In the Magazine

Platt on What Happens When; the Best Sports Bars for March Madness

What Happens When.
What Happens When. Photo: Danny Kim

In this week’s New York, Adam Platt doesn’t review a restaurant, exactly, rather a “temporary restaurant installation.” The experiment in question is, of course, What Happens When, where our critic finds the dining room “chicken-coop-size” and the food “predictably artsy, righteously seasonal, and designed, like most things in the room, with an antic, slightly forced sense of occasion in mind.” However, he notes, “Fraser’s cooking can have a thin, cobbled-together feel, but it’s rarely boring”: Platt enjoys the “tender slices of lamb saddle scattered with crunchy chestnuts, clunky chunks of salty, oversmoked brook trout,” and “a soft, lemony helping of monkfish plated over spinach and salsify and cut in a portion big enough for two.” Ultimately, he advises diners to “sit back and enjoy the show” at this two-star “experience.”

Meanwhile, some of our resident sports nuts visited 32 watering holes around town with ample screen space for game watching and rated them on “beer selection, food quality, TV density, peak-time crowdedness, and ambience.” Have a peek at the ratings in the resulting sports-bar bracket. Also on the docket is salsify, the earthy-tasting root the Robs have been sampling with the help of chef Jody Williams of Buvette, who offers a recipe for salsify batons in red wine and honey. And Rob and Robin also bring the scoop on Kermit Perlmutter’s “super-fudgy” brownies, now offered retail at one place only: Joe at 120th Street and Broadway.

Platt on What Happens When; the Best Sports Bars for March Madness