Colicchio & Sons sends word that it’ll be doing things a little differently from now on: “Starting tomorrow, Thursday, Feb. 18th, the dining room menu at Colicchio & Sons will be a three-course prix fixe for $78. The menu items in the Tap Room will continue to be served a la carte.” So, a model similar to that of Colicchio’s old haunt, Gramercy Tavern, where a three-course prix fixe is $86 and à la carte items are offered in the tavern. When Colicchio first revealed plans for his restaurant back in December, he told us he was 90% sold on creating a menu that didn’t differentiate between appetizers and entrees. It seems economics caused the other 10% to get the better of him.

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Filed Under: menu changes, colicchio & sons, gramercy tavern, prix fixe, tom colicchio

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Bushwick: Celebrate Sixpoint’s fifth anniversary at Roberta’s with unlimited pizza and beer for $32 starting tonight at 7 p.m. [Feed/TONY]
Park Slope: ‘Inoteca alumna Rebecca Weitzman will be the chef at Thistle Hill Tavern, projected to open its doors in March. [Fork in the Road/VV]
Mack’s Bar and Grill opens on 7th Avenue near Garfield. [Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn]
West Village: Bad idea: Ofrenda’s $10 brunch with a shot of tequila and a shot of sangrita free; after that, tequila shots are $1 each. [Grub Street]
Williamsburg: Radegast, behemoth of beer halls, is expanding into an adjacent building. [Eater NY]

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Filed Under: bushwick, city bakery, double windsor, flatiron, Neighborhood Watch, ofrenda, park slope, radegast, roberta’s, thistle hill tavern, west village, williamsburg, windsor terrace

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Each week on the Food Chain, we ask a chef to describe a dish he or she recently enjoyed. The chef who prepared the dish responds and then picks his or her own memorable meal. On and on it goes. Last time around, Oakland chef Alison Barakat raved about the boudin blanc with duck-fat potatoes that Russell Moore makes at Camino. What rings your bell, Russell?

Who: Russell Moore, chef-owner of Camino in Oakland
What: Beef empanadas
Where: Il Buco, New York
When: February

“My wife and I took a trip to New York, and we walked into my friend Ignacio Mattos’s restaurant — he’s from Uruguay, but he’s a chef at an Italian restaurant — and we were really tired, but it was lunchtime. He wanted to feed us, not too much, but you know how chefs can be cooking for other chefs. He sent out these empanadas in the middle of the meal, as if it was a pasta course or something. He has them on the menu at this place, and I have no idea how, but these beef empanadas were just as light and beautiful as can be. I asked him how he made them, and he said it was his grandmother’s recipe and explained the technique, but I’ve never been able to replicate them myself. For whatever reason, they fit perfectly in the middle of an Italian meal.”

Il Buco chef Ignacio Mattos spills the beans:

“We use a nice skirt steak, and it’s hand cut. We dice it all by hand, toss it with some caramelized onions, cumin, pimenton, a lot of love — that’s about it. Home cooks usually do it with ground beef instead of diced beef, and the difference is just that when you do it diced, you can get it juicier, so you have a much moister, richer feeling. They’re pretty messy: You take a bite and it’s juice just dripping all over.

But right now empanadas aren’t on the menu. We took them off just for fun, to play with the menu a little bit. People actually do ask for them, but I love it when people don’t get what they want, and instead get something that’s just as good and they get really turned on. We’re doing some croquetas now that are just unbelievable. I miss the empanadas myself, personally — it’s one of those things you keep in the refrigerator and it’s a perfect snack, you just drop it in the fryer and you have a beautiful, succulent meal in minutes. But it was hard to control the staff from eating them all. We were probably doing half of them just for the staff!”

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Filed Under: the food chain, camino, empanadas, ignacio mattos, il buco, russell moore

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When the Williamsburg butcher/grocery/cooking school/culinary mecca Brooklyn Kitchen Labs/Meat Hook opened last November, we wondered what would become of the quaint, small, but laudably stocked original Brooklyn Kitchen just a few blocks away. The answer was revealed by a sign spotted at the new complex last weekend, advertising a BIG SALE at the original location, 616 Lorimer Street, from February 18 to 22. By the end of the month, a salesperson said, all remaining inventory would be shuttled over to the commodious industrial space at the Labs, which already sells everything from xanthan gum to Goldie’s soaps, made with beef tallow courtesy of the Meat Hook.

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Filed Under: moving day, brooklyn kitchen, brooklyn kitchen labs, sales

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John Blair

The Daily News rehashes the Gay City News story about the gay hotel and nightclub coming to midtown west, but neither outlet has said much about the restaurant. However, the website of club operator John Blair reveals that when the 120-seat, 3,500-square-foot dining room opens in spring of 2011, it will be operated by Evan Kushner, Sean Connolly, and Jason Kahan, who together own Whym, Eatery, and Vynl in Hell’s Kitchen. Reached for comment, Connolly tells us that it will be a 24-hour restaurant with a front café, and it will be “similar to Eatery but much different. It’s going to be more stylized. We’ll have a casual, chic approach where you can feel comfortable in a pair of jeans and loafers, or if you’re just having a serious business dinner.”

The Out NYC: Urban Resort [John Blair]
Hell’s Kitchen to become home of city’s first gay boutique hotel, complete with major dance club [NYDN]
Earlier: John Blair Wants to Bring Back XL at $20 Million Gay Hotel

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Filed Under: openings, eatery, evan kushner, hell’s kitchen, jason kahan, john blair, scott connolly, the out hotel, vynl, whym

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It’s 4 p.m., and that means it’s time to play Two for Eight. We just asked ten restaurants the best time they can squeeze in a couple for dinner; you need only make your chosen reservation. (As always, we make the calls but don’t guarantee the results.) Today: Destination, Brooklyn.

Applewood (Menu)
718-788-1810
Two for eight? Closed for the week!

Chestnut (Menu)
718-243-0049
Two for eight? Yes

Dressler (Menu)
718-384-6343
Two for eight? Yes

The Good Fork (Menu)
718-643-6636
Two for eight? Yes

The Grocery (Menu)
718-596-3335
Two for eight? Yes

iCi (Menu)
718-789-2778
Two for eight? Yes

Peter Luger (Menu)
718-387-7400
Two for eight? No
Best available: Fully booked

Rose Water (Menu)
718-783-3800
Two for eight? Yes

Saul (Menu)
718-935-9844
Two for eight? Yes

Sel de Mer
718-387-4181
Two for eight? Yes

Filed Under: two for eight, applewood, chestnut, dressler, ici, peter luger, rose water, saul, sel de mer, the good fork, the grocery

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Print has opened for dinner, and here’s a look at the menu. If a dessert like chocolate bread with Lancaster County raw honey and Salvatore Bklyn ricotta isn’t reason enough to trudge over to Eleventh Avenue and 48th Street, then we don’t know what is.

Print’s Dinner Menu [PDF]
Earlier: First Look at Print

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Filed Under: menus, adam block, ink48, print

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Dan Barber (center) with Food Inc. producers Robert Kenner and Richard Pearce.

Blue Hill’s Dan Barber and his wife were at Monkey Bar last night to celebrate Oscar-nominated documentary Food Inc. with Martha Stewart. The chef, who spoke at Davos last month, took a break from serious talk of food politics and agribusiness. After sending his wife to the bar — “I need to get sauced,” he said — we talked about salt, Lent, and TV cooks.

Lent starts tomorrow, what are you giving up?
You are asking an Upper East Side Jew. What are you even supposed to give up on Lent? Lent is you give up fish, right? [Ed. note: Nope.]

The other question is about the Bloomberg’s salt jihad …
Nice dude, “jihad.”

As someone in the industry, are you offended by it?
The salt thing, I don’t know what to say. Is it a good thing? Is it a bad thing? I don’t know.

You’re answering a question with a question?
I’m like the Oracle of Delphi. I feel like the intentions are good. Do I feel like it’s a smart thing? I don’t know. How’s that for ambivalence? I feel like there are other things to go after. Do you know what Ducasse said when he was asked by Charlie Rose what his ideal meal was? He said, “A piece of fish — he said this in French, so it was much more poetic — sans sel san poivre without salt or pepper.” Because it would be so fresh it wouldn’t need salt and pepper.

Imagine if Bloomberg tried to retell that parable in French.
He’d never get a fourth term, man.

What are America’s chances for the Bocuse d’Or?
I wouldn’t be surprised if we didn’t end up doing much better, which isn’t saying a lot. The thing that people don’t understand is that countries like Norway make it into a day of celebration for the country. What people don’t understand is that over years, it becomes part of the culture. We’ll get there at some point, but it’s not a reflection on the quality of food in America.

What’s your take on all the competitive-cooking shows on television? Is it good or bad for cooking?
The question is whether competitive-cooking shows make us better cooks. It’s a little like saying that sitting at home and watching football makes you a better football player.

I used to watch the Food Network obsessively when I was a line cook and I’d get home at 2 in the morning. The shows were fucking amazing. Sissy Biggers was the shit and Alan Richman had a show back then with some supermodel. [Ed. note: It was Nina Griscom.] Sissy had a show where chefs would compete with other chefs. It was the precursor of Iron Chef, but it was done in a very subdued way. And then this was pre-Ming Tsai. This was Batali when he first did his show. I used to watch from 2 to 4. Now I literally don’t know anyone who is on.

Do you watch any shows?
I do Mad Men. Who doesn’t want to be 30 in the sixties?

How’s Sam Sifton doing?
Are you fucking crazy? Are you recording this?

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Filed Under: back of the house, chefs, dan barber, salt

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Considering how well Tom Colicchio’s heartfelt return to the kitchen has gone over after all his years spent in the godless wilds of celebrity chefdom, a cookbook filled with eloquently expressed passion about being back behind the stove was inevitable. Colicchio signed on with Artisan Books (leaving publishers Clarkson Potter, with whom he produced the ‘Wichcraft cookbook) to write an as-yet untitled volume slated to publish in fall 2011.

The sure-to-be-epic cookbook will feature “Chef Colicchio writing everything he believes is important about food, ingredients, recipes, and cooking at home,” Artisan told us, and it’ll be pure Tom: There’s no direct branding tie to Craft, Top Chef, his Tom Tuesday Dinner series, or Colicchio & Sons. When we mused that the scope sounded awfully similar to his first cookbook, 2000’s Think Like a Chef, they clarified that, without a doubt, “it’s going to be very different from anything he’s ever done.”

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Filed Under: tom tom club, colicchio and sons, colicchio vision, cookbooks, tom colicchio

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Move over, Rockaway Taco. The Wave brings news that Margaritaville Margaritas is looking to open a location on the peninsula. According to the article (not yet online), Jimmy Buffett’s parrot-happy chain the New Hampshire-based chain worked with a consulting firm to determine that “Rockaway has the prime demographic for a successful Mexican restaurant and bar.” No location has been chosen, but maybe they’ll commandeer the Rockaway Lobster House’s abandoned deck? True, any Mexican restaurant would be an improvement over the Chinese-Mexican takeout joints out in Rockaway, but then there’s this: “[VP of Franchise Development] Radomski believes New York City and its surrounding areas can support up to 15 Margaritaville Margaritas restaurants.” Madre de Dios.

Correction: The repressed parrothead in us caused us to misread the name of the chain as Margaritaville. It’s actually Margaritas, a chain with 19 locations in New England. We apologize to Jimmy Buffett for the error.

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Filed Under: the chain gang, jimmy buffett, margaritaville, mexican, rockaway taco

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What do you call yuppies that work tirelessly to be hipsters? In one word, huppies. Corner Table Restaurant’s The…

Smith

55 3rd Ave, New York

(212) 420-9800

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Last weekend we were in Nashville (where pimento cheese is a staple and not just a recent trend) and had a 27-ounce burger (that’s three oversize patties) at Fat Mo’s. This is probably the most colorful of the mini-chain’s fourteen locations, especially considering the Indian-looking cashier with gold teeth and gold rings. But anyway: Is it just us, or does it look a lot like the fictitious Georgia establishment Fatty Fat’s Sandwich Ranch of 30 Rock fame? No, we didn’t get our burger with extra “chuckle.”

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Filed Under: other cities, 30 rock, fat mo’s, fatty fat’s sandwich ranch, hamburgers, nashville

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