How much does it cost to open a restaurant these days? Using former Momofuku partner Joaquin Baca’s new spot Brooklyn Star as a case study, Rob Patronite and Robin Raisfeld do the math in this week’s magazine. “Projecting a $25-ticket average, he expects to make the $4,500 rent by doing three turns on roughly 42 seats, plus lunch, eventually,” they write, also analyzing the costs of everything from banquettes to the $37,000 kitchen renovations. Table 8 opened just last week, but chef Govind Armstrong is already sharing his recipe for linguine with lemon, sheep’s-milk ricotta (now at the Greenmarket), and bread crumbs. In their opening report, Rob and Robin preview George Mendes’s Portuguese restaurant Aldea; another entry in the “Lunch Craze: Vietnamese Sandwich” division: Bánh Mì 172; and an East Village Latin-Caribbean eatery called Chabela’s. Finally, Rob and Robin alert us to the calçotada events happening at Back Forty and Savoy this week, featuring leeks: “Think of it as an old-fashioned Joseph Mitchell beefsteak, except the guest of honor is a vegetable.”
