Grub Street

Tribeca Canvas, which has been up and running for several weeks in an oft-renovated, brick-lined space down on Church Street, is not the kind of restaurant we’re used to seeing from the glamorous Iron Chef and sushi master Masaharu Morimoto. There’s no elaborate, wood-carved omakase room on the premises. Cocktails are served at a small bar in the front of the house instead of in a giant, disco-size lounge. The spangled, boom-era ornamentation favored by Morimoto’s longtime business partner Stephen Starr (who’s not a partner here) has been replaced by a slightly foreboding, bare-bones décor (gray wooden tabletops; dim, guttering candles; strips of canvas painted with what appear to be dark, scraggly trees). Instead of the usual lavish sushi delicacies, the menu features hamachi tacos, tuna tostadas, and even Iron Chef-style interpretations of ancient comfort-food totems like fish and chips, and mac and cheese.

Pasties, sausage rolls, and bridies may not be as American as apple pie, but the notion of pie for lunch, ­dinner, or even breakfast is catching on. Of course, New Yorkers have long been exposed to immigrant meat-pie traditions both British (at Myers of Keswick and Tea & Sympathy) and antipodean (Tuck Shop, the Pie Shop, and the proliferating Pie Face chainlet). But more recently, as gastropubs multiply and locavore butchers and bakers expand their butter-crusted realms, the handheld options have diversified. It’s interesting to note that in the original pies of central and northern Europe, the almost impenetrably thick pastry crust functioned more as cooking vessel, preserving method, and transport tool than foodstuff. Now, dare we say, the crust is the thing—the flakier and tastier the better. Fillings count too, of course, and can include anything from traditional steak and kidney to compulsory kale. And unlike the dessert variety, savory pies are most suited to the bone-chilling rigors of winter, fat and calories be damned. Here, a survey of the recent batch.

West Village old-timers may still associate the triangular space opposite Jackson Square Park with Café de Bruxelles, a stronghold of Belgian beers and moulesfrites. But more than two years ago, it was replaced by the French-themed Lyon, which has now been reconceived as Cole’s Greenwich Village. A few of the new partners also operate the Soho rooftop bar Jimmy, and as you might expect, they’ve amped up the cocktail program at Cole’s. They’ve also hired chef Daniel Eardley, a local-and-seasonal specialist late of Brooklyn’s Chestnut, to turn out dishes like grilled sardines with duck-fat potatoes, pork chop with white polenta, and plancha-crisped chicken

Cole's Greenwich Village, 118 Greenwich Avenue, at West 13th Street; 212-242-5966