In this week’s New York, Adam Platt heads to Spasso, yet another new osteria in the West Village. There he finds “not one but two cramped dining counters,” “the de rigueur selections of house-cured salumi,” and a list of modestly prices Italian wines — all “totems of the nouveau-rustico movement.” The whole thing feels very familiar and the food — sardines with chickpeas, amberjack crudo, veal agnolotti — is uneven. But despite the mediocrity of it all, the place is packed with the kind of crowd that “used to haunt the latest, trendy neighborhood French brasseries, when those restaurants were in vogue.” In the end, he awards the restaurant one star.
As for Rob Patronite and Robin Raisfeld, they have all the details on what, exactly, David Chang plans to do with the newly vacated Momofuku Milk Bar space. In a word: Duck. Chang says he’s going to start serving an all-duck lunch menu, Monday through Friday, and that the space itself will now just serve as an extension of Ssäm Bar.
But that’s not all the Robs are up to: They’re also enjoying the season’s first asparagus, care of Jonathan Waxman’s excellent-sounding recipe for raw shaved asparagus with lemon dressing.
