Hearth Spawns a Wine Bar in the East VillageEast Village: It looks like Hearth may spawn a wine bar. [Eater] A date with Momofuku’s David Chang is only worth $1000 at auction (Jean-Georges Vongerichten brought in $6100) but that’s not too bad for a night at a dive bar. [Snack]
Greenwich Village: NYU is hosting a panel on Building a Food Professional Pedigree from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. this Thursday, with speakers including Michael Lomanaco and Florence Fabricant. [NYU]
Long Island City: The Food Film Festival at Water Taxi Beach kicks off tomorrow. [The Food Section]
Midtown West: Brasserie 8 1/2 will join the dessert-bar fray starting tonight by repackaging its lounge as After 8.5, and serving desserts after 8:30 p.m. — get it? [NYT]
Times Square: Insieme is starting weekday lunch service between noon and 2 p.m. [NYS]
Tribeca: Fresh Pie has been taken over by Ruben’s Empanadas at 149 Church Street. [Grub Street]
Openings
Marco Canora Does His Thing at Insieme, Aw Yeah
As Rob and Robin announce in this week’s Openings, Marco Canora has finally opened up a second restaurant. As its just-published menu shows, Insieme represents Canora’s efforts to do two things at once. On the one hand, dishes like lesso misto con condimenti tipici (mixed boil) or bistecca fiorentina (grilled steak) represent his take on ultratraditional Italian food; the “contemporary” side, with offerings like sea-urchin risotto, allows him to assert the thoughtful but restrained style he showed as the original chef at Craft and in his own, still-popular Hearth.
Insieme Menu
The In-box
Why Wasn’t I Completely Floored by Craft?Dear Grub Street,
I’m hoping someone can explain Craft to me. I was taken there the other night for my birthday dinner and came away completely confused and disappointed. Really, what’s the big deal? What’s with all the glowing reviews?
Andrea
Back of the House
The Great Chef CrisisRecently, apropos nothing much, a prominent young chef we were chatting with launched into a tirade about the restaurant world’s “labor problem.” “None of us can get enough good cooks!” he exclaimed, by way of explanation. Between 2000 and 2006, only a handful of high-end restaurants — Lespinasse, Meigas, Quilty’s — have closed, and there has been an avalanche of major openings: Robuchon, Ramsay, Per Se, Masa, Craft, Del Posto, Morimoto, A Voce, the Modern, Lever House, Buddakan, Cafe Gray, Alto — the list goes on and on. “And it’s not just the massive boom of restaurants,” Adam Platt tells us. “They also have to be either bigger, or chefs have to open multiple places, so that they can enjoy the economies of scale they need to compete.”
NewsFeed
Show Them the Money: New York Chefs Make New Year’s Resolutions
Being typical office drones, our New Year’s resolutions were fairly predictable: lose weight, use our time better, quit freebasing Lipitor. Thankfully, a few of the city’s chefs have shared some of theirs with us.
Openings
Hearth’s Marco Canora Opening Two Restaurants in OneMarco Canora, whose Italianate cooking at Hearth has been a big hit lo these past few years, will also be taking over the former Limoncello space in the Michelangelo hotel come March. “I want to do two menus at once,” the chef tells us. “One will be old-world — no-frills, no bells and whistles. Just the dishes that have been around for 500 years. The new-world side will involve more global sourcing and be more composed, but still Italian.” (The beet-and-Gorgonzola risotto at Hearth, with its julienne of fried beet bits on top, hints at what you can expect from the latter.) “This is not Marco Canora as a molecular gastronomist,” Canora says, speaking grandly in the third person. “This is Marco Canora as an evolving chef.”
Kobe Club, a Future Gastrosaloon and After Hours at Suba [Nation’s Restaurant News; scroll to bottom of post]
What to Eat Tonight
Nantucket Bay Scallops, Ripe for the Shucking
Rob and Robin recently described, in mouthwatering detail, the nuances of Peconic Bay scallops. Our thoughts quickly turned to their Nantucket Bay cousins, which are currently appearing on some of the best tables in the city.