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 in-house 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). If true, it's unclear if Eataly NYC No. 2 would match the 50,000 square feet of the Flatiron original, but the sprawling market at Le District, described as the French-food counterpart to Eataly, is expected to open in parts beginning later this year, just across the street at Brookfield Place. [New York Post, Related]

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]

Spain already boasts the world's top restaurant and probably its most exclusive (the single-table Mercès One, a "restaurant only for you"), so why not the planet's most overpriced, too? The new Hard Rock Hotel opening in Ibiza next month has that covered with Sublimotion, an "unparalleled gastro-sensory venture" brought to life by Michelin-starred Spanish chef Paco Roncero, which will feature a 20-course tasting menu that costs its 12 diners more than $2,000 apiece.

Yesterday, in honor of Aldea's five-year anniversary, Coi chef Daniel Patterson flew in from San Francisco to collaborate with George Mendes on a one-night-only tasting menu. It was as much a celebration of their friendship as it was of their longevity in the industry. (As Patterson says, "Once you get to be 5, it's okay.") Grub used the opportunity to sit down with them before dinner to discuss the challenges of being a chef-owner, how the New York restaurant scene compares to San Francisco's, and if either chef has plans to open a new restaurant here.

It's tricky to keep track of how people feel about ramps at any given moment — is there a backlash, or are we experiencing a backlash to the backlash? — but here's what really matters: The tiny wild onions are a delicious first sign of spring, and this time of year, you can expect to see them on every menu in town. Part of their appeal: They're versatile, so chefs can pickle them, grill them, stuff them into dumplings, blend them into butter — the works. To help make sense of it all, here are 22 of the most interesting ramp dishes in town this year. Love 'em or hate 'em, they won't be around for long.

This new 70-seat restaurant on Eighth Avenue seems like a classic, low-key neighborhood spot: smoked meats, pizzas, seasonally driven small plates — not to mention a fairly generic name — but keep an eye on it, as there's an all-star team behind Heartwood. The chef, Bradford Thompson, is a James Beard Award winner ("Best Chef Southwest" in 2006, for Mary Elaine's in Scottsdale). And Thompson is joined by Mark Fiorentino, Daniel Boulud's former chief bread baker, plus restaurateur Nick Mautone, a Gramercy Tavern alum. The restaurant specializes in exotic pizzas like pulled Amish chicken with aged gouda; pickled green-apple and jalapeño; an "Everything Brooklyn Bagel" pie with gin-cured salmon; and "When Peter Luger Goes Out for Pizza," with braised short ribs, creamed spinach, and horseradish.