• Intelligencer
  • The Cut
  • Vulture
  • The Strategist
  • Curbed
  • Grub Street
  • Subscribe to the Magazine Give a Gift Subscription Buy Back Issues Current Issue Contents
    Subscribe to New York Magazine
  • Subscribe
  • Profile
    Sign Out
  • Best of New York
  • Cheap Eats
  • About Grub Street
  • Newsletters
  • NYMag.com
  • New York Magazine
  • Intelligencer
  • Vulture
  • The Cut
  • The Strategist
  • Grub Street
  • Curbed
Subscribe Give A Gift
  • Best of New York
  • Cheap Eats
  • About Grub Street
  • Newsletters
  • NYMag.com
  • New York Magazine
  • Intelligencer
  • Vulture
  • The Cut
  • The Strategist
  • Grub Street
  • Curbed
  • Share
  • Tweet
  • Pin It
+Comments Leave a Comment
Openings
August 15, 2011

First Look at RedFarm, Ed Schoenfeld and Joe Ng’s Upcoming Chinese Spot

Share

  • Share
  • Tweet
Photo: Evan Sung/? Evan Sung

When discussing RedFarm, the Chinese restaurant he’ll open in a week or two with chef Joe Ng, Ed Schoenfeld is not modest: “I expect this to be the best Chinese restaurant in the United States,” he tells us. Schoenfeld has made a career of opening restaurants, with a particular emphasis on Asian food — he’s done Shun Lee, Shun Lee Palace, and Chinatown Brasserie in New York — so if anybody is going to succeed in the refined-Chinese arena that has eluded so many, it could well be him. “I’ve been chasing after this my whole life,” the restaurateur admits. RedFarm will deviate from the usual gleaming lacquer and deep red that tend to characterize upscale Chinese eateries; rather, the 45-seat dining room, housed in an 1820s townhouse, has a “barn-y” feel, as Schoenfeld describes it, and it’s distinctly casual, with long oak tables and benches upholstered in red-and-white gingham.

As for the food, “we’re not at all interested in being authentic, just delicious,” Schoenfeld tells Grub. “And what we’re really interested in is just fun.” That’s evident in dishes like “Pac-Man” dumplings, where a sweet-potato round is cut to look like the voracious video-game character and the shrimp dumplings stand in as multicolored ghosts. Not everything is kooky, though, nor does the menu stick to any one Chinese region: You might start with a cold Sichuan appetizer or two, such as smoked cucumber with Sichuan pickled vegetable, move on to some Hong Kong dim sum, and then dig into Cantonese barbecued pork. Schoenfeld notes that Korean rice cakes, Italian pasta, and even butter and olive oil make appearances, “where it makes sense.”

Many of the vegetables are purchased at the Greenmarket, most meat is sourced from LaFrieda, and a clipboard of daily specials will reflect what’s in season. This is the “farm” part of RedFarm’s name, and a way of ensuring the cooking here is “more natural and cleaner and fresher” than your average Chinese spot. It’s part of a larger vision Schoenfeld and Ng have of creating a dozen Chinese takeout spots operating with the help of a central commissary. They’re also planning RedFarm-branded grocery items such as sauces and rice, and they’re already supplying dumplings wholesale to a few places around town, which Schoenfeld demurred to name — though he did say one was RedFarm Stand, the counter that opened last year inside FoodParc.

Brunch, lunch, breakfast, and afternoon tea are all part of the plan as well. And the restaurant will be open late: till midnight seven days a week to start, likely till 2 a.m. beginning soon after that. “When I started in the eighties, if you had a restaurant that served refined food it needed to be a fancy restaurant where people would put on ties and jackets,” Schoenfeld recalls. “But today, it’s aggressively casual. People don’t want to dress up. There’s nothing that precludes you from having really good food in a setting like that.”

Redfarm Menu [PDF]

RedFarm, 529 Hudson St., nr. Charles St.; 212-792-9700

View
1 / 14 Photos
Photo: Evan Sung/? Evan Sung
Photo: Evan Sung/? Evan Sung
Photo: Evan Sung/? Evan Sung
Photo: Evan Sung/? Evan Sung
Photo: Evan Sung/? Evan Sung
Photo: Evan Sung/? Evan Sung
Photo: Evan Sung/? Evan Sung
Photo: Evan Sung/? Evan Sung
Photo: Evan Sung/? Evan Sung
Photo: Evan Sung/? Evan Sung
Photo: Evan Sung/? Evan Sung
Photo: Evan Sung/? Evan Sung
Photo: Evan Sung/? Evan Sung
Photo: Evan Sung/? Evan Sung
1 / 14

Tags:

  • openings
  • asian
  • chinese
  • ed schoenfeld
  • joe ng
  • openings
  • redfarm
  • west village
  • slideshows
  • @newletter
  • @newsletter
  • More

More Galleries

look book Feb. 2, 2023
The Look Book Goes to Tatiana  A recent Wednesday night at chef Kwame Onwuachi’s consistently booked Lincoln Center restaurant. 
By Kelsie Schrader and Jenna Milliner-Waddell
look book May 26, 2020
The Look Book Goes to The Fly  The socially distanced line for pre-batched martinis and dry-brined chickens in Bed-Stuy. 
By Katy Schneider and Jane Starr Drinkard
gallery Apr. 14, 2019
Chatting With the Singers at the Reopened Winnie’s  The karaoke dive is back in a new space on East Broadway with shiny red booths, a retro-looking mic, and an updated computerized karaoke system. 
By Victor Llorente
Restaurant Review Mar. 13, 2016
Restaurant Review: Momofuku Nishi The chef describes Nishi as a mash-up involving Asian and Italian cuisines, but some experiments make you wonder why anyone would dare tinker with these classics.
By
Underground Gourmet Review Feb. 15, 2016
Llama Inn Is All About New Brooklyn Peruvian Jersey-born first-generation Peruvian-American chef Erik Ramirez is a master of contrast.
By
Restaurant Review Jan. 31, 2016
Restaurant Review: La Chine Chef Kong Khai Meng’s kind of elaborately sourced, “Pan Chinese” hotel cooking is a fairly recent development in the long history of Chinese cuisine
By
Underground Gourmet Review Dec. 6, 2015
Bunk and Southside Coffee Enter New York’s Sandwich Pantheon Bunk is all about the glory that is the sandwich.
By
Gallery Nov. 12, 2015
Dinner for Two in JFK’s Historic TWA Terminal  The former flight attendant and her husband ate recipes prepared from the chefs’ new cookbook. 
By Gillian Duffy
Nov. 10, 2015
See David Bouley Make Dinner for Alice Waters Bouley decided to honor Waters, and the 20th anniversary of her Edible Schoolyard Project, in a way they could mutually appreciate: by cooking a meal.
By
Gallery Nov. 8, 2015
Inside Mission Chinese Food’s Brisket-and-Dumplings Dinner Party for the  The challenge: Create a pop-up restaurant in a theater foyer to feed a starving ensemble — and crew and everyone’s guests — in a manner befitting the years-long hype of the bicoastal restaurant sensation. 
By Gillian Duffy
Gallery Nov. 8, 2015
Inside Mission Chinese Food’s Brisket-and-Dumplings Dinner Party for the  The challenge: Create a pop-up restaurant in a theater foyer to feed a starving ensemble — and crew and everyone’s guests — in a manner befitting the years-long hype of the bicoastal restaurant sensation. 
By
Restaurant Review Oct. 11, 2015
Restaurant Review: Bruno Pizza Along with some very tasty food.
By
Gallery Sept. 3, 2015
How Eli Zabar Transformed an Upper East Side Diner Into an Elegant Wine Bar  A look inside the genteel Eli’s Essentials Wine Bar. 
By Wendy Goodman
Restaurant Review Aug. 23, 2015
Restaurant Review: Babu Ji and Dirt Candy “You’d better give this place three stars,” cried Mrs. Platt in between bites of tandoori-charred rainbow trout and lustrous butter chicken.
By
Restaurant Review Aug. 2, 2015
At Lupulo, the Portuguese-Inspired Cooking Is Almost Too Good for the Setting It’s ambitious food like this that makes you wish George Mendes had decided to open a slightly less expedient casual restaurant.
By
Underground Gourmet Review July 19, 2015
Underground Gourmet Review: A Colombian Expat Forges Her Own Cuisine at Maite In Bushwick, Ella Schmidt cooks gnocchi, arepas, and every local, seasonal vegetable she can get.
By
Cheap Eats July 14, 2015
Why the Bowl Is the Meal of the Moment  They’re healthful, filling, and infinitely customizable, a blank canvas for inventive chefs and fast-casual chains alike. 
By
Cheap Eats July 12, 2015
7 New-Wave, Next-Level Fried-Chicken Sandwiches  Sky-high beef prices and the enduring sandwich craze have laid the groundwork for a new breed of birds on buns. 
By
Burgers May 31, 2015
The 50 Most Important Burgers in New York This town is flooded with high-ambition meat sandwiches. But which is the very best?
By
Gift Guide Nov. 25, 2014
Grub Street’s 2014 Gift Guide: 21 Kitchen Tools for the Home Chef A range of options, big (an 11-piece set of pans designed by Thomas Keller) and small (a rosemary stripper to speed up herb-chopping).
By
More Galleries
  • About Grub Street
  • About New York Magazine
  • Newsletters
  • Help
  • Contact
  • Press
  • Media Kit
  • We’re Hiring
  • Privacy
  • Terms
  • Ad Choices
  • Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information
  • Accessibility
Grub Street is a Vox Media Network. © 2023 Vox Media, LLC. All rights reserved.