Porchetta Chef Sara Jenkins Always Goes for the Salty Desserts“I grew up being totally obsessed with going to Maine and getting a lobster roll. Everything you eat when you’re a kid, you get very picky about it when you’re older. It’s got to be exactly the way you remember it.”
Batali TV; Platt on Sheridan SquareIn the magazine this week: Heilemann on Batali, one star for Sheridan Square, and new Italian takeout in the East Village.
ByAileen Gallagher
Neighborhood Watch
Shake Shack Instates Line-Cutting and Heat Lamps; There’s Only One DB, and He’sCarroll Gardens: Renovations seem to be happening at Jason Neroni’s old haunt, Porchetta, but as of yet there are no reliable rumors about the new restaurant’s pedigree. [Eater]
East Village: Tasty Falafel’s eight-cent sandwich deal set for this Friday might come with more than you bargained for, like the roach pictured in this order. [Eat for Victory/VV]
Flatiron: Shake Shack now accepts phone-in orders that allow burger fiends to skip to the front of the line; plus, Meyer has added heat lamps for those eating in the park. [Eater]
Forest Hills: Little Danny Brown’s db Wine Bar & Kitchen at 104-02 Metropolitan Avenue just lost a trademark battle to the original DB, Daniel Boulud. [Diner’s Journal/NYT]
West Village: The trick to scoring a table at tiny, cozy, exceptional restaurants like the little owl: Show up late like Charlie Rose. [Mouthing Off/Food&Wine]
NewsFeed
One Restaurant Opening This Week Isn’t Enough for Alex Garcia
These are busy days indeed for Nuevo Latino chef Alex Garcia. Having just opened Carniceria in the space formerly occupied by Porchetta, Garcia is about to open another restaurant, this one on Manhattan’s West Side. Gaucho Steak Co., which goes live today, is an Argentine steak concept based on the chef’s smaller establishment, Gaucho Steak, in Montclair, New Jersey. “In Argentina, if you want steak, they have a place called a parilla, which is just a guy behind the grill,” Garcia tells us. “He’ll make you a steak, French fries, chorizo on bread, whatever you want. It’s really casual, and that’s what we’re trying to do.” That plan seems to run counter to the fairly elaborate kind of cooking that established Garcia as an avatar of new Latin American cooking at Novo and Calle Ocho. However just as at Carniceria Garcia has found a way to express his style through the appetizers, presumably he’ll do something similar at Gaucho Steak. No Alex Garcia restaurant is ever likely to be really reminiscent of “a guy behind a grill.”
Earlier: Porchetta Reborn as Carniceria, With Alex Garcia at the Helm
NewsFeed
Porchetta Reborn as Carniceria, With Alex Garcia at the HelmThe ghost of Jason Neroni has been banished from Porchetta. The Carroll Gardens restaurant is coming back today as Carniceria, a Latin American steakhouse helmed by Novo and Calle Ocho chef Alex Garcia. Garcia’s menu will center on Uruguayan free-range beef, but he also plans on sophisticated Nuevo Latino appetizers, including oxtail empanadas with tomato escabèche and rosemary Malbec sauce, and a seviche of scallops lightly poached in white wine. “We wanted to change direction and distance ourselves from what happened with Jason,” owner Marco Rivero tells us. Carniceria will be having a soft opening between 7 and 9 p.m. tonight and will formally open this weekend.
Earlier: Porchetta Survives the ‘Desperate Chef’
NewsFeed
Porchetta Survives the ‘Desperate Chef’The rumors of Porchetta’s demise were premature. Jason Neroni, infamous first for lobbying for a Beard Award and then for forging his employer’s name on checks, was thought to have brought the whole operation down, but owner Marco Rivero tells us that the new kitchen head is as good as hired and should be signing a contract in the next day or so. He projects that the restaurant will reopen on May 7 with a new menu and a new lease on life. Neroni, meanwhile, lurks in the shadows …
Earlier: Neroni Signed His Own Checks and Is Back on the Street for Now, Source Claims
Porchetta Owners Claim Neroni Forged Their Signature
Neighborhood Watch
Porchetta Succumbs in Carroll GardensBedford-Stuyvesant: Heavenly Crumbs baker Shannon Pridgen demonstrates wedding-cake making in this sweet moving picture. [Eating for Brooklyn]
Carroll Gardens: Looks like Porchetta has closed. No press release from Jason Neroni. Yet. [Eater]
Ditmas Park: Connecticut Muffin coming to Cortelyou Road. [Living in Victorian Flatbush]
Gramercy: 2007 James Beard nominee for outstanding wine service Charles Scicolone pours his ten favorite wines tomorrow night for a class at Vino, Italian Wine and Spirits. [Vinosite]
Midwood: First tale of success from the Department of Health furor: DiFara’s Dom DeMarco wears a hat, and his pizza is better than ever. [Slice]
Prospect Heights: Flatbush Farm will be barbecuing Saturday and Sunday from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. [A Brooklyn Life]
West Village: That’s it for mice getting in easy at the Waverly Inn. [Gothamist]
Williamsburg: Beloved gourmet-breakfast emporium Egg buys out Sparky’s. [Gawker]
A Koolman truck’s been spotted on Metropolitan Avenue. Repainting spotted after last month’s garage fire, but no word on whether anyone checked the ice cream. [Gowanus Lounge]
Mediavore
Car Plows Into Hop Kee; Neroni Keeps SpinningA car plows into the venerable Hop Kee restaurant in Chinatown. The restaurant is damaged, and one person is hurt. [Downtown Express]
Izakaya invasion! The city now boasts everything from simple sake joints with food to full-blown small-plate restaurants. [NYDN]
The official Times take on the Neroni Affair includes this classic quote, in defense of the Desperate Chef: “If Marco didn’t want anyone signing checks, including Jason, he should have put the checkbook in the safe.” [NYT]
Beef
Porchetta Owners Claim Neroni Forged Their SignatureMore info is filtering in on the Neroni Affair. Steven Hall, who has taken on the role of Neroni’s defender, passes along an admission from the Desperate Chef that, yes, he was fingerprinted, but that he was neither arrested nor Mirandized; authorities merely took a Polaroid of him, not the infamous mug shot. Neroni has affirmed that he often signed Marco Rivero’s name to checks with the owner’s permission, but Rivero’s wife and business partner, Shannon, denies this. “Jason signed his last two paychecks when he thought he was going to be fired, to make sure he got the money coming to him. Prior to that, of course not. I don’t know anybody that would let an employee do that.” Shannon reiterates that although she and her husband have no desire to hurt Neroni or, worse, get caught in an endless tabloid story, they have no intention of dropping the charges.
Earlier: Jason Neroni Arrested, Taken Into Custody
Neroni Is Indeed Free — for a Few Days, Anyway
NewsFeed
Neroni Signed His Own Checks and Is Back on the Street for Now, Source ClaimsSome possible clarification on the arrest of ex-Porchetta chef Jason Neroni for larceny has come our way, courtesy of the restaurant’s former publicist Steve Hall. According to Hall, Neroni claims that he merely signed his own check, something he has done many times. But owner Marco Rivero doesn’t see it that way, hence Neroni’s arrest for petit larceny. Neroni has, Hall claims, been released from custody. However, as Hall’s full letter indicates, the Neroni saga is far from over.