Results tagged “thespottedpig”

Today the Times’s Frank Bruni marvels at Manhattan’s new wave of high tone restaurant openings during a recession, and pins the trend not on entrepreneurial bravado but on the fact that it takes years to get a fancy eatery open, and most of these new places were envisioned in flusher economic times. It is true that in 2005, the top fifth of earners in Manhattan made 52 times what the lowest fifth make – $365,826 compared with $7,047 – comparable to the income disparity in Namibia. Yet thanks to tax cuts and stagflation, the income gap has only widened in the past three years. Dinner at Per Se is as unattainable as ever for New York’s lower orders, but even with Wall Street turbulence it’s unlikely the ranks of the well-heeled will thin to the point where a fashionable restaurant can’t manage. Of course, chefs like Ken Friedman (The Spotted Pig) are artists and don’t chain their muse to the vagaries of the economy: “I’m certainly not the kind who would look at the Dow. Does a writer write or not write a book based on the economic climate? Does a songwriter write songs that way?”

Cooking last night at The Spotted Pig for a sold-out crowd is visiting English chef Fergus Henderson, author of the newly released Beyond Nose to Tail, a sort of sequel cookbook. Spotted Pig chef April Bloomfield worked side-by-side with Henderson, who is best probably best known for his offal-centric food at St. John, his London restaurant, but is also considered to be a renegade, iconoclast cook: a chef’s chef.

-Food and Wine magazine released its Best New Chefs 2007 list earlier this week. April Bloomfield, the 32 year-old chef and co-owner of West Village gastropub The Spotted Pig, is among the ten honorees to be featured in the magazine’s July issue. Eater attended Wednesday night’s announcement party at 7 World Trade Center and watched “everyone who has ever been on an episode of Top Chef” party like it was 1999, the not-so-distant year that Rocco DiSpirito was named a F&W Best New Chef.

The good folks at The Spotted Pig are ringing in the Year of the Pig with, you guessed it, a pig roast. 314 W. 11th Street at Greenwich. Call 212-620-0393 for details.

- It's strange that in this arctic weather that the best food news we've heard today is that NYC Icy is returning. NYC Nosh snapped a photo of this sign in Hell's Kitchen. Bring on the summer!

After getting its liquor license some time back and entering 2.0-dom, the next upgrade for this release here with Ned Elliot and his flameout closing the logs on version 2.1. Tomorrow another chapter of the European Union story, potentially the most promising yet, begins when Akhtar Nawab takes over the stoves for his first day. After Allen & Delancey failed to open in the fall, Nawab’s next move was not known but this will be a great thing for the neighborhood. At Craftbar, his dishes were well-conceived and smoothly executed, providing many a gustatory delight for diners. His sous chef will be Josh Miller, who appears to have been working at the restaurant prior to Chef Nawab's arrival.

Bruni no-stars Freemans: doesn't much like the food, though he does like the decor. He compares it unfavorably to The Spotted Pig, and says, "Most of its dishes... could be quickly and easily replicated at home."

Gothamist has a hard time resisting New York City's gustatory delights. And if there is a discount involved too, resistance is completely futile. So, we can't decide if learning about The Diner's Deck is a blessing for our palates and pocketbooks - or a curse on our waistlines.