-
Subscribe
NYC Restaurants and Bars
Trending Now
1920s 70s jeans all black bags black and white Central Park Central Park Conservancy Chanel Chloe coats color denim Donna Karan dresses Fall 2011 fashion week French food fur FW2011 hats Italian food lace-up boots Lanvin leopard Louis Vuitton maxi skirts metallics models off duty navy Paris Paris restaurants Prabal Gurung prints red red lipstick shoes short shorts Spring 2012 street chic stripes sunglasses Valentino Viktor & Rolf Vogue whiterestaurants
street chic
- White Pom Pom Hat and Fur Coat, Outside Costello Tagliapietro
- White Jeans and Plaid Coat, Outside BCBG
- Monika Chiang FW 2012
- Opening Ceremony x Glamour Kitty Sweater, Outside BCBG
- Navy Toggle Cloak, Outside Louis Vuitton
- Mixed Prints, Outside Preen
- Michelle Harper at Theyskens’ Theory
- Tweed Coat and Spectator Shoes, Outside Lanvin
- Winter Layers, Outside Donna Karan
- Mary Alice Stephenson
About
bellastraniera
a.k.a. Marcy Swingle - obsessed with food and fashion.View my photography website.
Random Musings
Paris Restaurants and Bars
-
-
Fashion
photo blogs
Food
Tag Archives: American food
Burger and Barrel
There’s a common misconception that a restaurant has to focus on things like fish, tofu and radishes to attract a female clientele. But what New York women want is often defined by what they don’t want: multiple TVs over the bar, the smell of bleach masking the smell of stale beer, and guys in backwards white baseball caps. But red meat? Most of us are actually fine with that.
Burger and Barrel proves that a restaurant doesn’t have to go on a diet to appeal to women, since we appreciate a good burger just as much as the guys do. We just don’t want to eat one in a crap place. (more…)
Posted in food
Tagged American food, bars, burgers, crab, gastropubs, iceberg wedge salad, New York, restaurants, Soho
Leave a comment
La Maison Mère
When you think Parisian food, do you think filet mignon or pastrami? Tarte au chocolat or cheesecake? If the answer is the former, it’s time to revisit Paris, because the latest dining trend sweeping the city is cuisine new yorkais.
Traveling across the Atlantic to patronize ever-encroaching American chains like Starbucks is not recommended, but new Parisian places like Marcel and La Maison Mère are worth a visit to experience the French take on delicatessen classics. Basically imagine a Cordon Bleu student interning at Katz’s, and you’ve got the picture. (more…)
Posted in food, travel
Tagged American food, burgers, Paris, Paris restaurants, restaurants
Leave a comment
Fedora
As much as we hate to see old icons of the New York dining scene disappear, let’s face it: not every place is worth saving. Take Fedora, the gay bar on West 4th Street that’s been around since before gay bars were even legal. The atmosphere: fabulously decrepit, as was much of the clientele. The food: questionable. Fedora was a restaurant in the vein of the bygone bohemian Greenwich Village depicted in Mad Men, a style that only lives on in such stalwarts as Gene’s on West 11th Street.
Fast forward to 2010, when new owner Gabriel Stulman of Joseph Leonard took over the Fedora space and reopened it this January. He kept the name and the iconic neon sign outside. A long wooden bar spanning one side of the spare, black and white room looks antique, but it’s actually a new, custom-made bar that incorporates parts of the old Fedora bar. It feels as if it’s been here forever, as does the impressive collection of black and white photos on the opposite wall. Even some of the original Fedora’s regulars are now regulars here. Though Stulman’s following is pretty straight, the original regulars can’t be displeased by the eye candy in this good-looking, stylish crowd. (more…)
Posted in food
Tagged American food, bars, French food, Gabriel Stulman, New York, restaurants
Leave a comment
The National
What’s in a name? The National – not the indie café on the Lower East Side, but the latest endeavor by Geoffrey Zakarian in Midtown – is one of about five places now named “the National” in New York. And in that way, the name says it all: This restaurant seeks to capitalize on the comfortable tiled American bistro trend started by smaller restaurants, package it and remarket it to the Midtown crowd.
The space is pleasant enough. Tile floors plus wood-paneled walls plus flattering lighting create a nice environment for an after-work dinner or a quick bite if you’re staying in the Benjamin hotel above. The National is definitely an improvement on existing options in the area. But about halfway through the meal you might notice a certain emptiness – there’s no art on the walls, no sense of a singular personality behind the design or food, and a focus-grouped feel to the final product. (more…)
Lunch: Peels
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…)
Riverpark
The first hurtle in getting to Tom Colicchio’s new restaurant Riverpark is convincing your taxi driver that it exists. Ours had to be coaxed to drive through the imposing metal gates on First Avenue towards the river, perhaps unconvinced he wasn’t heading right into the maw of Bellevue. When we arrived, we found a brand new industrial park where the wind whipped in from the river. The metal and glass building lobby had all the warmth of the set of Gattica, and beyond that, the hangar-sized, spotlit restaurant itself wasn’t much cozier.
Alas, we were in for another episode of When Bad Spaces Happen to Good Chefs. Though we came in rooting for ‘wichcraft chef Sisha Ortuzar, who has plied us all these years with delicious sandwiches of roast pork with jalapenos and white anchovies with warm egg, the jarringly chilly space did not put us at ease. One of the reasons we chose this restaurant for dinner with out-of-town friends was for the view, though this is visible mainly from the bar area, and the Williamsburg waterfront isn’t all that impressive. But it’s good to have at least one geographical reference, or you might wonder, as D. said, “Are we in Dallas?” (more…)
Brindle Room
Though it’s a noble goal, authenticity isn’t always what you want when seeking out imported regional specialties. Take saucissons bourguignons. Few New Yorkers would likely complain that there isn’t enough tripe in French sausages here. Just pork and beef is fine, thanks.
Likewise, though authentic poutine has its devotees in Quebec, you might not want to recreate it exactly. Fast food fries slathered in mystery-meat gravy and piled with heaps of cheese that’s a cross between regular and cottage cheese is an acquired taste, even in a drunken state at 1am – which is generally when poutine is consumed in Montreal, under the fluorescent lights of a take-out shop. (more…)
Strong Place
You wouldn’t think Court Street would need another bar – until the right one opens, and it feels like it should have been there all along. The latest addition to the neighborhood, Strong Place, is a grown-up bar with a staggering 24 beers on tap and 14 more available by the bottle. The vintage industrial interior with its exposed brick walls, wooden bar and science lab stools feels like Brooklyn’s answer to the Otherroom in the West Village.
There’s a spacious restaurant here too, and though we didn’t have time to delve into the entire menu, the deviled eggs served as the perfect bar snack. Creamy and fresh with a kick at the finish, these eggs doubled down on spice with cayenne on top and peppery olive oil underneath.
Seersucker
Have you ever discovered a new favorite place only to see it splashed all over the New York Times several days later? That’s what happened to us with not one but two places last week. Our only hope is that the Brooklyn location will keep (some of) the masses from swarming them.
Place number one is Seersucker, a refined little Southern restaurant that recently opened on Smith Street in Carroll Gardens. Behind an unassuming exterior with stained glass and plants in the window, the inside has a modern farmhouse feel, with polished exposed brick walls, plain wooden tables, lab stools at the bar and Wilco on the stereo. (more…)
Posted in food
Tagged American food, bars, Brooklyn, New York, restaurants, Southern food
Leave a comment
The Lion
The Waverly Inn may be one of the most celeb-packed restaurants in the city, but some of us actually went for the food. Sure, the scene is thrilling – particularly the time that Owen Wilson came out from the back room to mix with us civilians at the bar – but the thing that made the aggravating attitude at the door tolerable was the reward of those flaky, golden, melt-in-your-mouth biscuits. Without fail, they would be plopped down on your table as soon as you sat down, a light at the end of the tunnel.
Turns out I must not be alone, because many patrons of the Waverly Inn have followed chef John DeLucie here to the Lion. Mick Jagger caused a stir on a recent night there, and now the flashbulbs of paparazzi outside the door greet anyone vaguely famous-looking. Alas, the Lion’s democratic touch that enraptured Jay Cheshes at Time Out is already fast disappearing, and you may find waits of two hours or more now for one of those walk-in tables in the front room.
Email 
Twitter 
RSS 
Facebook