NewsFeed

Tom Colicchio Working the Raw Bar Tonight at Craftsteak

From left, Tom Colicchio and Damon Wise on crudi duty at Craftsteak.Photo: Elizabeth Chapman
As part of a serious effort to soup up the food at Craftsteak, celebrity chef and Craft mogul Tom Colicchio has been working the raw bar at the restaurant the last couple of nights. It’s worth checking out, and not just for a chance to ask about his Top Chef co-host Padma Lakshmi. Colicchio and his right-hand man, Grateful Dead–loving Craft chef Damon Wise, have created a new menu of composed crudi dishes, including an eye-opening cobia (a dense white Florida ocean fish) with cured lardo, and sea urchin with pickled cucumber. The meat program has changed as well. Colicchio has adopted two of the country’s best beef sources for steak: Wolf’s Neck Farms beef from Maine, a richly marbled, complex, all-organic product, and Brandt Ranch steak from California, another all-natural meat that chefs all over New York are falling in love with. Colicchio called the mixed reviews of Craftsteak a “wakeup call” that led him to sever his ties with Gramercy Tavern in order to devote all his time to the Craft restaurants. Between the new fish and the new meat, Craftsteak seems geared for a major upgrade.

Tom Colicchio Working the Raw Bar Tonight at Craftsteak