Restaurants in Manhattan

François Payard Bakery

Cuisine: | Featured in Uncategorized

Café Sabarsky

Cuisine: Bakery | Featured in Best Of, Holiday Eats

Herring, soft pretzels and sausages may not immediately scream Christmas to us, but there’s no denying that Austrians know a thing or two when it comes to making scrumptious holiday pastries.  Thankfully, there’s no need to hop on a plane for a taste of Linzertorte, currently served at Café Sabarsky, an authentic Viennese café inside the Neue Galerie.  A traditional Christmas confection, the lattice-topped tart is filled with raspberry jam and hazelnuts, and sprinkled with sliced pistachios, almonds, and powdered...

Columbus Circle Holiday Market

Cuisine: | Featured in Best Of, Holiday Eats

If you’re more of an uptown shopper, there are plenty of high-end purveyors to choose from at this festive, open-air bazaar.  We had our eye on a $250 hand-knit wrap-around sweater, but maybe we were just lightheaded from hunger.  Better warm up with a bowl of tortilla soup from Cascabel Taqueria before you impulse buy.  It’s loaded with chunks of tender chicken and tortilla chips and sprinkled with queso fresco and Mexican...

Union Square Holiday Market

Cuisine: | Featured in Best Of, Holiday Eats

If you regularly frequent Union Square for its fabulous farmers market (as you definitely should), you’ll especially appreciate its granddaddy of a holiday bazaar, now in its 19th year.  A 100-strong list of vendors peddle unique products (we’ve got our eye on antique NYC maps from Pageant Print shop), until December 24th.  If you’ve waited until Christmas Eve to finish your shopping you might have bigger problems to worry about, but there’s no reason to let hunger get in the way of you participating in the last minute rush.  We particularly recommend the Arancina al Nero di Seppia from Arancini Bros.  Besides being a perfect, handheld mini-meal, these crispy, creamy risotto balls are flavored with squid ink and filled with tomatoes and spicy shrimp, perfect if you have to skip the Feast of the Seven Fishes in order to...

Grand Central Holiday Fair

Cuisine: | Featured in Best Of, Holiday Eats

Grand Central’s elegant Holiday Fair features 76 micro-boutiques, and while none of them specialize in food, the terminal itself has seriously stepped up its game in the last few years.  Finish off a day of shopping with a ready-to-go sandwich from Murray’s Cheese, pick up a fancy french pastry from Financier, or, if you still have a bit of cash to burn, settle in for champagne and crustaceans at the Grand Central Oyster...

The Holiday Shops at Bryant Park

Cuisine: | Featured in Best Of, Holiday Eats

The Holiday Shops at Bryant Park are in their 11th season, and we can’t think of a better way to spend the day than by doing lots and lots of Christmas shopping and going for a spin on their ice rink afterwards.  Oh wait, yes we can.  Build up your strength before strapping on your skates by ordering a plate of Louisiana-style goodness from Daisy’s Grits – we especially love the succulent shrimp and green onions served over silky white...

Q & A with La Villette’s Chef Christophe Bonnegrace

Cuisine: French | Featured in Chef Q&A

At age 14, Provence-born chef Christophe Bonnegrace was convinced his cooking career was over before it had started.  His first job, as an apprentice, lasted approximately one week, and ended with the head chef thrusting his hands in the fryer.  “I got scared, escaped the kitchen and pedaled home as fast as I could to get away from this guy!” Bonnegrace remembers.  Luckily his wounds (both literal and figurative) from that grisly first experience eventually healed, setting off a career that’s taken him from celebrity-frequented restaurants and resorts in Beverley Hills (Aristoff Caviar and Fine Food), Maui (The Royal Lahaina) and Las Vegas (Little Buddha), all the way to the far reaches of Africa, where he learned to cook crickets over pit fires with primitive tribes from Cairo and Nairobi. Although his passport may indicate otherwise, at the end...

The John Dory Oyster Bar

Cuisine: Seafood | Featured in Best Of, Holiday Eats

Can Brits really handle the Feast of the Seven Fishes?  Absolutely, if you’re talking about April Bloomfield and The John Dory Oyster Bar, her hip seafood mecca in the elegant Ace Hotel.  Chef de cuisine Josh Even plans to go global with traditional feast ingredients, offering up a creamy Salt Cod Brandade, Chorizo-Stuffed Squid with Smoked Tomato, and (this is an oyster bar after all) Hog Island Sweetwater Oysters topped with Sea Urchin...

i Trulli

Cuisine: Italian | Featured in Best Of, Holiday Eats

This rustic, Apulian restaurant will spread their shellfish celebration over not just one, but ten days this year, offering a four-course feast menu from December 17th to the 24th.  You might just want to schedule a repeat visit to try all of the under-the-sea options, as there are four different antipasti, primi, and secondi to choose from.  Why not order the Fritto Misto, Tonnarelli with Octopus Ragu, and Monkfish Osso Bucco one day, and the Wood-oven Roasted Oysters, Fregola with Clams and Saffron, and Swordfish with Bottarga and Breadcrumbs the...

Oceana

Cuisine: Seafood | Featured in Best Of, Holiday Eats

Where better to celebrate the glory of shellfish than at the glittering midtown hotspot, Oceana?  Chef Ben Pollinger’s five-course feast promises to be a seriously high-end affair, featuring Hiramasa Tartare with persimmon and sicilian pistachio, Octopus, Cuttlefish and Calamari Salad with cranberry beans and preserved lemon, and Roast Maine Lobster and Caviar, served with black trumpet mushrooms and caviar...

Hearth

Cuisine: Italian | Featured in Best Of, Holiday Eats

Marco Canora’s four-course holiday menu at Hearth reads like a greatest hits list of Feast of the Seven Fishes favorites.  Clams Oreganata with 
Roasted Red Pepper, Lemon Zest, and Parsley?  Check. 
 Shrimp and Mussel Cacciucco, the classic fish stew from Tuscany?  Check.  A simple fried fish (in this case, flounder), with a spritz of lemon and aioli?  Check.  The all-important air-dried salt cod called baccala, reimagined here as a pungent topper for crusty crostini?  You better believe...

Lupa Osteria Romana

Cuisine: Italian | Featured in Best Of, Holiday Eats

It’s no surprise that noted Italian-American restaurateurs Mario Batali and Joe Bastianich pull out all the stops at Lupa for their annual Christmas Eve feast.  There are, in fact, more than seven fishes presented over a span of seven courses, including Amberjack (served crudo-style with giardiniera), Lobster (folded into a risotto), Arctic Char (accented with winter truffle), and even Eel (topped with crispy...

What I’m Loving – Yopparai

Cuisine: Japanese | Featured in First Bite, Reviews

It’s not easy to surprise me with a great, new restaurant that’s not really new at all.  It makes me feel like I’ve failed as a food writer and restaurant chaser.  How did I miss the memo about Yopparai?  Seriously. I suggested we go for Japanese to a friend who responded, “I just went to a great spot on the Lower East Side.”   When I neared the entrance, I realized I’d been to the same address for sushi just a year before when it was Sushi Uo, an oddball sushi spot that sadly didn’t last long.  I buzzed the same mysterious buzzer, then passed through a door into a railroad-style apartment building where the restaurant occupies a long, narrow space on the ground floor.  There’s a long wood sushi bar with cozy, cushioned seating, several two-tops along the wall,...

Q & A with Tavern on the Green’s New Chef Katy Sparks

Cuisine: American | Featured in Chef Q&A

Katy Sparks may be a farm girl at heart, but that hasn’t stopped her from making her mark at some of the most revered four-star restaurants in New York City.

First Bite: L’Apicio

Cuisine: Italian | Featured in First Bite, Reviews

It ain’t easy to open a restaurant in this city, nevermind a successful one.  First, there’s the task of finding a space with reasonable rent, then liquor licenses to wrangle, and building out the space.  Not to mention coming up with an original concept and menu, which ain’t easy either.   Yet, Joe Campanale and his partners, August Cardona, Gabe and Katherine Thompson, continue to open successes, which manage packed dining rooms and full reservation books around the clock.   What started with a West Village trattoria named dell’anima has expanded into a growing empire of hip Italian-bent eateries that includes L’Artusi and Anfora.   L’Apicio is their fourth venture and their first East Village eatery, located on the Bowery (just around the corner from DBGB) in a spacious locale that used to house Bowery Wine Co.   The interior...

Parm’s Thanksgiving Hero

Cuisine: Italian | Featured in Best Of, Fall Foods

Indiscriminately piling leftovers on a hunk of bread is the average Joe’s answer to Thanksgiving leftovers (and not a bad idea at all), but Parm’s iconic sandwich has made an art of the dish with some surprise flavors and textures.  A crusty semolina hero is layered with cranberry sauce, mayonnaise, fried sage leaves, mashed sweet potato puree, hunks of house-roasted honey and garlic turkey breast and a sprinkle of fresh thyme — the perfect accompaniment for a day of football-watching from the confines of your couch or Parm’s counter...

Dirt Candy’s Corn Grits

Cuisine: Vegetarian | Featured in Best Of, Fall Foods

Corn is one of summer’s undeniable superstars; picked fresh from the cob and delivered straight from the grill with little more fanfare than a sprinkle of salt and a slathering of butter.  It reappears again — albeit briefly — on the Thanksgiving table, taking the form of Native American dishes, like corn bread or corn pudding.  Thanks to the veggie-adulating eatery Dirt Candy, however, we can appreciate the sweet starch any time of year. Experience corn in multiple forms in Amanda Cohen’s entree of Stone Ground Grits topped with Corn Cream, Pickled Shitakes, Huitlacoche, and a Tempura Poached...

Momofuku Milk Bar

Cuisine: | Featured in Uncategorized

Good’s Crispy Turkey Scallopine

Cuisine: American | Featured in Best Of, Fall Foods

The comfort food is pretty darn good at this all-American spot in the West Village so we’re excited to see what they do with the flavors of our beloved, turkey-centric holiday.  Post Thanksgiving, we’re still craving the bird, which gets an elegant update with their spin on a Classic Veal Scallopine.  It’s made with Turkey instead, which is pounded, sauteed, and topped with Ricotta Salata and fresh pea shoots, in a zesty, lemon and brown butter...

Barbuto’s Lamb Ribs with Cranberries

Cuisine: Italian | Featured in Best Of, Fall Foods

If your idea of cranberries is limited to muffins and jellified sauce that holds its shape in a can, be sure to pay a visit to Jonathan Waxman’s rustic, West Village eatery to experience cranberries as they should be.   While the menu changes frequently, his current obsession with the tart, jewel-like fruit is yielding delicious results.  We’re particularly intrigued by a current special of Costini Di Agnello, juicy Lamb Ribs cooked in the wood-fire oven and anointed with Cranberries and...