[Pigging by Wilfrid: September 10, 2014]
Uh oh, uh oh, as Queen Bey would say, but the wheel of history sure spins fast. Scanning the lists of restaurants set to open this month (or next month; or before the holidays; or early next year; or three years from now if you're Fatty 'Cue) I have just one thing to say:
There are only two places of even slight interest--and I mean slight--set to open in the whole of Brooklyn--not just in Williamsburg (which is where they're opening). All the action, save a few uptown swankeries has returned to downtown, primarily to the East Village and Lower East Side (now one neighborhood). This is some turnaround.
What's more, it comes on the heels of twelve months of mostly very popular openings in the neighborhood: Mission Cantina, Contra, Ivan Ramen, Flinders Lane, Tuome, Oda House, Lumière, Le Jardin Bistro, Schnitz, Miss Lily's, Red Hook Lobster Pound, Blue Ribbon Fried Chicken, Root & Bone, Donostia and Huertas, that Russ & Daughters caff, Bar Primi if you stretch a point...and how many have I forgotten?
How have things changed? Consider Hearth. In 2003, it spearheaded the arrival of exciting dining in the East Village (the Lower East Side warmed up much later). Momofuku Noodle Bar followed in 2004. Sure, Prune and The Tasting Room had held the fort in early years, but after 2003 came the deluge. Yet in 2008, Marco Canora said of Hearth: "When we signed the lease for this place five years ago, we caught the real estate market in the East Village at the very last little moment of affordable rents."
And that was the story in the late "aughts." Independent-minded chefs headed to Williamsburg, then Greenpoint and Bushwick, and Queens too.
What happened? Have you seen the rents in Williamsburg lately?
Anyone could see the hot parts of Brooklyn pricing themselves into the stratosphere, but I would never have predicted the extent of this counter-reaction. The emphasis on East Village and Lower East Side openings in preview lists for this fall is stunning--and if you add NoHo, the West Village, and other downtown parts, absurd. Williamsburg? Okay...
Williamsburg
The Camlin, from the team behind Ardesia. I like Ardesia, and unless I'm on my way to 11th Avenue in midtown for...something...a Williamsburg sibling will be much easier to get to. So that's good.
MP Taverna. Like the one in Astoria, I guess. Michael Psilakis expanding.
And that is it. For Brooklyn. Unless the flacks aren't doing their work. On the other hand...
East Village/LES
1. Big Chefs:
David Chang is taking MomoKo to a bigger space in what is now pretty much a residential-dining-entertainment complex on the Bowery near East 1st Street. Not far away, John McDonald (Lure) jumps the carnivore bandwagon with Bowery Meat Co. With or without a name change, Mathieu Palombino is bringing his pop up Chez Jef back as a permanent bistro on the Bowery.
The Torrisi team just sprang Dirty French on the Ludlow Hotel. Alex Stupak doubles his EV holdings with Empellón Al Pastor on St Mark's, where he'll be serving nothing but tacos. And some main dishes. Maybe. If he can stand them.
Amanda Cohen's Dirt Candy is also getting bigger--it could hardly get smaller--on Allen Street. Aaron Sanchez is back just a block over from old Paladar--Alegre on Orchard Street. Marco Moreira of Tocqueville goes casual at last with the kind of Brazilian food you don't go to Little Brazil for. Botequim on Fourth Avenue.
Marc Meyer will serve Mexicano food at Rosie's, cheekily just one avenue over from Rosa Mexicano.
2. Other Notables:
Sarah Simmons of the City Grit pop-up dining club thing says champagne goes with fried chicken at Birds & Bubbles on Forsyth. Note, it goes with anything. I wonder what Stanton Street Social thinks of the name Stanton Street Kitchen for a new restaurant on Stanton Street? And there will be Mexican-Chinese fusion, that old New York standby, at Tijuana Picnic on Essex.
3. And Near Notables
Goat Town is back, renamed GG's. Happy Ending is back, now as some kind of French bistro cellar. People are still trying to sell New York on Poutine: King Bee, First Avenue, not far from Hearth.
Suck on that lot, Billburg.
Also Downtown
In the West Village, Mas (La Grillade) is being rethought by Galen Zamarra; Seamus Mullen is expanding the tapas empire to El Comado on Little West 12th; and Jody Williams is doing more Italian at Via Carota.
And with a Michelin-starred chef from Italy, Mulino a Vino is set to open on West 14th any moment now. Yes, this is the place you read about where you're supposed to order your wine before you order your food. As long as it doesn't arrive after the food.
Floyz Cardos and Andrew Carmellini are coming to Tribeca (White Street, Little Park and Jose Garces to Battery Park City (Amada).
Elsewhere
Elsewhere, really not much. George Mendes' work is always interesting, and it looks like he has something more casual--and cheaper, I guess--than Aldea coming to the Flatiron. Admired veterans are opening in midtown: Le Bernardin sommelier Aldo Sohm with an eponymous wine bar on West 51st, and Charles Masson, long-time manager of La Grenouille, with Baccarat on West 53rd.
And finally, maybe the two most discussed debuts of the season. César Ramirez will try to demonstrate that the tiny dining counter Brooklyn Fare can continue to be one of the most expensive and hard-to-book restaurants in the city when it clones itself as a "proper" restaurant on what I'd call an ugly block you only walk down to get to the Javits Center. Enrique Olvera, meanwhile, will try not to join the parade of high-end chefs from overseas disdained by the New York dining public, as he opens Cosme in the Flatiron--three times the size of his Mexico City flagship, but hopefully not dumber. That just won't work.
Place your bets now, and make your reservations.
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