Bedford-Stuyvesant: A vacant storefront on the corner of Myrtle and Spencer will become a much-needed supermarket — a kosher one, at that. [Bed-Stuy Blog]
Lower East Side: Moldy Fig, a wine and jazz bar, is rumored to be the next inhabitant of 178 Stanton Street. [Bowery Boogie]
Midtown West: Gelato chain Grom will be adding another location on Broadway. [Midtown Lunch]
Murray Hill: Kyochon reopened today following last week’s employee retraining closure. [Midtown Lunch]
West Village: Lupa will host a five-course farm-to-table lunch March 25 and April 1. Tickets ($105) include entry to a screening of modern-food-production documentary Fresh. More special events, like a $75 multicourse Easter dinner on April 4, are on the calendar through the end of this month into April. [Lupa]

Read more posts by Stefanie Roberts

Filed Under: neighborhood watch, brooklyn kitchen labs, grom, kyochon, lower east side, lupa, mason dixon, midtown west, moldy fig, murray hill, the brooklyn brewery, the brooklyn star, the meat hook, west village, williamsburg

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Rich Thomas

It turns out an unhappy call from Noah Tepperberg wasn’t the only fallout from promoter Justin Ross Lee’s list of “Top Ten Most Hated People in New York Nightlife.” Lee claims that Rich Thomas, one of the doormen at Tepperberg’s club, Avenue, wasn’t exactly honored to be No. 1 on the list and the following ensued last Sunday morning.

Rich smiles warmly and says, “You’re fucking with the wrong people. I am going to fucking kill you.” It’s then that I reply, “Rich, look down, I’m filming our conversation.” Rich spots my Flip Video Camera, winds up (what seemed like) all of his strength, punches me in the stomach and grabs the HD camera out of my hand. After recovering from having the wind knocked out of me, I look up to see Rich (with my camera) racing for the door, fleeing the scene and 1Oak security.

JRL has posted his NYPD complaint charging Ross with a felony; apparently the NYPD has a specific code for robbery at a bar and grill. We tend to take anything a club promoter says with a grain of salt, so who knows how accurate this account is — but it’s definitely the juiciest thing to happen in clubland since Thomas’s colleague Wass was accused of assault with a velvet rope.

From Most Hated to Most Wanted [Clubplanet]

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Filed Under: 1oak, avenue, crimes scenes, justin ross lee, nightlife, rich thomas

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Shortly after being named a finalist for Best Chefs in America (his fourth Beard nomination), Hugh Acheson, chef-owner of Five & Ten in Athens, Georgia, is coming to New York. You may remember that Mario Batali picked the Ottawa native as one of his top ten favorite chefs. Now you can see why during the second annual Sunday Supper to Benefit the James Beard Foundation. On March 28, Acheson and 29 other acclaimed toques (from Philadelphia, Nashville, Atlanta, and, of course, New York) will prepare a multicourse meal to be served in the concourse of Chelsea Market. It’s not your only chance to experience his brand of cooking: According to Publishers Marketplace, Acheson has just snagged a book deal.

In the Fall of next year, Clarkson Potter will publish A New Turn in the South, “a cookbook of Southern food, influenced by the author’s classic French training with a focus on local ingredients.” Before then, check out Acheson’s cooking videos on YouTube.

Press Release for Sunday Supper at Chelsea Market [Hugh Cooks Food]

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Filed Under: foodievents, a new turn in the south, bookshelf, chelsea market, cookbooks, hugh acheson, sunday supper

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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 a couple in for dinner; you need only make your chosen reservation. (As always, we make the calls but don’t guarantee the results.) Today: Modern American.

Abe & Arthur’s (Menu)
646-289-3930
Two for eight? No
Best available: 6:30 or 9:30

Apiary (Menu)
212-254-0888
Two for eight? Yes

Aureole (Menu)
212-319-1660
Two for eight? Yes

Bar Henry (Menu)
646-448-4559
Two for eight? Yes

Dovetail (Menu)
212-362-3800
Two for eight? Yes

Dressler (Menu)
718-384-6343
Two for eight? No
Best available: 7:45 or 8:15

Eighty One (Menu)
212-873-8181
Two for eight? Yes

Lure Fishbar (Menu)
212-431-7676
Two for eight? Yes

Prune (Menu)
212-677-6221
Two for eight? No
Best available: 7:45 or 8:15

Stanton Social (Menu)
212-995-0099
Two for eight? No
Best available: 7:15 p.m. or 9:30 p.m.

Filed Under: two for eight, abe & arthur’s, apiary, aureole, bar henry, dovetail, dressler, eighty one, lure fishbar, prune, stanton social

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Leaving aside new offerings like crab-cake sandwiches, Peking-duck buns, and lasagna Bolognese, it looks like the only real addition to Citi Field’s food-vendor lineup this year is a Kozy Shack Gluten-Free Stand selling “Kozy Shack puddings, hot dogs, hamburgers, sausages and beer.” [N.Y. Mets]

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Filed Under: the great outdoors, citi field

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Eater reports that Tiny’s Giant Sandwich Shop will reopen in a couple of weeks with new owners but the same menu; however, the fate of nearby Eastern Alley (shuttered after just a month and a half) isn’t as positive: It will soon revert to doing Thailand Café–style Thai food. [Eater NY]

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Filed Under: reopenings, eastern alley, lower east side, thailand cafe, tiny’s giant sandwich shop

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from Grub Street Chicago

The Publican’s pork rinds.

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 week, New York chef Sue Torres was transported by the charcuterie plate at Osteria, one of chef Marc Vetri’s Philadelphia restaurants. What drives you wild, Marc?

Who: Marc Vetri, chef-owner of Vetri, Osteria and Amis
What: Spiced Pork Rinds
Where: The Publican, Chicago
When: Summer 2009

“I took all of my line cooks and managers from Vetri – I think there were eight or nine of us – and went to Chicago on a Paul Kahan restaurant tour. I always take my staff somewhere every summer for an overnight – we go somewhere that’s inspiring. Paul has always been a big inspiration for me. The year before we went to Stone Barns for dinner. This year I was like – ‘let’s go to Chicago!’ I think we actually spent more money eating at Stone Barns than we did flying to Chicago and eating in four restaurants. I’m not even exaggerating, if you can believe it.

We ate at all of Paul’s restaurants in one day and he ate with us. Actually, not all — we had to skip Blackbird because they weren’t open. It was a pretty fun-filled day of eating. Right in the middle of it, we went to the lake and four of us actually stripped down to our underwear and hopped in the lake to wake up. This was after Avec and prior to the Publican. We went to Publican and the pork rinds were unbelievable. They were these airy puffs – they melted right in your mouth and they had just the right amount of spice on them and were just awesome.”

Publican chef Brian Huston explains:

“For the pork rinds I should give a shout-out to Mike Sheerin, chef de cuisine at Blackbird. When we were waiting for The Publican to open I spent some time with him, and he was doing some sort of rind with a salad. With us being a strictly pork place, I took that idea and said ‘who needs a salad with it?’ We made ours something of an ode to the spicy Chee-tos that you used to eat as a kid, we put some cheese powder, espelette pepper — they’re kind of spicy, cheesy pork rinds. It’s kind of the perfect start to wet your whistle, to make you want beer.

Most of our tables order them, but we do also give them away. We’re close to the United Center where the Bulls and Blackhawks play. One of our owners is anti-sports because he says when teams do well people stay home and watch the game, but I, being a sports fan, think we should embrace being close to the stadium, we should be a place to go on the way. So what we do is if anyone wears a Hawks jersey before a game, we give them free pork rinds. Bulls too, though we don’t get too many tank tops in here. We want them to know that we don’t have any jerseys hanging on our walls, but we do support our local teams.”

Read more posts by Helen Rosner and Kirsten Henri

Filed Under: the food chain, brian huston, marc vetri, pork rinds, the publican

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Yesterday we asked whether you’d still go to a restaurant if it got a C grade under new Health Department rules. The manager of one of the hypothetical failing-grade establishments we listed, Chad J. Currier of Monkey Bar (it received 60 demerit points in an inspection earlier this month), informs us that on Monday, the restaurant passed a follow-up inspection with a respectable eight points (that puts it safely in the A range). The problem, says Currier, was that the restaurant had a Cryovac machine, as well as some meat that had been Cryo-packed by its shipper, on hand. Monkey Bar has never used the machine (it doesn’t employ sous-vide cooking), but nevertheless, the Health Department docked it for not having the required HAACP plan. Now the machine is off-site (if you’re looking for one and want this sort of headache on your hands, give Currier a call!), and all is well. “I have no quarrel with what they found,” says Currier. “I’m just distressed that it amounted to more than half the points that we were allocated, and I’m also distressed that it was public record and it has a variety of interpretations.” Which raises the question: How does Currier feel about letter grades?

Currier points out that the inspection process is “very subjective and quite vague. They’ll find what they want to find.” He suggests that “the grade of a restaurant should be the average of its last two inspections or some such thing,” and adds, “I have friends who are Department of Health consultants, and they’re not too big on the idea of the letter grade. We’re aware that there are a lot of localities in the United States that use letter grades but they don’t see the practicality in New York. Either you’re safe or you’re not safe.” In fact, he says that even the inspector who followed up on Monkey Bar’s original inspection was sympathetic: “This person’s opinion was, ‘What does the city council know about what the inspection process is like?’” And Currier seems to agree: “I understand perfectly what the City Council’s objective is, but when we’re looking at nuances here, I question the practicality and viability of this — is it really going to be leading to good restaurateurizing?”

Earlier: The ‘C’ Class: Restaurants That Would Have the Lowest Marks Under Letter Grading

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Filed Under: health concerns, chad j. currier, department of health, health inspections, letter grading, monkey bar, sous vide cooking

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from Grub Street Chicago

Our New York sibling reported this morning about a new gig for chef Rodelio Aglibot as a partner with BLT Restaurant Group, with whom he’s designing “new Asian concepts.” That left us confused about his status re: Sunda, where he runs the show, so we got in touch with him by phone to clarify: “I’m not leaving Sunda,” he assured us. “My association with Sunda will be long-term — I’m the founding consulting chef, I’m basing myself out of Chicago.”

Earlier: BLT Taps Rodelio Aglibot to Oversee Asian Concepts

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Filed Under: chef non-shuffle, blt restaurant group, rodelio aglibot, sunda

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If you thought Ferran Adrià would do a Conan-esque stand-up comedy tour after closing El Bulli as a restaurant and turning it into a foundation, you were wrong. He’s actually doing something just as bizarre. The Washington Post reports that he and brother in molecular gastronomy José Andrés will lead a “first-of-its-kind course in culinary physics” at Harvard University. And who will one of their T.A.’s be? None other than statesman chef Dan Barber will teach a class in the series. “This is designed to create a dialogue between cooks and scientists,” says the Harvard research fellow in charge. Interesting career choice for Adrià — please tell us that it’s at least being filmed for a Future Food-type reality show.

Foam 101? Chefs José Andrés, Adrià will teach at Harvard [WP]

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Filed Under: personalities, dan barber, ferran adria, harvard university, jose andres, molecular gastronomy

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First Marcus Samuelsson and Ryan Skeen come to the neighborhood, and now this: The founders of East Village party spot Lava Gina (Senegal-born Ousmane Keita and German-born Chris Pollock) plan to open Bier International at 2099 Frederick Douglass Boulevard and 113th Street (formerly Florence’s Restaurant). In the kitchen, longtime Miracle Grill chef Adriano Flor (another West African) will team with Hubertus Wormstall (another German, who was head chef at Chelsea’s Parish & Co. before moving on to gigs in Los Angeles and Puerto Vallarta). Construction of the space started in February — when it opens in May, beers from Europe, Kenya, Japan, and the U.S. of A. will complement “a diverse menu of global bites.” The only bummer: By the looks of the renderings above and below, outdoor space will be confined to the sidewalk, à la Zum Schneider.

Rendering: Courtesy of Bier

Rendering: Courtesy of Bier

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Filed Under: openings, adriano flor, chris pollock, harlem, hubertus wormstall, lava gina, miracle grill, ousmane keita, parish and co.

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It was October of 2008. Cain, unable to find a buyer the previous year, had just re-branded itself as Cain Luxe. There were women in bikinis. Jamie Mulholland told Guest of a Guest: “Mark my words: 27th Street is going to be hot again!” Well, that never happened. Three years after rumors started swirling that it would close, Cain’s last night is tonight. We’d pour one out, but bottles of Stoli are $350.

Nightclub Cain Closing Its Doors [NYP]
Related: The Short, Drunken Life of Club Row [NYM]

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Filed Under: closings, cain, cain luxe, chelsea, jamie mulholland, nightlife

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