at the sign of The Pink Pig

Alto? - Basso!

[Pigging by Wilfrid: July 28, 2008]

This has been the season to review Scarpetta - former Alto chef Scott Conant's new Italian venture - or Convivio, current Alto chef Michael White's make-over of Scott Conant's L'Impero.

So I decided to be contrarian, and see what was kicking at Alto itself, while everyone's attention was elsewhere.

Sea And Mountains On A Plate: Anticipating Catalunya

[Correct Dining by Wilfrid: July 28, 2008]

It is about time to get of this city for a while, and my first stop this summer will be Barcelona.

Perhaps perversively, my anticipation of the trip had me looking at recipes for traditional Catalan dishes.

96 And Working: Louise Bourgeois

[New York Peasant by Wilfrid: July 28, 2008]

Seventy years a New York resident, Louise Bourgeois found her life of making honored at the Tate Modern in London last year, where a particularly giant Bourgeois spider has previously done spells of guard duty in the converted power station's vast Turbine Hall.  But now the generous retrospective has come home, spending the summer at the Guggenheim.

Lively Times: Ten Years Ago

[Pink Pig Time Machine by Wilfrid: July 28, 2008]

At some point, one begins to turn these dusty old pages with trepidation.  Summer of 1998 was, it seems, a season of interesting comings and goings, and there are people I haven't seen for years and truly miss.  But on a high note, let's start with Les Halles!...

Quick Bites: Mercadito Cantina, Burger Shoppe

[Pigging by Wilfrid: July 21, 2008]

Patricio Sandoval has been packing a young, affluent crowd into the Mercadito taquerias in the East and West Villages since - believe it or not - 2004.

And I swear it's as much as a year ago that I noticed a wine and beer license application pending for an empty store-front at 172 Avenue B, and discovered the Mercadito people were behind it.

Scroll down for Burger Shoppe

A Second Look: Allen & Delancey

[Pigging by Wilfrid: July 21, 2008]

As long ago as October 2007 I reviewed this ambitious project by Neil Ferguson on a dark block of Allen, and commented that I would surely return.

Ferguson, having taken the fall for the Times's two star review of Gordon Ramsay at the London, where he had been running the kitchen for his famed and charmless compatriot, has enjoyed a supremely successful comeback with this dark, romantic downtown boîte.

This Nearly Was Great: "South Pacific" Revived

[New York Peasant by Wilfrid: July 21, 2008]

Through relentless early summer drizzle, and around the maze of construction in the Lincoln Center forecourt, to the Vivien Beaumont Theater for "approximately three hours" of the higher schmaltz.

Brooklyn Et Cetera: Ten Years Ago

[Pink Pig Time Machine by Wilfrid: July 21, 2008]

On a perfect summer Saturday, I took my first walk across Brooklyn Bridge - an exercise I can recommend to anyone.

A July Revolution At Veritas

[Pigging by Wilfrid: July 14, 2008]

Scott Bryan manned the barricades at Veritas from its 1999 opening (when my entire dinner was comped, after the first-week service had misdirected their first attempt at it to a neighboring table) until he departed last year.

After a brief interregnum, during which Ed Cotton maintained the tradition of straightforward but polished American cooking to accompany the near-matchless wine list, a new régime's in town.   Il s'appelle Grégory Pugin.

A Second Look: Merkato 55

[Pigging by Wilfrid: July 14, 2008]

Dismaying reports recently, both online and by word of mouth, that the two cavernous floors of Merkato were devoid of diners even during peak service (and the restaurant works from lunch/brunch through to the small hours of the morning.