You are browsing the Food category
April 4, 2008
Momofuku Ko, the trendy new 12 seat restaurant by acclaimed chef David Chang, is getting more attention for its maddening reservation system than for its food. That’s partly due to the fact that no critic has been able to get into the place and review it, not even the top dog in town, Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni. The problem is that Chang refuses to give anyone preferential treatment, and all who would dine at...
Continue Reading "Momofuku Ko Online Reservation System Drives Bruni Off the Reservation"
| 
In what will be the largest class action suit ever brought by New York restaurant employees, employees are suing Starbucks for violating a state law that prohibits management from receiving part of workers’ tips. At Starbucks, shift supervisors share the pooled tips with baristas, prompting a suit from former Forest Hills barista Jeana Barenboim, on behalf of at least 2,000 Starbucks baristas in NY who are owed at least $5 million. The lawsuit comes on...
Continue Reading "New York State Baristas Suing Starbucks Over Tips"April 3, 2008
On all counts, Michael Psilakis has been on quite a roll. Though his two-starred Dona was shuttered due to a real estate snafu, he went on to earn a Michelin star at Anthos, one of only two Greek restaurants with this honor, his to-die-for gnudi recipe was featured on the cover of Bon Appetit, was named Esquire's chef of the year, and opened up Mia Dona, which just yesterday earned two stars from Frank Bruni....
Continue Reading "NYC Gets Food & Wine Nod, James Beard Gets Sexy"
This recipe is adapted from A Drizzle of Honey: The Life and Recipes of Spain's Secret Jews by David M. Gitlitz and Linda Kay Davidson, a cookbook full of recipes for foods cooked and eaten by Jews and conversos in the Iberian Peninsula during the time of the Inquisition. The recipes were mostly gleaned from testimony denouncing the Jews during the inquisition. Jews were often identified by cultural signs, such as their culinary customs, and...
Continue Reading "Recipe of the Week: Goose Stew"April 2, 2008
Florent, the beloved Meatpacking District hangout set to close this summer after almost twenty three years in business, will at least be going out in style, according to Frank Bruni, who spoke with owner Florent Morellet yesterday. The bistro's long goodbye will last five weeks, with each week dedicated to one of the Kubler-Ross stages of grief. Week One, starting Monday, May 26, will be Denial, with the remaining four weeks themed as Anger, Bargaining,...
Continue Reading "Florent to "Close With a Bang" By the End of June"Advertisement: Gothamist Continues Below!
April 2, 2008
In addition to taking your money, an increasing number restaurants are also taking video of your dining experience, at least according to the Post’s trend-spotting Carla Spartos. She notes five Manhattan restaurants that use closed-circuit video cameras to record customers in their dining rooms: Boqueria, the four star Daniel, Dos Caminos, Philippe, and Momofuku Noodle Bar. The article features anecdotal evidence from a security consultant, who believes that restaurants are no longer worried that diners...
Continue Reading "More Restaurants Inviting Big Brother to Dinner"
East Village pizzeria Artichoke has been open a scant two weeks, but the blogosphere is already abubble. All it took was one avid pizza geek kvelling to Slice that it’s on a par with Brooklyn's acclaimed Di Fara Pizzeria. This initial report led many to assume that this standing-room spot models its pies after those turned out by Dom De Marco, the maestro of Midwood. The only similarity between Di Fara’s and Artichoke is the...
Continue Reading "Is Artichoke Pizzeria the Manhattan Answer to Di Fara?"
Photo: du Barry bagel; 2008. Bagel, cauliflower, cheese; mixed media. From author’s private collection. “Pizza!” so begins a song beloved by millions, “pizza in the morning, pizza in the evening, pizza at supper time. When pizza’s on a bagel, you can have pizza anytime.” That timeless anthem conveys a fundamental truth: pizza bagels are a kind of sublime food, except if you’re lactose intolerant, hate tomatoes, or have Celiac disease. So it may come...
Continue Reading "Is Alain Ducasse Serving a Pizza Bagel?"
Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni awards two stars to Mia Dona (pictured), the best rating that a somewhat casual place like this could hope for: “The food is robust, often rustic and sometimes proudly unsubtle, hammering away at its intended effect.” The East 58th Street Italian restaurant is a remix of Michael Psilakis and Donatella Arpaia’s shuttered restaurant Dona, and compared to Anthos, Psilakis’s haute Greek place, Mia Dona rolls like “a Buick, a more...
Continue Reading "Midweek Special: NYC Restaurant Review Roundup"April 1, 2008
Since you already know about the $5 soda, the $26 pancakes, the $99 a pound ham, and the $25,000 dessert, you probably don’t have much derision left to spare on a measly $81 burger. In fact, depending on your appetite and income level, it could be that this latest addition to the list of New York culinary obscenities isn’t so outrageous after all. Served at the Old Homestead steakhouse in the Meatpacking District, the...
Continue Reading "$81 Burger Added to Menu at The Old Homestead"
The menu at Frankies 457 Spuntino reads like a gourmet marketplace, and placing an order amounts to trusting the chef to choose an antipasto plate full of cheeses and meats of superior quality. Lists of vegetables like broccoli raab and cremini mushrooms--usually compliments to a pasta or a meat dish--can stand alone on a plate, with sauces soaked up by the perfectly crusty bread from Grandaisy Bakery. On a recent rainy Wednesday night, the...
Continue Reading "Camera in the Kitchen: Frankies 457 Spuntino"
Eating out and being philanthropic may seem mutually exclusive, but there is a way the money you spend to eat out can help others at the same time. During the month of April, restaurants will pair up with the “Spring for City Harvest” campaign, each eatery offering special appetizers, entrees, desserts, and in some cases complete prix fixe menus. They will donate 10% of proceeds directly to City Harvest, where the money raised will be...
Continue Reading "Splurge and Give: Spring for City Harvest"
New York has lost another vintage factory built diner: The Cheyenne, a popular all night eatery near Penn Station, will close its doors on Sunday after 68 years of operation. And the owner of a rival diner – the bigger Skylight Diner nearby – is to blame. Skylight owner George Papas also owns the narrow 20-by-100 foot site the Cheyenne currently occupies and he plans to build a nine-story apartment building on the property. Forgotten-NY’s...
Continue Reading "The Cheyenne, One of the Last Vintage Diners, to Close"