Pork "is at the heart of the menu" in the Gramercy Park Hotel's new Maialino, says Sam Sifton, in a two-star review. Danny Meyer's new trattoria "looks like a Pottery Barn. But the bar is custom work: elegant and spare. It’s as pleasant a place for a breakfast coffee or lunch salad as for an evening glass of Frascati." Maialino serves classics from spaghetti alla carbonara to stracciatella, but the showpieces are the pork-inspired dishes. "Loin, belly, ribs and shoulder, these become the restaurant’s centerpiece meal, maialino al forno, which appears only to be listed as a special to avoid having a $72 entree on a menu that otherwise tops out at $32....pork at its best." more ›

This week the Times's Pete Wells (filling in before incoming chief dining critic Sam Sifton takes the reins) reviews Hotel Griffou, the trendy speakeasy-style restaurant from veterans of the Waverly Inn, Freemans and La Esquina. He finds the plating "scattershot" and the service "wildly inconsistent." But the place "does have its allures. Each dining room has a different motif, as if the restaurant were trying to ignite a collect-them-all frenzy. A friend described the Library as 'very man-cavey,' outfitted with wooden ducks, a manual typewriter, a fiddle, a saddle, shelves filled with law books, a football that looks as if it was in play when F. Scott Fitzgerald was at Princeton, and four fox pelts." The Times also has a roundup of the new street food vendors, just in time for the Vendys this weekend. more ›

The place is still waiting for a liquor license, but bar and restaurant Fort Defiance has opened up for business on Van Brunt Street in Red Hook. There's even a flag hanging out front, so you know it's ready. Proprietor St. John Frizell told us last month that he plans to serve cask beer and unfussy, solid cocktails once the license comes through. For the time being, however, the restaurant has eased into its morning routine: a menu of Counter Culture coffee drinks, pastries from Park Slope's Colson Patisserie, and a few sandwiches. The kitchen is small and accordingly, the menu is being kept to five items or less by chef Sam Fiorino a Good Fork alum. It includes a painstakingly researched, Central Grocery-style muffuletta sandwich for $9. more ›

Consider the unusual conditions underscoring the opening of the new Red Hook bar/restaurant Fort Defiance and it becomes clear that something unusual is going on: Owner (and writer) St. John Frizell’s general contractor is the Argentine artist Rafael Bueno and the place is essentially being put together by Frizell’s friends from the neighborhood, notably including Barry O'Meara from Bait and Tackle—another, potentially rival bar located just down the street. more ›