Opening
The View
Forty years ago when it opened, the Marriott Marquis boasted the city’s only revolving restaurant and bar: It has kept the title. The restaurant on the 47th floor with a bar and lounge on the 48th are in motion again, reopening under the management of Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group. Extensive renovations by Rockwell Group evoke supper clubs and cigarette holders. But the food will taste less retro than it looks with a menu by Marjorie Meek-Bradley that shows up at street level everywhere, with a seafood tower, crab cake, tuna carpaccio, Caesar salad, burger, bone-in rib-eye and, among the cocktails, espresso martini. (Opens Wednesday)
Hildur
The last time France met Scandinavia at the table might have been at “Babette’s Feast.” Now Emelie Kihlstrom and Elise Rosenberg, who opened Colonie in Brooklyn Heights in 2011, are displaying Ms. Kihlstrom’s Swedish roots on the menu and applying a French veneer. (The restaurant bears her grandmother’s name.) Their executive chef, Brennan Taulbee, tops onion soup with rye bread, Comté and leeks; bases gougères on rye flour; and introduces Swedish meatballs with frites to au poivre territory. The authentic vintage interior has 72 seats with another 72 in the garden shaded by the Brooklyn Bridge. It was previously Gran Eléctrica. (Friday)
Meili
The chef Peter He established Chili in Manhattan with food amplified by the requisite numbing Sichuan spice. Now this native of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, is about to make eyes and mouths water in Williamsburg. Chongqing spicy chicken, red-style Chongqing braised fish, braised beef tendon, dan dan noodles, spicy cumin mushrooms, even mala braised bullfrog are featured along with vegan choices. Most of it nods to street food until you hit the mapo lobster with tofu and truffled beef. The restaurant, accented with good luck red, is on a lower level of the Coda hotel, with a catwalk to the dining room. (Wednesday)
Cactus Wren
Here’s a wine restaurant with a name that doesn’t tip its hand. The cactus wren is the state bird of Arizona and nods to Tucson, the hometown of Sam Clonts and Raymond Trinh, the owners of this sibling to their Sixty Three Clinton nearby. The diverse food menu is long on seafood: raw, marinated and in preparations like oyster po’boy Dutch babies and lobster pot pie. Landlocked pizzas feature toppings with chicken livers, mortadella and pineapple.(Wednesday)
Chatti
This import from Kerala in Southern India introduces the regional toddy shop to a wider audience. It’s the first international venture for the chef and restaurateur Regi Mathew. Toddy shops are casual spots serving small dishes called touchings, often wrapped in banana leaves, to be eaten by hand. Alongside are the toddies, fermented drinks made from palm sap, and cocktails. Mr. Mathew has an ambitious installation seating 80 in a tropical-themed dining room with a couple of private dining areas. (Wednesday)
David Bouley Living Pantry Foundation
In memory of her husband, the chef David Bouley, who died last year at 70, Nicole Bartelme has announced the creation of this nonprofit for culinary, nutritional, agricultural and environmental education with forthcoming events, awards and programs. On Thursday, at 4:30 p.m., a three-foot apple, sculpted from ice by John Melton of Miracle Ice, will be installed with ceremony in Duane Park, next to a bench dedicated to Mr. Bouley and in view of three of his former restaurants. Apples, which filled the entryways of Mr. Bouley’s restaurants, were his symbol, and visitors are invited to place apples on and around the sculpture.
Branches
Melba’s Grand Central
Melba Wilson continues to spread her Harlem-based Southern cooking to other parts of the city. A counter-service setup in Grand Central Terminal is the latest. Heading the menu are her “comfortizers” — not orthopedic footwear but fried chicken combos. Chicken and eggnog waffles, country catfish, mac and cheese and red velvet cake also await travelers and visitors.
Madras Dosa Co.
A new spot for Southern India’s versatile dosa is arriving in Times Square. Several kinds of dosas, all gluten-free, are made variously from rice, lentil and chickpea flours with preset or custom fillings and dips to eat in or take away at this addition to a Boston-based chain. Indian sandwiches and chaats (snacks) are also sold.
Closing
Tribeca Grill
After 34 years, Robert De Niro and his business partner, Drew Nieporent, trailblazers on the downtown restaurant scene, are closing Tribeca Grill. “Like a Broadway show we feel it’s run its course,” Mr. Nieporent said. The final day for the restaurant, which has areas decorated with paintings by Robert De Niro Sr., the actor’s father, and which has been a focus for the Tribeca Film Festival, will be March 1. Until then a $59 three-course prix fixe menu will be served in addition to the a la carte menu.
Leyenda
This influential Latin-themed bar and lounge is going now and gone on March 28. Ivy Mix and Julie Reiner opened it 10 years ago, with Susan Fedroff and Christine Williams, and might relocate; new owners are taking the space. Weeks of farewell events will feature guest bartenders.
Shopping
Compartés
It’s down to the wire for Valentine’s Day, but with complimentary second day shipping (on orders over $99) you might still make it. The 75-year old Los Angeles chocolatier’s Valentine’s collections includes a gift box with each piece of dark chocolate (73 percent cacao) filled with dark chocolate ganache ($79.95), and a dark chocolate-sea salt bar ($9.95), each wrapped in “I Love LA” packaging. The price of each will be donated to wildfire relief.
Follow New York Times Cooking on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok and Pinterest. Get regular updates from New York Times Cooking, with recipe suggestions, cooking tips and shopping advice.
The post The View Rotates Above Manhattan Once Again appeared first on New York Times.
