Restaurants Opt For Other Chefs' Signature Items

When Daniel Boulud and Jim Leiken started putting the new restaurant DBGB together, they decided one hamburger would be topped with pulled pork. Rather than to start recipe testing, the chefs decided to use Daisy May's pork and serve the whole thing on a cornbread-cheddar bun. It's like the restaurant world's version of a co-operative: Chefs and restaurants are outsourcing a lot of ingredients from other restaurants these days. Take Kyle Bailey's Lower East Sliders on the bar menu at Allen & Delancey, for example: the pickle is Guss's, the salami is Katz's, and the Grafton Cheddar is from nearby Saxelby Cheesemongers.

Earlier this week, The Feed reported that fried chicken cooked at Fort Greene’s No. 7 will soon be sold at quiet cocktail bar Weather Up just across Atlantic Avenue on Thursdays and Sundays, for $1-2 a piece; designer/builder Matthew Maddy is a partner at both places. Meanwhile, Grub Street reported yesterday that Weather Up’s cocktail menu may be migrating across the East River to a bar adjoining the newly opened Ace Hotel. If that's not confusing enough, No. 7 in may open a sandwich shop featuring “classic subs with righteous ingredients," also at the Ace. The hotel will eventually be home to Stumptown's flagship, too; Stumptown's brew has now of course replaced scores of formerly drippy coffee programs all of over town.