Posts for December 4, 2012 -- Grub Street: New York Magazine's Food and Restaurant Blog

Posts for December 4, 2012

12/4/12 at 6:05 PM
Leftovers
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Jean-Georges’s Sub Sandwich; Wine Dinner at La Slowteria

• Scott Edwards, formerly of the Beagle and currently at Governor, will lead the two restaurants in a cocktail pairing dinner on Monday, December 17. Half the net proceeds will go toward helping Governor in its ongoing, post-Sandy rebuilding efforts. [Grub Street]

• A new kind of tab: Go to DBGB Kitchen & Bar for their signature, $495 whole hog dinner, which feeds up to eight people, and order a selection of paired craft beers and a bottle of Pig's Nose Scotch Whisky for $300, but don't worry about finishing that booze if you're full. DBGB will keep it tagged and stashed behind the bar for your next visit. [Grub Street]

• Fans of Pennsylvania brewery Sly Fox will be pleased to hear that Alobar will feature five of its brews at the restaurant's monthly five-course beer dinner, next Thursday, December 13. [Grub Street]

A very special sandwich at No. 7 Sub.

12/4/12 at 5:35 PM
Coming Soon
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Sandy Impeded Wheated’s Dreams, But Nothing Stops a Real Pizza Party

By Hugh Merwin

Storm surge be damned.

A pizza pilgrim whose quest for char began with a hand-built, wood-fired pizza oven and continued with a Paulie Gee's apprenticeship was prepping his very own spot in Ditmas Park, called Wheated, set to open in early 2013 in the old NYC Icy space on Church Avenue, when Sandy hit New York. David Sheridan's custom Moretti Forni electric pizza ovens were locked inside a Coney Island storage unit during the storm, and were destroyed. Although they were declared a total loss, Sheridan's insurance company is denying the claim for the ovens, which cost $30,000. Slice reports that Sheridan and his wife are moving forward with their plans to open the restaurant regardless. [Slice/Serious Eats NY]

12/4/12 at 4:50 PM
Famous Wrappers
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This Man Really, Really Likes Candy Bar Wrappers

Narratively profiles a 43-year-old Queens man who hangs out at the London Candy Co. and spends his summers bartending at the Bryant Park Grill, then funnels his earnings into the acquisition of old candy wrappers and sweets packaging. He amassed some 10,000 such specimens during the last five years, which are all stashed or on display in his Astoria apartment. It may be the largest collection of its kind in the world, but apparently that's not good enough for Wes Anderson, who refused to pay a licensing fee for his vintage box of Milk Duds. [Narratively]

12/4/12 at 4:10 PM
Openings
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Peace Out: Angelo Sosa’s Social Eatz Will Become Poppy Den

By Hugh Merwin

Sosa: flower child.Photo: RD/ Kabik/ Retna Digital/Corbis

Reality-television contestant and peripatetic chef Angelo Sosa will close his two-year-old midtown restaurant Social Eatz and will reopen it as the second outpost of a new concept called Poppy Den sometime in early 2013. Poppy Den is an "Asian gastropub" Sosa co-developed with former Planet Hollywood president Bill Feather. The chef's restaurant group describes it as a continuation of Social Eatz, serving "market-driven" food inspired by the chef''s travels throughout Asia. Its first location is due to debut at Tivoli Village in Las Vegas in just a few weeks.

12/4/12 at 2:50 PM on Grub Street SF
Oeno-File
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Famed Italian Winery Hit by Vandals Destroying $25 Million Worth of Wine

By Jay Barmann

Gianfranco Soldera

A highly respected winery in Tavernelle, Italy, south of Montalcino, was the target of a calculated attack on its cellars this week that may have been an act of revenge by rival winemakers who were tired of being bad-mouthed. Case Basse di Soldera is a top producer of Brunello di Montalcino, with bottles of their last vintage (2006) selling for around $300 apiece, and as the New York Times reports, vandals succeeded in opening up vats containing six years' worth of vintages and dumping the wine out onto the floor. The motive for the crime? Estate proprietor Gianfranco Soldera maybe kinda needed to be put in his place.

12/4/12 at 2:30 PM
Achievements
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Breaking: Donald Trump Given ‘Highest Rated Sanitary Award’ in New York

By Hugh Merwin

The laconic entrepreneur just tweeted some excellent, if unanticipated news: "Just won the highest rated sanitary award in NY—an A--& the food is great also. Trump Grill/ 57th & 5th." That's right, things may still be a little bit stanky in Vegas, but today, a new high bar has been set over on Fifth Avenue, and it all happened during a routine health-department inspection. According to the NYC Department of Health, his restaurant joins a small-but-prestigious list of only 18,824 other spots to receive "A" grades. Remember this day, people, and never stop dreaming. [realDonaldTrump/Twitter, Earlier]

12/4/12 at 1:50 PM
Openings
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What to Eat at Chez Sardine, Now Serving Tuna With Chicharrónes in the West Village

By Hugh Merwin

Gabriel Stulman's constellation of West Village restaurants includes Fedora, Joseph Leonard, the forthcoming Montmarte, and Perla. There's Jeffrey's Grocery, where a chef supergroup presides over menu-planning and members take turns on the line, and now here's Chez Sardine, an izakaya built out with a retro, Pan Am–era décor of finished wood and Fedora chef Mehdi Brunet-Benkritly in the kitchen. Some dishes, like the chopped scallop with quail egg and trout roe sushi bar starter, seem traditional. The main course foie gras and smoked-cheddar grilled-cheese sandwich, on the other hand, sounds so funky and ominous it should probably be accompanied by a sinister-looking man playing low notes on a baby-grand piano every time the kitchen sends one out. Either way, we're excited. Check out the space and the whole menu, straight ahead.

Wax on, wax off.

12/4/12 at 1:00 PM
Quote Of The Day
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Dan Barber Is Ditching the Silverware

"You can’t eat ants with silverware." — Blue Hill chef Dan Barber, on the reason why traditional arrangements of forks and knives just aren't cutting it, literally, anymore. In Pocantico Hills, Barber has ditched forks and impales turnips on spikes. Elsewhere, he's inspired by the creepy crawlies at Noma. [Hungry Crowd/F&W, Earlier]

12/4/12 at 12:20 PM
Openings
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Richie Notar Signs On for Lenox Lounge Space, Reportedly With Robert De Niro

By Hugh Merwin

Keep the jazz coming.

Street-smart Queens kid turned Nobu managing partner Richie Notar has a full plate of projects: He's opening three restaurants, said to include a fast-casual concept and an oyster bar at the Lombardy. He's reportedly also bringing cult New Orleans doughnut shop Buttermilk Drop to Harlem and has applied for a liquor license at the historic Lenox Lounge space on Lenox Avenue. Jeremiah's Vanishing New York even hears that Robert De Niro is involved, and the space may be called Notar Jazz Club. Meanwhile, Alvin Reed, who has owned the club for the last 24 years and is responsible for preserving the space, says he is being forced out, Black Enterprise reports, by a rent that is currently $20,000 a month, up from $10,000 a year ago. "I am Lenox Lounge, and I will be Lenox Lounge for quite some time," says Reed. "And if they want Lenox Lounge, they want me.” [Black Enterprise, Earlier, Earlier]

12/4/12 at 11:35 AM
Openings
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What to Eat at Louro, Now Serving Fry Bread and Rabbit Rillettes in the West Village

By Hugh Merwin

David Santos learned the ropes at Bouley and Per Se before becoming executive chef at Griffou. He stepped off the line last year and turned his Roosevelt Island apartment into an underground supper club, launched a pier-side fish shack this summer, and is now opening his first full-service restaurant, called Louro, which replaces Lowcountry in the West Village. The menu — which includes piri piri shrimp, Chatham cod with peppers and onion vinaigrette, and chicken-fried sweetbreads with collard greens, gravy, and spiced honey — not only references Santos's training and Portuguese roots, but it's also a reflection of the chef's restless energy. Check out the menu and some of the food, straight ahead.

Check out this menu.

12/4/12 at 11:05 AM
Openings
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Confirmed: Arzak Will Open in London in February

By Hugh Merwin

Elena Arzak.Photo: CARL COURT/AFP/Getty Images

Michelin-star types have been a-twinklin' with the rumor for more than a month now that legendary Spanish chef Juan Mari Arzak and his daughter Elena will open an Arzak outpost at the Halkin hotel in London. Today we find out that it's all true; the new project is called Ametsa with Arzak Instruction, and it'll will open in February of 2013. Ametsa means "dream" in Basque, Elena Arzak explains, adding that the new restaurant is "the dream of a kitchen beyond our frontiers, in the middle of London." The family's restaurant in Spain ranked eighth this year on S. Pellegrino's 50 Best List, and Elena Arzak was named Best Female Chef. The London restaurant will replace David Thompson's celebrated Nahm, which may close as early as December 15. [CatererSearch]

12/4/12 at 10:25 AM
Lawsuits
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Former Surf Lodge Owners Are Suing King & Grove

The real-estate investors who owned the five-year-old Surf Lodge hotel in Montauk are suing the King & Grove group, which managed the property, for $4.8 million. The Real Deal reports the lawsuit was filed yesterday in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan. The Edgemere Group (which includes Steve Kamali, pictured here) says that it hired King & Grove to run the show, but instead, the hotel group drained the Surf Lodge's cash flow and opened a competitor, Ruschmeyer’s, across Fort Pond. The hotel, nightclub, and a restaurant property opened in 2007 with Top Chef's Sam Talbot in the kitchen. The "bittersweet" chef left earlier this year, shortly before it was announced that the property had been sold. [TRD, Earlier]

12/4/12 at 10:00 AM
Gift Guide
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The 2012 Grub Street Gift Guide: 29 Gift Picks for Food Lovers of All Sorts

By Grub Street

If you're reading this, your gift-giving list this year probably contains at least a couple of food-loving people you just know would love ... something. But there's so much clutter — and so many useless kitchen tools — that finding a real gem of a present can turn into a chore. Rest easy, though: Grub Street turned to some of the country's best chefs, bartenders, and restaurant owners to see which gifts they'll be giving (or hoping for) this year. From simple $6 stocking stuffers all the way up to the best (and no doubt most expensive) knives imaginable, we've got you covered at every level.

12/4/12 at 09:30 AM
Video Feed
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Watch Alinea Take Over Eleven Madison Park, and Vice Versa

By Hugh Merwin

We had the good fortune to hang out behind the scenes of the great and ambitious switcheroo between the Chicago restaurant Alinea and New York's Eleven Madison Park earlier this fall, and now here's a companion music video, produced by Alinea to commemorate the occasion. It gives some sense of the logistical hurdles — and a healthy dose of the inherent frenzy — involved when one fine-dining restaurant steps outside of its comfort zone, travels 800 miles, and settles right now into another kitchen.

12/4/12 at 09:00 AM
Bookshelf
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Mint-Chocolate Awesome: Coolhaus Is Writing a Cookbook

Los Angeles– and New York–based ice-cream sandwich vendors Natasha Case and Freya Estreller of Coolhaus are writing a cookbook, which, much like the forthcoming Ample Hills Creamery book, will present the backstory of their frozen-treats business, along with 100 recipes. According to Publishers Marketplace (subscription required), Case and Estreller will share the secrets of Coolhaus's "Frank Behry (snickerdoodle and strawberry ice cream)" and "the weirdly delicious like fried chicken and waffles ice cream and potato chip cookies." The Coolhaus Ice Cream Cookbook will be published in early 2014. [PM]