Opening
Time and Tide
Jamal James Kent and his executive chef, Danny Garcia, set the details of this restaurant before Mr. Kent died last spring: The menu would take a steakhouse approach for seafood done simply. Think sauces and sides, with some fish dry-aged like meat. “It’s for flavor,” Mr. Garcia said, explaining the fish. “The fat under the skin penetrates the flesh.” An example is the halibut that fills a majestic pithivier. Kent Hospitality’s Harrison Ginsberg oversees drinks and Renata Ameni handles pastry, including Baby Birdee, a retail bakery connected to the space opening later. The generous dining room, book-ended by a bar and a raw bar counter, is fitted with woodland green corduroy banquettes and a wall of concrete blocks backlit in shifting tones as if by the artist James Turrell. (Opens Wednesday)
Soso’s
South SoHo Bar is being absorbed into this New York style tavern next door. It’s also from Tuxedo Hospitality and showcases classic cocktails alongside food like oysters, steak tartare, several salads, roast chicken and an unlisted burger. The look is retro. The executive chef, Paul Donnelly, who also cooks at Chinese Tuxedo and the Tyger from the same owners, is assisted by the head chef Luka Coyne from Australia. (Thursday)
Masa Madre
The bagel may be a New York icon, but the croissant is gaining fast. Any new bakery had best fine-tune the flake and burnish of its French breakfast pastry. At this one, just opened in Queens by the restaurateur Jose Luis Flores, an excellent croissant, plain or almond, tempts; Mexican conchas and churros, Colombian pan de bono, and tender, sesame-strewn Guatemalan sourdough torta also reign. Starting this week the bakery will begin turning out pan de muerto for Day of the Dead, theirs a tender sugar-dusted pull-apart hillock subtly decorated with a cross.
Twin Tails
A survey of Southeast Asia, a first for the Quality Branded group, is opposite the company’s Bad Roman at the Columbus Circle mall. Craig Koketsu, the chef and partner in charge, covers mainly Thailand and Vietnam. There’s Ho Chi Minh City with Cholon duck; North Vietnamese banh cuon rice rolls; Issan laab meatballs; and pad kra pao, a Thai stir-fry with egg. Crispy garlic shrimp nod to Lotus of Siam, in Las Vegas. The room is dark green with mirrored walls. “We’re not authentic or fusion,” said Michael Stillman, the company’s chief executive. “But we’re trying to convey the food of the region in a high-end setting.” (Wednesday)
Tabe Tomo
Six months ago, a fire upstairs from this ramen spot specializing in tsukemen-style noodles forced it to close. It has reopened with its broth back to simmering 60 hours or more before being served alongside four varieties of the “dry” ramen for dipping. Other ramen options include Jiro-style with thicker noodles, alongside donburi rice bowls, karaage chicken, tempura, takoyaki and other small plates.
Le Jardin Bistro
French bistros are having their moment in New York. This one, which opened on Cleveland Place in 1997 and served for 13 years, has been reopened by former regular customers who also own the Delancey, a nightclub nearby. Red leather banquettes, sparkling chandeliers and, evoking the original, a menu that’s even too easy for a “Jeopardy” quiz (you know: onion soup, escargots, steak au poivre, salade aux lardons, mussels, coq au vin and just in time as the weather cools, cassoulet). (Thursday)
Taqueria el Califa de León
A selection of tacos from this Mexico City taqueria, which has earned a Michelin star, will be sold through Oct. 31 at the Tacombi chain in New York and Connecticut. The tacos: bistec, costilla, gaonera and chuleta, from different cuts of beef and pork, are a collaboration between Dario Wolos, the founder of Tacombi, and Mario Hernandez Alonso, who owns the Mexican taqueria, who met in Mexico City.
Yes, Chef at Feast
The avant-garde food-related exhibit that opened last month at Water Street Projects at WSA, the new downtown art center, has been extended. The works, by 34 artists selected by the curator Zoe Lukov, can be seen through mid-December. Some suggest Pop Art, some are frankly suggestive and some, like a Caesar salad chandelier by Chloe Wise, are magnificent. A pop-up restaurant, Black Caesar, created by the artist Tavares Strachan, channels Septimus Severus, the Roman emperor who was born in what is now Libya, with a black Caesar salad including black garlic. The menu also pinpoints Rome with cacio e pepe gnocchi and nods toward North Africa with harissa lamb.
Branches
Ramen Ishida Chelsea
To open his uptown offshoot the chef, Yohei Ishida, who owns Ramen Ishida on the Lower East Side, is in partnership with some of the owners of Kosaka. The new place is larger with more choices on the menu but remains focused on Tokyo-style shoyu and miso ramen.
Smør Clinton Hill
The East Village Scandinavian restaurant that opened in 2019 and expanded with a bakery well-stocked with the all-important cardamom, has added Brooklyn with a similar format. Minimalist Nordic design in a skylit former warehouse is the setting for sandwiches including smorrebrod; bakery treats are available by day, and the space becomes a wine bar with an expanded menu of small plates, including a Danish hot dog, in the evening.
Baking
‘Life’s Sweetest Moments’
The chef Dominique Ansel is to the Cronut what the sisters Tatin are to apple upside-down tart. In his new dessert cookbook, inspired as much by sentiment as sugar and flour, Mr. Ansel provides a recipe for the tart dedicated to a friend who believes in “happy accidents.” But the exacting two-day, 27-step recipe, like some of the others in the book, is hardly simple. As cookbooks go, this one brims with personal charm, a good read.
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