What Do You Mean? We Love the Upper East Side!
Dear Grub Street,
The Upper West Side is teeming with activity, as is every other area of Manhattan, but I very rarely see anything on the Upper East Side. What have you got against the several hundred thousand people who live there and their restaurants and chefs?
— A reader with a valid gripe.
Mediavore
City Council Might Tackle Labor Violations; Drunks Abound at High-EndCustomers get drunk, carry on, and throw up even at the finest restaurants. Especially at the finest restaurants: “More people throw up in the dining room of Per Se than your average college bar.” [NYT]
The City Council is considering a law that would put labor violations on par with health violations, in an effort to protect vulnerable immigrant workers. [NPR]
Mocktails are on the rise, thanks to “the whole rehab thing,” and nowhere more successfully than at Indochine. [NYP]
The Other Critics
Anthos Misses Its Mark; Provence’s First RaveUnlike Adam Platt, who thought Anthos inferior to Dona, Frank Bruni likes it better; he seems almost pained to have to deny the place a third star. But the drab room and overwhelmed fish keep Michael Psilakis’s dream of a three-star Greek restaurant from coming true — yet. [NYT]
Related: Greek Revival [NYM]
Time Out’s Randall Lane hits Williamsburg BBQ Fette Sau and is struck by how good some of the meats are, and how unbelievably bad the sauce is. That’s pretty much in keeping with what everybody else has said, but Lane is the first to make much-needed points about the effect of keeping pulled pork exposed in a chafing tray, and how ill-fit pork belly is for the smoke treatment. [TONY]
Related: Fette Sau’s Weird Williamsburg Barbecue Palace [Grub Street]
Moira Hodgson’s rave makes the relaunched Provence sound really, really good — a great omen for their future critical reception. The old Provence was good, but neither the service nor the food was on a level you would want to face a battery of critics with. [NYO]
Openings
Sandro’s Latest Restaurant Is As Good As His Last One
Sandro Frioriti has been bopping around New York for 22 years, catering to plutocrats at restaurants on the Upper East Side, the Hamptons, and Chelsea, not to mention other stops all over Manhattan and Brooklyn. But that doesn’t make his most recent Sandro’s, announced by Rob and Robin in the current round of Openings, any less good. Its menu reveals a roster of Roman classics that you don’t see everywhere – spaghettini with lemon sauce, sea-urchin ravioli, pan-seared cuttlefish with artichokes. The prices it shows are pretty good too, especially given the kind of neighborhood grandees who will likely be filling the room night in and night out.
Openings: Spirito Ristorante, Perilla, Casellula Cheese & Wine Café, and Sandro’s. [NYM]
Sandro’s Menu
