City to Reenact Calorie-Display Rule; Bloodbath Near Spotlight LiveThe city’s Board of Health is set to reenact its legally contested rule requiring all restaurants with fifteen or more eateries nationwide to post the caloric value of food items on their menus. [NYDN]
Related: Fast-Food Biz Wins Fight Against City Hall
Restaurants and nightclubs currently owe the city $14 million in health-code violation fines, which means that high-roller venues like the Rainbow Room can get away with stiffing the city out of $50. [NYP]
Times Square’s Spotlight Live became the latest scene of club violence when one man was killed and five others stabbed there yesterday morning. [NYDN]
NewsFeed
Niagara Will Be Meeting Your Pizza NeedsThe food and drink arrangement at Niagara was always pretty much a simple one: You go to Niagara, drink, writhe around downstairs in one of its subterranean caverns, then, after more drinking, cap the night off with a barely edible slice from Sal’s next door. Now Niagara owners, Motherfucker promoter Johnny T and D Generation front man Jesse Malin, have integrated the process by taking over their next-door pizzeria. The new pizza canteen, whose name was still being decided upon at the time of this writing, will also benefit from Niagara’s liquor license — not to mention its exhausted, famished customers. Expect to pick up a slice by the end of next week.
Openings
Williamsburg’s First Cocktail Palace Is Revealed
Eater must’ve spotted us at Hotel Delmano on Friday because they took a break from their holiday yesterday to post interior shots of Billyburg’s first cocktail palace, from the owners of Union Pool. We might’ve done the same — that’s how impressive this place is — but we confess to being too hung-over from one too many elderflower tequila gimlets, which is what happens when you ask the barkeep there to make you something with tequila. That and a tequila with grenadine and bitters made “by hand” (hence the moniker “Delmano”). As for the cocktail list, the Commandant’s Cocktail is the only original one and the most expensive at $14 (it contains pear cognac, Cointreau, lemon juice, and green chartreuse), but mixologist Jeff Hanson’s $9 to $12 renditions of the Last Word, Corpse Reviver No. 2, the Hemingway Daiquiri, and the Seelbach Cocktail are plenty revelatory.
VideoFeed
Gordon Ramsay Even a Jerk on Other People’s TV ShowsA very contrite Gordon Ramsay was on display in Scotland’s Sunday Herald about a week ago — “We got screwed,” he says of Gordon Ramsay at the London’s opening, begging for sympathy because the ceiling caved in. No matter, Gordo is on to other things, like a restaurant in L.A. that will open in May and might — according to a rave review of Ramsay’s New York eatery in the Sunday Times of London — be backed by the Beckhams! The Times also mentions that Gordo might appear on The Simpsons, but will his cameo match his walk-on in the Extras Christmas special, in which a washed-up Andy Millman begs Gordo to get him into London’s Ivy restaurant? Click on the image above to watch.
To Hell’s Kitchen and Back Again [Sunday Herald of Scotland]
Gordon Ramsay in New York [Sunday Times of London]
Mediavore
Tony Bourdain’s Kitchen Is Just Like Yours; New York Chefs Cook for 50 CentSelf-styled badass chef Tony Bourdain plays 20 Questions, revealing that he lives with his wife and daughter on the Upper East Side these days — “proximity to Baby Gap is a priority” — and has a kitchen that is “small and functional and very crowded with baby food, cat food, a few essentials.” [Chicago Tribune]
Frank Bruni takes a moment to sort through the piles of food-related tomes that landed on his desk this year, finding his favorites to be David Kamp’s The Food Snob’s Dictionary and the recently released Secret Ingredients: The New Yorker Book of Food and Drink. [Diner’s Journal/NYT]
Related: David Kamp Adds Two More Entries to the Food Snob’s Dictionary
A recent NYU grad is suing Times Square club Arena for $2 million over a June incident in which he was overcharged by $1,000, beat up by the bouncer, and arrested for not buying enough alcohol. [NYP]
NewsFeed
Embattled Bistro Now Serving ‘Nouveau African’ at Korhogo 126The saga of Bouillabaisse 126, described here last summer, seems to have had a happy ending. The Carroll Gardens restaurant, a French bistro formerly haunted by the ejection of partner Neil Ganic, has quietly become one of the city’s most interesting French-African fusion restaurants. Under former Les Enfants Terribles chef Abdhul Traore, it’s now Korhogo 126, and attempting to convey the flavors of the Ivory Coast via the refinements of French technique. Escargot are pressure-stewed and served with star anis and tomato under puff pastry, African honey sweetens an endive-and-pear salad, and the ratatouille is “served with West African, Wolof-inspired rice infused with tomato, onion, and Senegalese spices and sautéed vegetables.”
In the Magazine
Where to Eat in 2008New York’s Adam Platt has finally surfaced from the food trough. In between gasps, he has cobbled together his annual list of where you should be eating in the New Year. Platt’s got a bead on Italian small plates, which no-reservations restaurants to wait on line for, and what expensive meal is actually worth an entire paycheck. If all of that is too much to digest, Platt has bites of wisdom to guide you through 2008: his ten favorite new restaurants, the best up-and-coming chefs, and where to take your father-in-law for dinner, among others.
So read up and start making reservations. We have to attend to Platt, who is up to his ears in pork and tear-stained menus.
Adam Platt’s Where to Eat in 2008 [NYM]
Earlier: Platt: “The State of the Dining Nation Is Sound”
Back of the House
Ten Moments to Remember From 2007
“Life fades … vision dims … and all that remains is memory.” Such are the haunting first words of The Road Warrior, and we can’t help but think of them as we look back, through heavy lids, at the year that was. 2007 was a memorable restaurant year in so many ways, but there are a few that stick out in our minds. Our favorite moments of the last year would definitely have to include:
Neighborhood Watch
Find French Onion Soup in Manhattan; A Co-op for Fort Greene?Bay Ridge: A VFW post has been fined by the Department of Health because its ice machine constituted a need for “food protection certification.” [The Brooklyn Paper]
Cobble Hill: Now that the deli and the TV repair shop are gone, we can dream of the G&D Television Wine Bar. [Gowanus Lounge]
Forest Hills: A new development threatens restaurant culture, as for-rent signs specify “NO FOOD.” The horror! [Queens Central]
Fort Greene: Plans are afoot for a food co-op. Does anything else scream gentrification louder? [The Brooklyn Paper]
Manhattan: Look for delicious French onion soup at Pastis, Landmarc, and Rue 57, among others. [
