want us to do a very important project in New York." Though he later added, "Sometimes I joke to the press in certain cities; in Miami they asked me if I was there to open a restaurant, and I said, 'Not one, three!'"

Motorino: This top-notch thin-crust pizzeria was an instant hit in East Williamsburg, but will it compete in downtown Manhattan, which is now flooded with "artisan" pizza options? Anyone who's eaten at the original knows the answer's hell yes, and chef Mathieu Palombino is confident his authentic Neapolitan pizza will make its mark. He has the added advantage of inheriting a space already known for pizza excellence; it was previously the home of Una Pizza Napoletana, which left behind its Acunto wood-burning oven, handcrafted in Naples. Palombino's filled the 36-seat space with marble-topped tables and kept the vibe comfortably casual, with shiny subway tiling and wooden bistro chairs. Motorino's Manhattan menu is slightly smaller than the original, and includes seven classic pies, plus a variety of seasonal pizzas. 349 East 12th Street; (212) 777-2644

This week the Times's interim chief dining critic Pete Wells takes a hammer to deservedly acclaimed chef Michael Psilakis, whose latest venture, Gus & Gabriel, is inspired by the culinary tastes of his son, TGI Friday's, and whiskey. Wells's review is disastrous, which means it's a fun read: "When three children under age 10 leave their milkshakes almost untouched, you know there’s trouble." The restaurant's "colossal misfires are almost impossible to believe and harder still to explain." Specifically: "Almost every chef in town is experimenting with techniques for building a better burger. Mr. Psilakis may be the only one to have perfected a new technology that magically strips out all the taste. The skin on what is advertised as 'crispy chicken' was as crisp as a balloon, and the biscuits on the plate were wet and doughy, as if the cook had decided halfway through that he would rather make dumplings."

Eurotrash: In the old days, eurotrash did key bumps at Kokie's; now Eurotrash serves meatballs by the Levee (which replaced Williamsburg's aforementioned cocaine bar). Eurotrash isn't a restaurant, but when you're getting your drink on—either at the Levee or Radegast Hall across the street—a starchy bargain food truck in a parking lot sure beats a fussy restaurant, with all their RULES about keeping your voice down and calculating gratuities. Opened about a week ago in a lot next door to the Levee, Eurotrash serves Belgian fries ($3 or $4), Swedish Meatballs ($5) over rotini with gravy and cranberry preserves, Fish and Chips ($5) consisting of 4 oz. Corona-battered cod and Belgian fries, and Bangers and Mash (Irish sausages served over mashed potatoes with gravy). North Third Street and Berry, Williamsburg

Back when antediluvian diners sought opinions without the help of the Internet, Tim and Nina Zagat built a restaurant survey and ranking empire, which grew into a sprawling international family of guides on everything from dating to dumping. Just before the financial collapse really got nasty, they tried to sell the whole enterprise for $200 million, and are rumored to have turned down offers as high as $100 million. Today, the Post finds the Zagats in deep weeds, largely due to competitors like Yelp, which now boasts more than 7 million U.S. visitors per month with reviews on all sorts of things, including Zagat! By comparison, Zagat's website, which requires a $25 annual fee, averaged just 270,000 unique visitors last month. The company laid off 16 people, and the Zagats have given up trying to sell it. As one Yelper opines, "If Zagat was the bomb, [Yelp] wouldn't exist, so thanks for sucking so bad, Zagat. I almost was forced to go to Chinese food in Chinatown due to an out-of-town colleague who had armed himself with Zagat and biblical notions of self importance... In the end, I won and we ended up at a real restaurant that didn't have to pay for a review." Well, not exactly.

Still no word from Sam Sifton, Frank Bruni's replacement at the Times, so let's turn to New York's Adam Platt, who files on Daniel Boulud's beer and sausage mecca on the Bowery, DBGB. Platt visits with his famous actor brother Oliver, and notes that "the menu contains fourteen varieties of sausage made by acolytes of the Parisian pâté genius Gilles Verot, plus a 'Tête aux Pieds' (Head to Feet) section, which includes an entire deboned pig’s trotter and little squares of crispy fried tripe, a Lyonnais offal specialty. 'This is right up my alley,' declared my giant fresser brother as he cut into the pig’s foot (I’m not touching that monster,' sniffed Mrs. Platt) and then the surprisingly delicate tripe, before working his way through the excellent sausages, which have catchy names like “Beaujolaise” (a deliciously fat, pork-stuffed link sweetened with red wine), 'Boudin Basque' (spicy, porky blood sausage over whipped potatoes), and 'Vermont' (more pork, garnished with melty curls of Cheddar and crème fraîche)."

Malta: Okay, this unappreciated Williamsburg restaurant isn't new—it opened some six months ago—but this little gem hasn't gotten the attention it deserves, and seems to be struggling in the shadow of the neighborhood's newer cool kids, such as Brooklyn Star, Vutera, and Walter Foods. Part of that may also have to do with the rather uninspired interior design, but tucked away in the back is Malta's hidden strength: a serene backyard garden that's often shockingly deserted. You might think the emptiness portends lackluster food, but Malta, open for dinner daily and brunch on weekends, is high quality at reasonable prices.