Tag Archives: oysters
Lupulo
Of all the cuisines available in New York City, Portuguese was probably not something you realized you were missing. Yet like the Eventi hotel it occupies, Lupulo, a new restaurant by Portuguese chef George Mendes, has sprung up on the overlooked corner of 29th and Sixth Avenue where seemingly nothing was before. The open space, defined by an a huge marble horseshoe-shaped bar under a hatchwork of interlocking metal bars and lights suspended from the ceiling, has a very European feel, as if you had suddenly stumbled into Les Halles on the way to Penn Station. Kitchen staff shuck oysters plucked from large piles of ice, the place buzzes with conversation at the packed bar, and the smell of saffron is in the air. (more…)
Posted in Cuisine, Midtown East, Neighborhood, New York restaurants, Portuguese, restaurants
Tagged cocktails, octopus, oysters, seafood, shrimp
Comments Off on Lupulo
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
Comments Off on Lafayette
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
Saxon + Parole
The Bowery was never the sort of place you’d expect to find a millionaire. Once home to brothels, flophouses, vaudeville shows, saloons and street gangs, this notoriously rough thoroughfare attracted an equally rough crowd – except, of course, for the odd millionaire or two. Peter Stuyvesant’s estate sat at the northern end of the Bowery in the 1600s, John Jacob Astor banded together with other wealthy families to build a theater here in the 1830s, and Gilded Age socialites flocked here at the turn of the last century.
There have always been a few of the one percent in the mix on the Bowery, the legendary destination for slumming it. But what’s changed is the setting – the luxe life has followed the one percent here. Now at 316 Bowery on the corner of Bleecker, you’ll now find sleek design and $15 cocktails where there used to be a hardware store and cheap hotel. (more…)
Posted in American, food, New York restaurants, Noho, restaurants
Tagged bars, New York, oysters, seafood
Comments Off on Saxon + Parole