Subterms
We have finished our annual search for America’s best restaurants. Over the last 12 months, reporters and editors traveled to nearly every state scouting restaurants for our annual list. This year, it was about spaces as much as places. We ate hyperlocal dishes served out of a trailer in a rural Virginia field, experienced one […] More
The co-owner of Miriam opens Rafael, Brass enlists Jeremiah Stone and Fabian von Hauske Valtierra, and more restaurant news.OpeningKellogg’s DinerThe 1928 original, a classic of the genre, has been reborn. The restaurateur Louis Skibar has put Jackie Carnesi, formerly of Roberta’s and Nura in Greenpoint, in charge of the kitchen. (“I love diners,” said Mr. Skibar, whose portfolio includes a few.) At 37, Ms. Carnesi said she no longer had to prove her chops and could concentrate on a menu notable for approachability and affordability. At the same time, you’ll find herbed mayo and marinated tomatoes in the BLT; guajillo-braised short rib hash, a nod to Ms. Carnesi’s Texan roots; huevos rancheros; and nachos. A highlight on Amanda Perdomo’s dessert menu is strawberry pretzel salad. The design, an updated restoration, is by Nico Arze and Matthew Maddy. (Opens Friday) 518 Metropolitan Avenue (Union Avenue), Williamsburg, Brooklyn, kelloggsdinernyc.com. Rafael The chef Rafael Hasid brings Mediterranean and Middle Eastern to neighborhood settings. Having successfully planted Miriam in Park Slope, Brooklyn, and a sibling on the Upper West Side, he has now turned his attention to the Upper East Side. This time his name is on the awning; Miriam was for his mother. The townhouse space on several levels is simply done with pale wood, blue accents (a thing this year), some rough-hew stonework and Middle Eastern design touches. The repertoire of the executive chef, Francisco Da Silva Rosa includes shakshuka, Israeli chopped salad and lamb in a burger. (Opens Thursday) 917 Lexington Avenue (71st Street), 646-918-7971, rafaelues.com. BrassA challenge when opening a restaurant is the name. Here’s one that has been hiding in plain sight — clever for an American brasserie. The place in question is in the Evelyn Hotel in NoMad, where the entrepreneur Nick Hatsatouris has already opened the Tusk Bar. He has again enlisted Jeremiah Stone and Fabian von Hauske Valtierra as partners for a menu that talks brasserie with an American accent. Mussels with chickpea fritters, an onion tart in a buckwheat crust, Amish chicken rolled around a mousseline of herbs and truffles, and a profiterole masquerading as a banana split are what you’ll find in a room with a vintage piano centerpiece that will be put to use. (Thursday) 27 East 27th Street, 212-971-9746, brassny.com. Corner Store Michael Vignola, Catch Hospitality’s culinary director, and Paul Castro, the executive chef of this spot moving in to a space on the edge of SoHo once occupied by Dos Caminos, dress some American classics with luxury touches. Wagyu is in a French dip. A two-pound lobster is escorted by frites, and an apple hand pie comes encased in buttery shortbread. Drinks include martinis, like a sour cream and onion version served with dip and chips. A bar, two dining rooms done in green velvet and leather, and a glass-enclosed patio define the premises. 475 West Broadway (West Houston Street), 212-271-9240, thecornerstoresoho.com.Dilly Dally Dilly Dally serves up unpretentious fare like lasagna.Teddy WolffA white storefront and a red awning announce this newcomer to Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. There is a chef’s counter but the place is better defined by unpretentious fare like meatballs, lasagna, ravioli with sage, crackers and dip, Caesar salad, shrimp cocktail and crisp steelhead trout. Dave Patry’s goal is comfort and familiarity, and he is working with the culinary director Diego Moya, a chef with pedigree. 626 Vanderbilt Avenue (Prospect Place), Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, 646-481-0754, dillydallybk.com. We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
More from our inbox:Risky Covid Behavior‘Glorious’ Outdoor Dining in New York CityA Librarian’s FightDonald J. Trump, the first former American president to become a felon, is seeking to overturn his conviction and win back the White House.Doug Mills/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Judge Pushes Sentencing of Trump to After Election” (front page, Sept. 7):I must disagree with the hand-wringing of my liberal colleagues who lament the fact that Donald Trump won’t be sentenced for his conviction in the hush-money case until after the election.Your article notes that the public will not know before they go to the polls “whether the Republican presidential nominee will eventually spend time behind bars.”With all due respect, so what? The former president was convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Those who recoil at the idea of their president being a convicted felon won’t vote for him; those who support him will not change their minds based on the severity of the sentence.Other than being used as a talking point on the left (“he got four years in prison!!”) or on the right (“he got probation — I told you it was no big deal”), what could a sentence now possibly achieve?While no one, including Donald Trump, is above the law, this case is unique in our history. The sentence must be viewed as judicially sound, and for that it cannot become a partisan football, especially this close to an election.Eileen WestPleasantville, N.Y.To the Editor:Donald Trump’s lawyers have consistently maintained that his trials should not go forward because it may affect the 2024 election. Their many motions have contributed to delaying three of the four trials he faces. They have now persuaded Justice Juan Merchan in New York to put off sentencing in the fourth, justified by the judge because of the unique circumstances and timing surrounding the event.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
Oh! Calcutta opens in Long Island City; Grand Brasserie fills Vanderbilt Hall with Parisian flair and more restaurant news.OpeningOh! CalcuttaThe louche collection of sketches by the critic Kenneth Tynan that opened Off Broadway in 1969 has inspired the name of this new restaurant in Queens. Ruhel Amin, who has Indian restaurants in Harlem and Williamsburg, presents dishes from Kolkata, including a Lake Market fish fry, vegetable cutlet, chapli kebab with minced lamb, and kosha mangsho, a goat curry here. Workhorses like butter chicken, rogan josh and saag paneer are also on the menu. The chefs are Sharmeen Rahman and Lisha Khondoka; both women have worked in Mr. Amin’s other restaurants.10-57 Jackson Avenue (50th Avenue), Long Island City, Queens, 718-532-0017, ohcalcuttanyc.com. Grand BrasserieRick Blatstein, having sold OTG, his airport restaurant company with hundreds of outlets, continues to think big. His new company, Vizz Group, has taken over the landmark Vanderbilt Hall in Grand Central Terminal, previously run by City Winery, and the adjacent dining room, formerly Cornelius. Grand Brasserie is an airy 400-seat restaurant and bar, open during the terminal’s hours. The Rockwell Group’s design with Art Deco and Beaux Arts accents and splashes of scarlet on tabletops and seats reflect the style of many Parisian brasseries and railway terminals. (Opens Sunday) 89 East 42nd Street.TzikiSouvlaki and gyro are the featured players in this Greek spot with counter service from the restaurateur Harry Nicolaou and the chef Alexandros Gkoutsi. Pork, beef, chicken and mushroom are the options sliced from pirouetting spits or strung on skewers. Homemade sourdough pita are underpinnings or wraps. The space has been decorated with the work of the artist Alexandra Manousakis, a native of Crete, including handmade ceramics. (Thursday, Sept. 5)209 Seventh Avenue (22nd Street), tzikisouvlaki.com.Mr. Baovia Mr. BaoAn uncommon specialty has come to the heart of Midtown: abalone. Empress International, a South African food company with a location in Old Tappan, N.J., imports the shellfish from South Africa. It has opened a duplex restaurant, where the entire menu is devoted to abalone, often in Asian preparations. The mollusks are farm-raised in an area just south of Cape Town. Abalone spring rolls, dumplings, skewers, stir-fried with Wagyu, fried rice, in tom yum soup and cucumber salad ($9.95 to $39.99, with a 25 percent opening discount until the end of this month) are some of the options. The company also plans restaurants in Chinatown and Long Island City, Queens. It’s not connected to the Mr. Bao chain of fast casual spots.110 West 40th Street, 929-302-3551, mrbaous.com.Joo OKA freight elevator whisks guests to the 16th floor of the building where the setting replicates a traditional Korean home or hanok. Original industrial elements share the space with Korean art. The chef, Chang ho Shim, is opening his New York restaurant for the prolific Hand Hospitality restaurant group. He seeks local ingredients for an upscale menu in the works, which could include items like shrimp and vegetables with pine nut sauce, mollusks and pickled quail egg with homemade perilla oil, and seafood with smoked soy sauce. (Tuesday, Sept. 3)22 West 32nd Street No. 16, 646-410-0332, joo-ok.com.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
She was, she said, unable to cook a basic meal into her mid-20s. But she went on to a successful career as restaurateur and an authority on Asian cuisine.Rosa Ross, a Hong Kong-born chef who, despite lacking even basic kitchen knowledge into her 20s, became a noted cookbook author, Chinese cooking instructor and restaurateur on the North Fork of Long Island, died on June 28 at her home in East Marion, N.Y. She was 86.The cause was pulmonary fibrosis, her daughter Sarah Ross said.Drawing from a swirl of culinary influences from her youth — Chinese, English, Indian, Malaysian — Ms. Ross began her rise in the food world in the early 1980s by traveling to homes around New York City to provide Chinese cooking lessons with a business she called Wok on Wheels.She published the first of her four cookbooks, “365 Ways to Cook Chinese,” in 1994. Ten years later, after moving to Greenport, N.Y., she veered from classic Chinese cooking by opening the restaurant Scrimshaw there.Scrimshaw, which closed in 2016, was an early farm-to-table American restaurant that blended in elements of the Asian cuisine of her youth, including heritage-pork dumplings and duck-confit spring rolls that became the stuff of local legend.The restaurant also showcased Italian fare, which she first learned to make while living in Milan and honed under the tutelage of her friend Marcella Hazan, the author of “The Classic Italian Cook Book” (1973).Diners at Scrimshaw, Ms. Ross’s restaurant in Greenport, N.Y., in 2004, the year it opened. Scrimshaw showcased Italian and American cooking, but it was also noted for its heritage-pork dumplings and duck-confit spring rolls.Deirdre Brennan for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
Pete Wells is moving on from his role as the Times restaurant critic, a job with many rewards and maybe too many courses.Early this year, I went for my first physical in longer than I’d care to admit. At the time, I was about halfway through a list of 140 or so restaurants I planned to visit before I wrote the 2024 edition of “The 100 Best Restaurants in New York City.” It was a fair bet that I wasn’t in the best shape of my life.My scores were bad across the board; my cholesterol, blood sugar and hypertension were worse than I’d expected even in my doomiest moments. The terms pre-diabetes, fatty liver disease and metabolic syndrome were thrown around. I was technically obese.OK, not just technically.I knew I needed to change my life. I promised I’d start just as soon as I’d eaten in the other 70 restaurants on my spreadsheet.But a funny thing happened when I got to the end of all that eating: I realized I wasn’t hungry. And I’m still not, at least not the way I used to be. And so, after 12 years as restaurant critic for The New York Times, I’ve decided to bow out as gracefully as my state of technical obesity will allow.Not that I’m leaving the newsroom. I have a couple more restaurant reviews in my back pocket that will appear over the next few weeks, and I plan to stick around at The Times long after that. But I can’t hack the week-to-week reviewing life anymore.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
The Times’s restaurant critic is stepping down after a dozen years on the job. Here are some of his most engaging reviews and essays.As The New York Times’s restaurant critic for the last dozen years, Pete Wells has reported from the dining-room trenches on a changing industry. When he started the job in late 2011, old-guard restaurants like Le Cirque and the Four Seasons were still humming, with the help of expense-account diners. The #MeToo movement and the pandemic, which reshaped restaurant kitchens, were years away.Pete has explored the five boroughs and far beyond, as the Food desk’s coverage of restaurants widened its scope. He noted the rise in food halls in New York, and the city’s vast wealth of Chinese restaurants. He is on a seemingly endless quest for ceviche. (If you’re curious about his process, listen to him on this episode of “The Daily” and learn why he always packs a notebook.)Here are 21 pieces that show the sweep and depth of his criticism.Pete Wells’s First Starred ReviewWong, ★★, 2012His first column as restaurant critic took him to an Asian fusion restaurant from the chef Simpson Wong, where the duck-fat ice cream and duck-tongue meatballs brought smiles of pleasant surprise.After first reviewing Forever Jerk in 2021, Pete twice put it on his annual list of 100 best restaurants in New York City.Clay Williams for The New York TimesFinding New York’s Hidden GemsForever Jerk, multiple locations, 2021Pete followed the flavor, often to Queens, for long-simmered West African delights, Egyptian specialty sandwiches and roasted cold noodles. To find Forever Jerk, he stalked a smoke trail to a stretch of Flatlands Avenue, where Oneil Reid, the chef and owner, has set up one of three Forever Jerk stands in the city. (Pete gave no stars to restaurants he reviewed during the pandemic. “Formerly,” he told readers, “I tried to make the stars reflect how close any given restaurant came to being an ideal version of itself. But in the pandemic, there were no ideal restaurants, only places that were making it up as they went along.”)A Sri Lankan Favorite on Staten IslandLakruwana, ★, 2013Lakruwana began its life in Times Square, but a fire drove it to Staten Island, where the Sunday buffet has become one of legend. “Lakruwana may be New York’s most elaborate realization of the immigrant restaurateur’s dream: a shrine to another culture that can soothe homesickness in some patrons and kindle a thrilling sense of discovery in others.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
