Grub Street

On Monday, the owners of Tacombi at Fonda Nolita and La Brisa in Montauk will open a 6,500-square-foot food complex on West 24th Street, complete with a taqueria called Tacos Madison, as well as a tortilleria and a Veracruz-style coffee bar. The idea is that Cafe El Presidente will feel like a traditional Mexican market, where customers can visit different little shops and bars. Luis Aguilar, the head chef at Fonda Nolita, will produce tortillas made of beetroot, calabaza, nopal, yuca — both corn and flour styles. Jason DeBriere, most recently of now-closed Peels, will head up the brunch menu.

Citing sources close to the deal, New York Post real-estate columnist Lois Weiss reveals — somewhat mind-blowingly — that a branch of Mario Batali and Joe Bastianich's Eataly will open in the base of 4 WTC when the shopping-centric portion of the building debuts in the summer of 2015. The restaurateurs' first U.S. outpost of the Turin-based Slow Food mega-grocer opened four years ago, in advance of expansion nationwide (and world domination).*

National Security Adviser Susan Rice, Ambassador Caroline Kennedy, President Obama, and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe just took up four of the ten counter seats at the subterranean Sukiyabashi Jiro. (You may know it as one of the most respected, and most difficult to get into, sushi restaurants in the world, presided over by Jiro Ono, the octogenarian chef made famous in the 2011 documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi.)

Barcelona native Jordi Vallès, who trained under culinary titans Juan Mari Arzak and Ferrán Adrià and worked at the St. Regis in Bal Harbor, has been appointed to helm the market at Le District in Brookfield Place. The project will open "in stages" beginning this year, the Post reports, and will consist of two restaurants with seating, a café with coffee and sweets, a section for provisions like cheese and meats, and an area for quick takeaway like flowers and prepared foods. Le District joins a new Jose Garces restaurant and a branch of Parm, as well as outposts of Black Seed, Num Pang Sandwich Shop, Sprinkles Cupcakes, Tartinery, Dos Toros Taqueria, Dig Inn, Umami Burger, Chop't, Skinny Pizza, Little Muenster, Olive's, Mighty Quinn's, and Blue Ribbon Sushi. Leasing director Ed Hogan says the organization is still looking for a fine-dining “Michelin-type” chef for yet another restaurant to open within the complex. [NYP, Related]