Apiary: It may not be Veritas, but chef Scott Bryan is settling, and it's still off most people's radar.
SHO Shaun Hergatt: People are slowly waking up to the fact that this was one of 2009's most important openings - splendid, refined food at a bargain price.
SD26: San Domenico reinvented for a new world of flexible, casual dining.
[Pigging by Wilfrid: February 13, 2012]
Although Tabla eventually stumbled, and became the first restaurant Danny Meyer ever had to close, it's hard to argue that it was anything other than a success over most of its twelve year run.
No surprise, then, that Meyer has given Floyd Cardoz a curtain call at a big and brilliantly equipped new location, and that it's off to such a rousing start.
[Free stuff by Wilfrid: February 6, 2012]
I was happy to accept an invitation to explore the menu at Aglio, a romantically lit trattoria on a Tribeca strip which has become quite the Italianate restaurant strip: Bread, Petrarca, White & Church, and so on.
Aglio's challenge is to differentiate itself from its neighbors. The setting and service make progress in that direction. The food, though pleasant, needs to catch up.
[Pigging by Wilfrid: February 3, 2012]
A fellow gastronaut joined me recently to explore the gin palaces and low dives of Greenpoint. To line our stomachs against the challenge, we resorted to Karczma on Greenpoint Avenue, just off the neighorhood's main crossroads.
We found portions worthy of gargantua at remarkably low prices.
[Pigging by Wilfrid: January 13, 2012]
What's in a misnomer? "Eating people is wrong," is the Flanders-Swann song which springs to mind when I hear of a restaurant called The Cannibal. But what they really want you to eat are barnyard animals in various forms.
A sibling of Resto, and next door to the mothership (unsigned and I found lost people outside looking for it), The Cannibal is worth a butcher's hook (I'm talking cockney now).
[Pigging by Wilfrid: January 9, 2012]
Shortly before the holidays, a festive dinner among friends at SD26. As I've written often, I was a long time regular at San Domenico, so when I eat at its Madison Square successor I feel like I eat among friends.
Times do change, though, and it's necessary to remember we're now eating the cuisine of Mattero Bergamini, who opened SD26 under now departed chef Odette Fada. The quality, suffice to say, is maintained.
[Pigging by Wilfrid: January 9, 2012]
Let's mention for posterity my wine of the holiday season, a 1990 Cornas by Robert Michel. I was worried it was past its best, but not at all.
I must have picked this up before Michel's wines started rising in price. I know I didn't pay anything like the current three figure price. I've had it sitting around for a few years, and it was high time to open it.
[Pigging by Wilfrid: January 1, 2012]
What a year for dining out in New York it hasn't been. Sorry. I know the restaurant industry and its publicists must pretend that everything gets bigger and better year by year (not to mention more local).
There are hordes of bloggers, and not a few print journalists, who form up thoughtlessly to cheerlead for what is, in fact, the steady dumbing down of gastronomy in this city. Not I. What's the use of being insincere?
[Pigging by Wilfrid: December 21, 2011]
My first reaction when I saw the signs go up on the corner of 14th Street and Second Avenue: "What, more meatballs?" My feeling after my second meal at the Meatball Factory: "Okay, better meatballs."
My initial visit was at the invitation of a publicist, but I went back quite happily on my own dime. Who thought I'd end 2011 - just about - praising a meatball shop.
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