When Drew Nieporent opened Montrachet on these premises in 1985, he turned New Yorkers’ idea of a fancy French restaurant on its head. The setting was a stark industrial space, with tin ceilings and overhanging pipes, in a desolate neighborhood of cast-iron buildings and scruffy warehouses. Instead of elderly French waiters in black tie, there was a young staff dressed entirely in black; the menu was in English, not French, and the wine list gave American vintages equal billing. The chef was an unknown named David Bouley.

Montrachet established a cool downtown style that has been widely imitated ever since.  read more »

“The Ancient South American Secret Is Now Yours,” read the label on a mysterious package delivered to my door last week. “Drink. Think. Live. Love. Top Leaf Maté.”

It was a selection of teas sent by a Chilean friend who lives in Oregon. He had added a note: “Maté is pretty good with bourbon too.”

Maté is a tea made from yerba buena, a mintlike herb believed, among other things, to boost the immune system, soothe digestion and calm nerves. I didn’t try it with bourbon (never having acquired much of a taste for that whiskey), but I discovered that it was pretty good with pisco, a grape brandy.  read more »

I remember an old ditty from my childhood:

I eat my peas with honey

I’ve done it all my life

It makes the peas taste funny

But it keeps them on the knife

There’s plenty of time to recall your own ditties at the ostensibly honey-themed Apiary, in the East Village, while waiting for your drinks. One night we sat empty-handed for nearly half an hour, even though the place was gearing up for dinner and there were plenty of waiters and waitresses milling around—deftly managing not to catch our eye. Once our server established herself, she was helpful and nice.  read more »

On my way into Allegretti the other night, I passed a young woman who was shouting into her cell phone. “Everyone I know in New York is, like, on suicide watch!” But the financial meltdown hadn’t made much of a dent in the number of customers dining at the new French restaurant, just west of the Flatiron district. Many of them looked as though they had come here for the occasion (I counted six men in striped shirts), and appeared undeterred by the prices ($38 for halibut, $36 for veal steak). They seemed right at home.

And why not? The small dining room, with its teak blue bar, navy banquettes, low ceiling and white-paneled walls, feels like the inside of a yacht.  read more »

It was bad news for Silvano Marchetto when Graydon Carter decided to go into the restaurant business. For over 30 years, Da Silvano was something of a downtown Elaine’s, with celebrities, artists, writers, and gallery owners packing its noisy rooms for lunch and dinner. But when the Waverly Inn opened, Mr. Marchetto lost not only his best customer, but many of his boldface names as well.

Still, the restaurant is hardly empty, even at the end of summer. On a warm evening, the east side of Sixth Avenue between Bleecker and Houston feels like an Italian piazza. Da Silvano’s linen-topped tables and chrome chairs spread out over the wide sidewalk; further up are the tables of its neighbor, Bar Pitti.  read more »

“Where’s the noodle man?”

When my son was a boy, he loved to watch the noodle man at Honmura An, the only authentic soba restaurant in the city. The noodle man worked in a glass booth in the dining room, where he’d pummel the dough, toss it in the air and roll it out, never once making a hole. Then, using an enormous carving knife, he’d slice the dough into perfect, foot-long strands that he hung up to dry.

Honmura An closed last year, leaving its fans bereft. But now soba cuisine has returned with Matsugen, Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s new Japanese restaurant in Tribeca.  read more »

When the owners of the restaurant Provence, which had been a Soho fixture for over 20 years, changed its name to Hundred Acres, I wondered if they were being sardonic. A century ago this area was known as Hell’s Hundred Acres because the wooden floors of its factories and warehouses kept catching fire. Today, many longtime residents feel that Soho is worthy of the name once again, but for a different reason: crowds.

When the tourists and suburban shoppers aren’t in Prada or Louis Vuitton, they’re on the street buying T-shirts, jewelry, film scripts, designer handbag knockoffs and, since they’re in Soho, “art.  read more »

Ten years ago an Englishman, Keith McNally, opened a fake French bistro in Soho. Every detail had been carefully researched, from the red leather for the banquettes to the Gauloise-smoke patina on the ceilings and the shellfish display, where names of the oysters du jour were scrawled in soap on distressed mirrors. From opening day, the place looked as though it had been around for a hundred years. When you walked into Balthazar, you entered another world.

So there was much anticipation when Alain Ducasse announced he was going to open a New York branch of Benoit, one of the last authentic bistros in Paris, dating from 1912, and which he took over two years ago.  read more »

After a mediocre dinner at Bobo last fall, I decided not to go back. Let them sink without my help, I thought.

I was sorry because the restaurant, which is on two floors of a Village brownstone, has a quirky charm. I liked the cozy subterranean bar, with its low beamed ceiling and bare brick walls, and the candle-lit dining room upstairs, hung with crystal chandeliers and filled with knickknacks, books and old family photographs. I felt as though I were eating in a private house.

So when I learned recently that Bobo had replaced its chef, I returned for another look.  read more »

Here’s a novelty item to toss on the grill this summer: tuna ribs. At Bar Q, they’re coated with a paste of yuzu and green chili before they’re grilled.

“Don’t worry, dear,” said our waiter, sounding like a hospital orderly as he set a plateful down in front of me. “The cucumber salad will cool them off nicely.”

I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d given me a pat on the back.  read more »