I arrived in New York City at the turn of the century, and I’ve been writing professionally—or at least for pay—ever since. In the decade-plus that I’ve been fortunate enough to make a living as a writer, I’ve seen scores of publications fold up like origami cranes and fly away. Some vanish in the night Read More
For restaurants in New York, there are spaces blessed and spaces cursed. The accursed kind is inevitably occupied by a telltale loser parade of strangely named tenants, like FR.OG, and ill-begotten concepts, like a “barstro.”
During their short lives, these places are as barren as Sarah, as lonely as Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks and as shifty Read More
The chef Wylie Dufresne looks a bit like a character out of The Far Side. He is still boyish at 42, with indoor-only onionskin, anachronistic muttonchops, bookish glasses and long, side-parted hair. If you wanted to compare them side by side, however, which would be useful, that might be difficult.
In 1998, when the Internet Read More
In 1973, what would become known as the Paris Peace Accords was signed after months of deliberation by Henry Kissinger, the shifty dark lord of U.S. foreign policy, and Lê Đuc Tho, who had spent years in a French colonial prison and represented the North Vietnamese government. The agreement ended American involvement in the war Read More
One of the things I’ve always liked about Rich Torrisi and Mario Carbone is that they’ve never lacked an extremely clear vision or the culinary chops to execute that vision clearly.*
At their first restaurant, Torrisi Italian Specialties, they made the case, through seven irresistible courses like fresh gnocchi made from upstate ricotta and da Read More
To those who wish to listen, New York City is a cacophony of echoes. On street corners, near subways, now-divorced couples repeat their first kisses in endless memory loops. Crime scenes leave unseen scars long after the blood’s been scrubbed clean. Every threshold is a goodbye, every stairway a stumble. Everything to do has been done; everything new isn’t new at all. Stick around long enough and all you’ll hear are the echoes. Read More
Sweden has not staged a land invasion since the poorly understood and more-puckish-than-belligerent Åland Crisis of 1918. But a few years ago, that land of white snow, blue eyes and extraordinary health care began establishing sleeper cells in New York. Its Omaha was Williamsburg’s hipster beach.
First came the moustaches, establishing a front Read More
There are as many ways to cut a cow as there are to skin a cat. And there is a hierarchy to these cuts, a precise architecture of prestige dictated by rarity, tenderness and taste. Upon being broken down, a singular cow is parceled into meaty ZIP codes as varied as the 175 that belong Read More
It will soon be Valentine’s Day and, while I deny bitterness her dram and cynicism her laurels, I dread it. What is the holiday but a high striker in a cheap carnival of sentiment? No matter how bearded the artisanal chocolatier, what is he to Cupid or Cupid to him? Diamonds, teddy bears and roses are not tokens of affection but of carbon, polyester and cold Latinos standing in front of delis. There is, however, at least one way to celebrate Valentine’s Day of which I heartily approve. That’s eating at Le Philosophe, a new bistro on Bond Street.
There are many romantic places at which to dine on Valentine’s Day. Like bad Jews on Yom Kippur, every restaurant, from the white-tableclothed to the greasy spoon, is duty-bound to dress up once a year. The tropes of romance are dusted off and trotted out. There are enough hearts in New York this week to make Milton Glaser moan, enough candles for a mass exorcism and enough prix fixe to outrage the Sherman Act. Read More
The particular stretch of Williamsburg real estate on which Antica Pesa, a tremendously impressive Roman restaurant, opened in October is no stranger to cucina rustica. Restaurants where Italian food is served in charmingly ramshackle conditions are manifold. Between Fiore, Aurora, Osteria Il Paiolo and other vowel-heavy trattorie too legion to mention, wandering around the neighborhood Read More
