In the magazine this week, Adam Platt credits two notable chefs for transcending their aggressively trendy settings. Thanks to Odette Fada at SD26, “once you’ve oriented yourself in the cavernous, bizarrely impersonal dining room and puzzled your way through the tortuous new menu … you’ll find some very good things to eat,” he assures. Abe & Arthur’s “is another overlarge, overstyled establishment with a highly qualified chef in the kitchen,” Platt writes of Franklin Becker. Rob Patronite and Robin Raisfeld compile a dossier on the artisanal coffees served by the Union Square Hospitality Group.
The In Season recipe is hot ginger-tea from Balthazar Bakery: “It defies logic, but this year, two local farms have grown ginger and brought the tender, gnarled rhizomes to market,” write Rob and Robin. For openings, the pair profile the East Side Social Club, while David Sax, author of Save the Deli, previews Mile End, a Montreal-style delicatessen coming to Boerum Hill. After a month of turkey talk, Rob and Robin find a refreshing main-course alternative for Thanksgiving: “Porchetta, where Sara Jenkins is offering a heat-and-eat porchetta—the great Italian boneless stuffed pork-roast.”
