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bellastraniera
a.k.a. Marcy Swingle - obsessed with food and fashion.View my photography website.
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Category Archives: food
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…)
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Tagged bars, Greenwich Village, Italian food, New York, restaurants, wine bars
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Mo-Chica
Ricardo Zarate of Peruvian restaurant Mo-Chica in LA was recently named Best New Chef by Food & Wine Magazine, so naturally we had to eat there during a trip to LA last week. In New York, this would be a near-impossible reservation to get. Best new chef? Working at an inexpensive restaurant? Expect mobs.
We called Mo-Chica and booked lunch for 3pm on a Monday, figuring it wouldn’t be too crazed at that time. One GPS-navigated trip from LAX later, we pulled up at a big boxy structure in downtown LA that looked a lot like… well, a mall. Inside, past a shop selling Mexican tchotchkes, a juice bar and a Thai take-out place, was Mo-Chica. It turns out it’s little more than a stand in a high end food court, complete with plastic tablecloths and a woman taking orders behind a cash register. “Don’t tell them you made a reservation,” D. said. Obviously, something had been lost in translation. (more…)
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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Totto Ramen
In a city full of ramen restaurants, Totto Ramen has become an essential stop on the NYC ramen tour. Opened just a couple of years ago by by the owner of Yakitori Totto, this Tokyo-style lunch spot on far West 52nd draws a crowd into the narrow space, where the din of the open kitchen spills over into a room full of diners hunched over bowls of steaming noodles. It’s a little crowded, it’s a little chaotic, and that’s just as it should be.
Noodles are what gave ramen soups their name, but for me the key element is the broth. The milky pork broth of Ippudo’s tonkotsu ramen was a revelation when it landed in New York on Fourth Avenue. The broth, with its super umami taste and velvety mouth feel, remains one of the big draws at this perennially popular restaurant. (more…)
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…)
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Tagged bars, Italian food, Meatpacking District, New York, restaurants, Scott Conant
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Lunch: Little Muenster
There’s something timelessly appealing about a grilled cheese sandwich eaten on a dreary winter’s day, especially when you’re eating it in a warm dining room with a view of the cold street.
You could go to your local diner for grilled cheese, but unadulterated American comfort food is so comforting, it could put New Yorkers to sleep. Why not improve on the original while keeping the spirit the same? That’s what new grilled cheese shop Little Muenster sets out to do on the Lower East Side.
Veselka Bowery
East Village stalwart Veselka has been around so long, it’s impossible for most of us to remember a time when it was not. Beginning in 1954, the original restaurant on Second Avenue operated like a club for Ukrainians until it opened its doors to the artists and musicians of the East Village in the ’70s. Now it’s a necessary stop for many a kid making the pilgrimage down St. Marks Place, but if you’re a New Yorker who’s always seeking out the latest and greatest on the dining scene, chances are the original Ukrainian restaurant falls by the wayside.
Perhaps to prove that the restaurant is more than just a piece of history, Veselka’s owners just opened an additional branch in a shiny new space on East 1st Street off the Bowery. Airy and open, with plain wooden tables, dishtowel napkins, sleek navy chairs and wrought iron chandeliers, it brings the homey atmosphere of the old Veselka into the current day. (more…)
The Beagle
Though we try to get to new NYC restaurants as soon as possible, sometimes it pays to wait. The Beagle, another gastro pub in the vintage British vein, got a lot of press when it opened in the East Village earlier this year, including a review from the Times in which the restaurant was praised for offering some inventive food and cocktail pairings but reprimanded for withholding the wine and beer menu from diners who wanted to make their own choices.
Fast forward to now, when our server immediately pointed out that the wine list was on the table, where she left it for the entirety of the evening. The innovative appetizer and cocktail pairings are still on the menu, but now diners can opt for wine, beer, or a number of food options without any pairings at all. (more…)
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Tagged bars, British food, cocktails, East Village, gastropubs, New York, restaurants, Scandinavian food, steak
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Allswell
One of the best things about dining in New York is following the diaspora of kitchen talent from one key restaurant to its contemporaries. April Bloomfield (herself a grad of London’s River Cafe, like Jamie Oliver) has launched several chefs from the seminal gastropub the Spotted Pig, including Nate Smith, formerly of Dean Street and now the proprietor of Allswell in Williamsburg.
Allswell isn’t direct copy, so don’t come here looking for the Spotted Pig II. There are similarities, like the quirky British decor – cutesy mismatched wallpaper (surprisingly feminine for a male-owned pub), exposed wood beams, inexplicable bric a brac, those famously uncomfortable stools, but a bar you could really settle into. The space is populated with patrons who’ve mastered a particular brand of studied cool, like the Spotted Pig before it hit hundreds of guide books. But the menu and the setting feel personal and distinct. (more…)
Posted in food
Tagged April Bloomfield, bars, British food, Brooklyn, gastropubs, New York, restaurants, Williamsburg
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Chef’s Table at Hecho en Dumbo: A Pictorial Tour
Mexican cuisine has come a long way in New York City in the last fifteen years, but the new tasting menu at Hecho en Dumbo is a sign that it hasn’t peaked yet. French-style service, technique and presentation meet Mexican food in this five-course meal, served at the bar in front of the open kitchen, which the restaurant recently transformed from just extra seating to a communal “chef’s table.”
Here’s a pictorial tour of the meal, which, with a few freebies thrown in for all the diners that night, topped out to seven courses for just $55. The setting may not be as fancy as a Boulud restaurant, but it’s an interesting window into the inner workings of a very busy kitchen. Chef Danny Mena, a Mexico City native who previously cooked at the Modern, manages a team of five, who quickly dish out small plates of roasted kid goat, wild striped sea bass, local beet salad and more. They’re as beautifully presented as French cuisine, made with artisanal ingredients contrasting in an inventive way, but the flavor is distinctly Mexican.
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