Morandi Breaks Out the Breakfast Menu in the West VillageChelsea: Markt your calendars: New location set to open ahead of previous expectations — early this week, in fact. [Eater]
Dumbo: Things not looking so good for Bubby’s Brooklyn: “kids overran the joint.” [Brooklyn Record]
Gramercy: Yow! Gramercy Hotel’s rooftop bar opening soon? [Down by the Hipster]
Tribeca: Robert De Niro’s hotel, which will house an outpost of L.A. hot spot Ago, now has a name. Take note: “It will make the Bowery Hotel look like a Red Roof Inn.” [Down by the Hipster]
West Village: Perhaps trying to deflect attention away from that Times review of Balthazar, Morandi tells us it will roll out breakfast in a couple of weeks. [Grub Street]
Restroom Report
A Visit to the Gastropublic Restrooms at Inn LW12thWe’ve already remarked that Jeffrey Jah seems determined to make his new bi-level “gastropub,” the Inn LW12, the meatpacking district’s own little Spotted Pig. The place’s poutine hasn’t quite become the new gnudi, but we still wondered whether the trapping-and-fishing kitsch extended into the bathroom. Could Jah beat the super-cheesiness of the flower paintings that grace the Spotted Pig’s facilities?
NewsFeed
Matt Weingarten Bids Savoy Adieu, Brings His Lamb Sandwich to Midtown
The last time we heard about Matt Weingarten, the bespectacled, red-bearded chef’s first restaurant, Porcupine, had gone belly up, and he had brought his checked pants and his knives to Savoy as chef de cuisine. But Weingarten, an intellectual type who thinks about food night and day, couldn’t be contained forever, and he will be leaving Savoy in early April to head up Café St. Bart’s, the terrace restaurant attached to St. Bartholomew’s Church at Park and 50th. Weingarten will be consulting on the food this summer and in the fall remaking the menu as executive chef. What can diners expect? “Well, there won’t be any foams,” he says. “I’m not a molecular-gastronomy kind of cook. Everything will be very simple and classic.” He does assure us that he will be bringing with him the leg-of-lamb sandwich with prune-hyssop butter that he has carted around with him since Porcupine. Good. We were worried.
Café St. Bart’s, 109 E. 50th St., at Park Ave.; 212-888-2664.
Mediavore
Everything You Always Wanted to Know About the Restaurant BusinessDid you know that Daniel has closed-circuit cameras watching every plate? That’s one of ten dark secrets of the restaurant business [SmartMoney]
How good can a pizza delivered to New York from Oregon be? Pretty damn good, apparently. [Serious Eats]
Balthazar’s not all that — and not just because it’s busy, either. [Diner’s Journal/NYT]
