Plans to build workforce housing in one of Napa Valley’s most exclusive towns are running into resistance from a local dining scene powerhouse. Thomas Keller, the well-known chef behind Yountville’s French Laundry, is asking town officials to pause a proposed housing project for local workers located just two blocks from his restaurant. Thomas Keller is … Read more
Essential by Christophe began serving dinner on Sunday night a few weeks ago, making it the only restaurant in its high-priced class open seven nights a week. Demand for seats left chef/owner Christophe Bellanca no other choice. It’s not only the best restaurant on the Upper West Side — a neighborhood not known as a culinary … Read more
In a recent ranking by Dojo, a business-support platform, of “The Hardest Restaurant Reservations to Get in the World,” the notoriously exclusionary Rao’s was the only Big Apple eatery to make the top ten at No. 2. But most every new restaurant in town might as well be Rao’s. In my twenty-five years on the dining … Read more
The early bird gets the burger. Restaurants across the city are increasingly offering off-menu hamburgers only available to those in the know — and often in limited quantities and only during a specified time slot. While restaurateurs want to satisfy customers’ hunger for burgers — and be seen as neighborhood spots — they’re loath to be defined … Read more
Regulars know the Hamptons is more than a place to hit the beach and unwind for hours by the pool. Every summer, the eastern tip of Long Island transforms into a social hot spot, a place for the world’s elite to gather, let loose and have one too many drinks somewhere fabulous. There are, of … Read more
Getting a prime-time table at a buzzy restaurant in the city is no longer enough. Diners-in-the-know pride themselves on ordering exclusive off-menu items, and restaurants are increasingly offering them. “It’s becoming a thing,” said Colleen Croft, co-owner of Elio’s, a popular Upper East Side Italian restaurant that’s been around for decades. “When people are regulars … Read more
Le Veau D’or is the city’s most buzzed about restaurant revival in recent memory — with thrilling good reason. It audaciously resurrects the fabled, boldface-haunt that opened at 129 E. 60th St in 1937 and served its last escargot in 2019. At the new iteration, classic bistro dishes as interpreted by chef/owners Lee Hanson and Riad Nasr — … Read more
Forget SoHo’s always booked-up Corner Store. The city’s hottest restaurant — and the hardest to get into — is miles uptown on staid East 74th Street. Chez Fifi has been the toughest ticket since it opened on the Upper East Side on Dec. 10 — and with good reason. It’s the coziest place north of Bloomingdale’s since … Read more
La Tete D’Or (318 Park Avenue South) is the new king of the city’s great American steakhouses. The French name — taken from a park in owner Daniel Boulud’s hometown of Lyon — shouldn’t scare off beef lovers wary of foreign twists on their favorite protein. Boulud seamlessly marries American and French styles just as he does at … Read more
Le Cafe Louis Vuitton dazzles like a giant snowflake over the corner of Fifth Avenue and 57th Street. The improbably excellent, sleek and stylish restaurant on the fourth floor of the Louis Vuitton store is the best eating place ever to co-exist with $10,700 Cappucine BB handbags and $1,460 LV “trainer” sneakers. It’s more luxurious than Daniel … Read more
La Grenouille, the faded but once-fabulous frog of East 52nd Street, croaked for good this week. Owner Philippe Masson announced the closure on Instagram on Wednesday, posting that he was “moving on to explore new terrain and pursue other dreams,” adding that “an enormous amount of love, commitment and dedication went into making La Grenouille … Read more
It’s the hour that ate the Big Apple’s restaurants. When the pandemic ended and New Yorkers finally returned to full-capacity dining, they started and finished earlier due to work-from-home and an aversion to late hours after months of “sheltering in place.” Now, three years later, Gothamites are still opting to eat, on average, at least … Read more
This mutant masterpiece takes “Frankenstein foods” to the next level. The new Maison Barnes — the sister restaurant to Cafe Boulud, both at 100 E. 63d at Park Avenue — is serving a $250 whole roasted chicken stuffed with the head of a Maine lobster. Dubbed “The Chobster,” it looks like something out of a 1950s … Read more
Upper East Side high school freshman Joshua Small is cooking up hope. Small, a French-American student at the Lycée Français de New York, regaled 60 diners as the acting executive chef of East Harlem’s Tastings NYC Saturday, a “Youth to Youth” dinner to raise money for the sick children at the Ronald McDonald House-New York. … Read more
Cronut creator Dominique Ansel has teamed up with SoHo’s PopUp Bagels to offer one shell of a take on a bagel and cream cheese. This weekend only, Dominique Ansel Bakery (189 Spring St., SoHo) will be selling parmesan-and-gruyere cheese bagels paired with escargot schmear and a whole, shell-on snail. Pastry chef Dominique Ansel is known … Read more
Big, beautiful and booming Cafe Carmellini is the city’s most delightful, crowd-pleasing new restaurant in ages. It brings back the joyful New York before Covid-19, illegal pot shops and the migrant invasion. It’s a miraculous marriage of the19th Century Gilded Age and Wall Street’s junk-bond era, but without 1880s social snobbery or 1980s excess. The brasserie swirls nightly … Read more
This chef is laying down the rules: behave — or get chopped. The newly-opened Frog Club in the West Village features a list of 10 things that will get you “86ed” if you do them — including not kissing chef Liz Johnson without her consent. The list, published on the restaurant’s Instagram, sets out the … Read more
Four Twenty Five, Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s gorgeous new Park Avenue restaurant, is more than a place for prime movers to feast on charred and marinated Jurgielewicz duck breast. The jewel-box, modern-American eatery at 425 Park Avenue rides the crest of an ambitious East Midtown dining wave that includes reopened Casa Lever, David Burke’s Park Avenue Kitchen and soon-to-come new … Read more
The likely imminent closure of La Grenouille — the East 52nd Street carriage house it occupies was put up for sale last week — has some crying into their soufflés and questioning the future of French dining in the city. It’s the last of the city’s original “Le” and “La” restaurants to close, following Le … Read more
Cafe Boulud, the beloved French-American mecca for global power brokers and uptown food-lovers, is back in a new location after four years. It’s the best news north of Bloomingdale’s since the opening of the 100-years-late Q train. And, it happened because some medical gear didn’t fit into the restaurant’s corner space at Park Avenue and East 63rd Street. After Cafe … Read more