Headliner
Casa Lever
The eye-catching collection of Andy Warhol portraits are gone. The walls of Casa Lever, the elegant Milanese-style Italian restaurant that just reopened after months of renovation in the landmark Lever House on Park Avenue, will now display two colorful Damien Hirst paintings, “Summer of Love” and “Love and Hate.” And the menu offers some new items, including lunchtime surprises like a lobster roll and a dry-aged short rib and brisket cheeseburger, the melt contributed by Taleggio. The menu — with Iacopo Falai, the group’s culinary director, in charge — also includes the addition of hamachi crudo, a crab pancake, paccheri with lobster, pan-seared turbot with artichokes, roast veal, and roasted baby carrots with avocado. In the atrium, the newly redone outdoor seating area and bar has sculptures by Ellsworth Kelly provided by the artist’s foundation in honor of his 100th birthday. Originally designed by Mark Newsom in 2002, the restaurant became Casa Lever when it was taken over by Sant Ambroeus Hospitality Group in 2009. An intimate private wine room has also been added.
Opening
Southern Charm
Brian Cartenuto, a Florida native who is a chef and owner of the West Village restaurant Bird Dog, where the South meets Italy, is opening this biscuit house nearby. Biscuits — buttermilk, Cheddar-jalapeño, gluten-free or daily specials like sweet potato on Wednesdays — are served with more than a dozen flavored butters or several jams. Biscuit sandwiches include fried chicken, country ham, pimento cheese and bacon, BLT and chicken salad. It’s open from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., with 30 seats plus another six at the bar.
21 Greenpoint
The ongoing reconfiguring of the dining options in Rockefeller Center includes a new name, Under 30, for what had been the Concourse — dual passageways lined with shops and small eateries beneath 30 Rockefeller Plaza, the skyscraper that anchors the complex. The latest addition to Under 30 is this Manhattan outpost for Homer Murray’s popular spot in Brooklyn. (Mr. Murray’s father is the actor Bill Murray.) A straightforward collection of dishes include crispy artichoke hearts, vegetable dumplings, oysters, wedge salad, cheeseburger, crab toast, rigatoni with braised lamb neck and nachos with chicken tinga. There’s waiter service. (Thursday)
El Cid Cafe by Five Flies & Co.
A coffee shop, Five Flies, in Washington Heights, will also be serving its beverages, gelato, sandwiches and pastries on the new seasonal terrace cafe at the Hispanic Society. El Cid refers to a statue in the museum. Though the Five Flies is also the name of a venerable restaurant in Amsterdam, the connection is not so far-fetched considering that Spain once ruled the Low Countries. (Thursday)
Spygold
On the level beneath his new restaurant Greywind on the edge of Hudson Yards, Dan Kluger is opening this cocktail lounge featuring drinks by bar manager Shane Anglin that use upcycled fruit peels and the like. The name references an apple varietal. (Friday)
The Golden Swan
The second floor dining room at this newly minted redo of the former Spotted Pig has opened. It’s more formal than the restaurant’s ground floor Wallace Room tavern, with a menu by Doug Brixton that features standards like salmon crudo, foie gras mousse, poached halibut with artichokes, Colorado lamb with peas and lamb rillettes, Dover sole and a rib-eye for two.
Manhattan West Food Fest
This inaugural outdoor food festival featuring the restaurants and other food venues in the development will sell samples of various dishes, including some that restaurants like Ci Siamo and Casa Dani do not offer on their regular menus. There will be a beer garden and entertainment. Proceeds from drink sales will be donated to Rethink Food, which provides food to those in need.
Westerly Canteen at Tenmile Distillery
Lunch and dinner is being served from an Airstream parked at the Catskills distillery. Molly Levine, who worked at Chez Panisse, and Alex Kaindl, a local farmer, came up with this seasonal resource that will be open through Thanksgiving. Dinners are available to eat on the grounds or to take away Thursdays through Sundays; lunch is available Saturdays and Sundays.
Branches
Song’ E Napule
This Neapolitan-style pizzeria and trattoria, which first opened at 146 West Houston Street and went on to add branches on the Upper West Side and in Rutherford, N.J., has added another location. It’s just steps from the original, and larger to provide more seating. For summer, a fizzy lemonade drink is being served at the new location.
Crisp & Green
This chain of restaurants that was founded in Minnesota in 2016 by Steele Smiley, a franchising entrepreneur, and has been expanding ever since, has opened its first New York outlet in a building with a rooftop fitness center. It offers salads, grain bowls, smoothies and the like with optional fitness instruction available for free.
Harry’s West Palm Beach
Harry’s, the old-school steakhouse with an impressive wine cellar that has anchored Hanover Square in the financial district since 1972, has established a location in South Florida where the founder, Harry Poulakakos, now resides. The new Harry’s, an expansive, opulently decorated room with a densely planted outdoor area, has a mural that evokes the New York restaurant and a menu that does the same. Ivan Mitankin, the manager in New York for 15 years, has relocated to the new restaurant.
Chefs on the Move
Nicola Perissinotto
This chef, who works at Marco Polo, a restaurant in Venice, Italy, will be in Brooklyn through June 11, at the Marco Polo Ristorante in Cobble Hill, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary. Mr. Perissinotto will cook alongside the chef Marco Chirico, whose father, Joseph Chirico, founded the Brooklyn restaurant in 1983 and who is turning the ownership over to his son. The special anniversary menu with à la carte dishes will feature creamed cod with polenta, seafood lasagna and turbot with artichokes.
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