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Modern Cuisines

Cosme – First Bite

Neighborhood: | Featured in Hottest Newcomers, Restaurant, Reviews, RG's Favorites

Cosme is an impossible reservation; the kind that can drive a foodie crazy because it feels too important not to eat there, and yet, it’s nearly impossible to snag a table. I guess word that one of the world’s best chefs just opened up shop in town travels fast, nevermind a Mexican joint, which we New Yorkers don’t have enough of…

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Floyd Cardoz’s White Street – First Bite

Neighborhood: | Featured in First Bite, First Bite, Hottest Newcomers, Restaurant, Reviews

I’ve been a fan of Floyd Cardoz since the early Tabla days way back in 1998. And like many other foodies, I’m still mourning its closing. But that’s all history: Cardoz has recently resurfaced at White Street and it’s worth going out of your way for…

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Q & A with Mas (farmhouse) & Almanac’s Galen Zamarra

Neighborhood: | Featured in Chef Q&A

Although highly respected in the industry, Galen Zamarra doesn’t make the news often. Ever since winning the James Beard Award for “Rising Star” at Bouley early on in his career, he’s essentially kept his nose to the grindstone. Until now that is, with the opening of his super seasonal, new eatery, Almanac…

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elan – Review

Neighborhood: | Featured in First Bite, Hottest Newcomers, Restaurant, Reviews

This is what many are calling Waltuck’s comeback, his official return to the New York dining scene. At Chanterelle, David Waltuck leaned very French, with decadent dishes, like Shrimp Risotto and Duck & Foie Gras Dumplings. At élan, he seems to have loosened up…

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Saturne

Neighborhood: , | Featured in City Guides, Restaurant

There’s a new school of, well, new restaurants in Paris that all seem a lot alike, so I was worried Saturne would feel like deja vu.  (A little like Spring, a little like Bones and Roseval.)  But it didn’t look much like the others, most of them tiny, no frills spots with not much to look at except your plate. Saturne, on the other hand, is a breezy beauty with soaring ceilings and huge picture windows flung open onto the street on warm days.  There’s a second dining room in the back with a glass roof, which is equally as interesting as the front, so don’t fret over which room you’re sat in because they’re both great!  The space itself is modern and yet casually elegant, furbished with blonde wood floors, tables and even a wood-topped bar, dark leather banquettes and...

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Bones

Neighborhood: , | Featured in City Guides, Restaurant

“We could be anywhere but Paris,” my dining companion uttered as we sat down to dinner at Bones.  In fact, it feels more like Bushwick, Brooklyn than Paris, France.  The servers all speak English and the crowd takes cigarette breaks between each course. This new hotspot looks more like a construction site than a restaurant that’s open for business, taking the notion of ‘bare bones’ to a new level.   The floors are cement, the walls completely unfinished and coming undone, some brick, others stone or unfinished plaster, and a metal beam in the center of it all.  Just about everything is exposed. Bones is where the hipsters hang out these days, listening to alternative music pumping through the stereo, while feasting on hearts and other eccentric body parts.  Dinner here is like an episode of Fear Factor:Food (if that were...

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David Toutain

Neighborhood: , | Featured in City Guides, Restaurant

Full disclosure: I’m not a big fan of the whole molecular gastronomy trend not just in France, but at-large (though I’m more than happy to be proven wrong and I most definitely (and thankfully) am wrong… once in awhile anyway).  But like it or not, Paris seems to be embracing this avant-garde school of cooking wholeheartedly, which is why you’ll find so many mad scientists in Parisian kitchens.  It’s not that I hate foam and edible dirt and all.  I just want to eat good food that tastes like food rather than like an idea.  Make no mistake, David Toutain falls into the avant-garde camp of cooking. In fact, David Toutain is one of the most buzzed about of the bunch, which is why I had to take a 12:45 lunch reservation because I couldn’t get in for dinner.  (I promise...

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Batard – Reviewed

Neighborhood: | Featured in First Bite, Hottest Newcomers, Restaurant, Reviews

It’s always sad when a restaurant doesn’t work out. Restaurateurs put a lot of money into building out a restaurant in hopes that people will come and return often. But let’s be honest: Corton didn’t really work even when Paul Liebrandt was in the kitchen, so there was no love lost when he left for Brooklyn to launch The Elm. Which is exactly why Drew Nieporent smartly teamed up with John Winterman and chef Markus Glocker (Gordon Ramsay at The London) to transform what was refined, but a tad too serious into a warm, friendly neighborhood spot with good food and wine…

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Q & A with Atera’s Matthew Lightner

Neighborhood: | Featured in Chef Q&A

For a chef so new to the New York dining scene, Matthew Lightner has made quite an impressive, East Coast debut. An alumni of L’Auberge in California, Mugaritz in Spain, and Noma in Denmark to name a few, Lightner launched his first New York venture, Atera, in March of last year. And in just a short time, the avant-garde, modern American eatery has already garnered two Michelin stars, a spot on Bon Appetit’s Best 50 New Restaurants list, and a 3-star review from The New York Times.

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Dish Spotting: Alder’s Rye & Pastrami Pasta

Neighborhood: | Featured in Dish Spotting

If you know anything about Wylie Dufresne and his original Lower East Side restaurant, wd-50, it’s hard not to enter his newest spot, Alder, with certain pre-conceived notions. But in reality, the two-month-old Alder represents a more sedate side of the chef, without being too buttoned up or self-serious. It starts with the restaurant’s back-to-nature name (Alder is a type of birch tree), which is also reflected in the rustic, rough-hewn décor… think ceilings made of reclaimed wood slates from a farmhouse in upstate New York. And while, like at wd-50, innocuously named dishes can yield unexpected surprises, none of the dishes at Alder are overwrought, overthought, or off-puttingly jokey or tricky.

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