Posts for April 30, 2012 -- Grub Street: New York Magazine's Food and Restaurant Blog

Posts for April 30, 2012

4/30/12 at 6:00 PM
Leftovers
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The Cake Shop Possibly Shutting Down; East River Selling Brooklyn-Made Grub

• Last call: The Lakeshore Lounge is closing up shop after tonight as Alphabet City loses another beloved music venue/dive bar. [EV Grieve]

• The East River Ferry is serving Brooklyn-made confections starting today. Cupcakes, potato chips, pastries, and more can be ordered alongside hot and iced coffees. The borough-centric menu marks the first time food will be served on the ferry, which opened last June. [DNAinfo]

• The casual, quirky 2Spaghi recently opened up in Tribeca, replacing Franklin Caffé Buon Gusto and specializing in Roman-style pastas. [Tribeca Citizen]

4/30/12 at 5:25 PM
Quote of the Day
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Why the White House Dinner Is a Mound of ...

"The actual dinner is definitely exclusive and definitely boring. It’s like a Bilderberg conference except hosted by Jimmy Kimmel and in the basement of a Hilton." — says VICE in a story called "The White House Correspondents' Dinner: What a Mound of Bullshit." [VICE]

4/30/12 at 4:30 PM
Lists
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World’s 50 Best Restaurants List Announced: Noma Still Tops

By Alan Sytsma

Another year, another set of restaurants jockeying for the top spot.

What's interesting about The World's 50 Best Restaurants list, put out each year by Restaurant Magazine in the U.K., is how quickly it's become shorthand for referring to great restaurants. Witness Noma, which almost everyone calls the best restaurant in the world, as if it were an objective fact, not the result of this particular list's rankings. Well, good news for Noma: Today it upheld that ranking for the third year in a row, and is still the best restaurant in the world. (Which means it'll probably still keep cranking out stagiaires.)

Here are the rest of the 2012 picks.

4/30/12 at 4:00 PM
Unoriginality
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New Food Blog to Focus on ‘Celebrity Chefs’

Here at Grub Street, we're all for a little healthy competition, so we say this with no ill will whatsoever, but ... can a blog solely about celebrity chefs possibly have legs? Dan Abrams, who has cooked up the Braiser, definitely thinks so! [NYT]

4/30/12 at 3:15 PM on Grub Street LA
Pot Cookery
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Marijuana Restaurant Opens in Oregon, May Get to Stay

By Hadley Tomicki

Logo designed by that stoner who used to sit and doodle next to you in high school

It's probably just a matter of time before restaurants serving marijuana-infused dishes spread across the increasingly toke-tolerant U.S.: After a joint (heh) called Ganja Gourmet opened in Denver in late 2009, the only question remaining was whether the next big debut would be for those stoners in California or the great ganja fiends of Oregon. While L.A. recently held a series of weed-infused pop-up dinners and Northern California is famous for clandestine marijuana wine, it looks like Ashland, Oregon, is the newest city to claim its very own marijuana restaurant, as Earth Dragon Edibles opened its doors this weekend to serve THC-infused tea, dessert, and Mongolian barbecue to patients with a doctor's medical-marijuana recommendation.

4/30/12 at 3:05 PM
Nightlife
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First Look at Beloved, Bringing Low-key Drinks to Greenpoint on Thursday

By Eric Sundermann

Beloved, a new bar opening in Greenpoint on Thursday, wants to challenge any notion of cocktail snobbery. “This is just a bar bar,” says co-owner Vivek Sreekumar. “There's no frilly stuff. It's a place to just come get a drink.” Tucked away on Manhattan Avenue just up the street from Five Leaves, the 900-square-foot establishment (formerly Stones Tavern) will provide twelve craft beers, including $4 Narragansett Lager. The cocktail menu — designed by Heather Ash, head bartender from Allswell in Willamsburg and Rene Hidalgo, bartender from Lantern's Keep — features six drinks, including the Storm Warning (Smith & Cross, Cynar, ginger, lime, club soda, Peychaud’s Bitters). Later this summer, Sreekumar and his co-owner Aaron Manheim will nearly double the size of the nightspot by opening their 800-square-foot backyard. Photos and menu straight ahead.

See the drinks menu.

4/30/12 at 2:45 PM on Grub Street SF
Crime Scenes
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Guy Fieri’s Stolen Lamborghini Found!

By Jay Barmann

Over a year after it was stolen, Guy Fieri's bright yellow Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder was found Saturday night in a storage container in Point Richmond. Marin County officers raided the container with a search warrant and arrested a 17-year-old suspect there who was wanted for an April 13 shooting incident in Mill Valley, in which he allegedly fired a handgun from a motorcycle into a parked vehicle. Is this kid the same person who rappelled into the Van Ness showroom in March 2011 where Fieri's prized car was being stored and took off with it across the Golden Gate Bridge?

4/30/12 at 2:30 PM
Openings
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Dumbo Kitchen Gives It a Go

By Alyssa Shelasky

The restaurant on the forever-in-flux Dumbo street corner that was Choice and then the Gallery is now called Dumbo Kitchen. It opened this weekend with pizza, sandwiches, and the usual soft-opening system glitches. Good luck!

4/30/12 at 1:45 PM
Truckers
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Food Trucks Are Crawling Up Buildings

Food trucks are literally everywhere, even on the fifteenth floor of your office if you work in the Starrett-Lehigh building and happen to be craving Van Leeuwen or Mexicue on the way to the conference room. “This is the first indoor vertical food-truck court in the city, and as far as I know, the country,” David Weber, president of the New York City Food Truck Association, told the Times. We'll take some Gorilla Grilled Cheese by the fourth floor elevator, please. [NYT]

4/30/12 at 1:00 PM
Gauc Rocks
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More Ways to Celebrate the Guacamole Holy Day

By Alyssa Shelasky

Like Christmas, with Patron.

Last week, we told you about Anfora's bag-to-mouth Frito Pie, and while the insanity of that is hard to beat, there are a few more civilized ways to celebrate the one and only holiday on which it's pretty much offensive not to drink a couple of margaritas. Restaurant Girl has an awesome early list and there will certainly be more. Countdown to May 5 ... [Restaurant Girl]

4/30/12 at 12:15 PM
Grub Guide
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50 State Dinners, 2012: Food Pilgrimages You Must Make This Summer

By Alan Sytsma, Alyssa Shelasky, Collin Keefe, Hadley Tomicki, Jay Barmann, Jenny Miller, Kara Baskin, and Michael Gebert

Every year around this time, everyone starts itching for summer (it's so close), and that means it's time to start thinking about where we'll all be going once the weather warms up, which in turn means thinking about what to eat. With that in mind, Grub Street's editors have once again scoured the country looking for fantastic, one-of-a-kind restaurants, no matter which part of the country you wind up in.

4/30/12 at 11:30 AM
Carnivore Carnival
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Meat Club Brisketlab Is No Sausage Party

By Jenny Miller

So juicy ...

Move over, pork: Vendr TV's Daniel Delaney wants to hook New Yorkers on brisket, writes DNAinfo. His soon-to-launch Brisketlab will let hungry carnivores reserve shares of brisket for 25 bucks a pound, then attend any of ten or fifteen parties a month to cash in their orders, with a side of live music and drinks. Delaney will barbecue the stuff Texas-style in a 200-pound-capacity smoker with post oak wood he brought back from the Lone Star State. Sounds like this could be this summer's version of a supper club. Brisketlab hasn't quite launched yet, but you can pre-register for updates here. [DNAinfo]

4/30/12 at 11:00 AM
Coming Soon
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Looks Like John DeLucie Is Involved With the Bill’s Gay Nineties Redo After All

By Alan Sytsma

DeLucie.Photo: Nicole Franzen

When news broke that Bill's Gay Nineties would be shutting its doors and moving elsewhere, word also quickly spread that John DeLucie would be taking over. But even more quickly, DeLucie's camp issued an official denial. Alas, the SLA liquor-license app database tells no lies, and look who's listed on an app filed last Thursday for the Bill's space: It's DeLucie (along with Mark Amadei, DeLucie's partner in Crown and the Lion).

4/30/12 at 10:15 AM
In the Magazine
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Adam Platt on Atera; Eric Ripert, Maria Loi, and Orhan Yegen Rate Greek Yogurts

By Jenny Miller

Atera.Photo: Danny Kim

We already told you about Adam Platt's four-star review of Atera in this week's New York. So if you want any chance of eating a frozen peanut made of foie gras or a faux razor clam anytime soon, probably best to make your reservation now. More elemental is the taste test Rob Patronite and Robin Raisfeld staged with French chef Eric Ripert, Greek chef Maria Loi, and Turkish toque Orhan Yegen — all of whom are entitled to have strong opinions on yogurt; see their Greek yogurt rankings by brand.

4/30/12 at 09:30 AM
MePa Dreams
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The Four Seasons Restaurant Eyes Meatpacking District

By Alyssa Shelasky

Julian Niccolini said he wanted a younger clientele at The Four Seasons, but if they won't come to him, he's taking the restaurant to them. The Four Seasons team is actively seeking a downtown outpost, albeit with another name and design vibe. After all, Mies van der Rohe in 1959 and meatpacking district in 2012 are two very different things — although the hooker contingent will probably roll over quite well. [NYP]

4/30/12 at 09:00 AM
Hola
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José Andrés Promises to Open New York Restaurant in Two Years

By Jennifer Vineyard

Ándale! Ándale! Arriba! Arriba!

Grub Street tracked down everybody's favorite chef, José Andrés, at The Hollywood Reporter party for the White House Correspondents' Dinner in his hometown of D.C. yesterday to ask one very important question: When are you coming to New York already? "I'm very impressed by New York," he told us, with a brief explanation. "When I do it in New York, I want it to be a big deal. I want to make sure I'm ready when I make it there." Right. Whatever! But when? "Two years." Promise? "You got it."