• email
• print
• Tweet
  
  
• 
  
  

ABC Kitchen with Jean-Georges
35 E. 18th St., 212-475-5829, Union Square, Manhattan
One of New York's most exquisitely curated stores, ABC Carpet & Home, has a dreamy new restaurant hatched by Jean-Georges Vongerichten, Phil Suarez (Spice Market, Pipa) and Paulette Cole (ABC's CEO and creative director). There's a separate street entrance, but you can also shop your way here through aisles of pillows and glassware. The restaurant's design is elegant and ethereal, largely crafted of salvaged and recycled materials. Chef Dan Kluger (Tabla, Gramercy Tavern) executes the farm-to-table ideology, preparing a daily menu of dishes like peekytoe crab toast, ricotta ravioli with fresh herbs and tomato sauce and Flying Pigs Farm roasted pork T-bone with apple–Meyer lemon puree. To drink are fair-trade coffees and teas, organic wines and artisanal cocktails.

Blue Bottle Coffee
160 Berry St., 718-534-5488, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Blue Bottle, named for one of Vienna's first coffeehouses (here's to 1686!), is a mini-chain that originated in the Bay Area. This is its first New York outpost, a modern, warehouse-size space where bean-roasting is done on the premises. Coffee cultists, take note: here you can debate single-origin beans versus blends and Bali's crop versus Ethiopia's, as well as compare depth of flavor and balance. On the menu are pastries, scones and classic hot brews like espresso, cappuccino and macchiato—but forget about anything as froufrou as white chocolate peppermint mocha. Iced-coffee perfection is a painstaking process, made by five scientific-looking Japanese slow-drippers. Customers can lean on a communal table, but there is no seating.

Paulie Gee's
60 Greenpoint Ave., 347-987-3747, Greenpoint, Brooklyn
We salute Paulie Gee (Giannone) for following his passion. This former self-described computer geek dreamed of creating a pizza temple in the style of Una Pizza Napoletana and Motorino and practiced first with a brick oven in his backyard in New Jersey. Ready to take on the New York pizza community at large, he built a saloon-like space in the burgeoning hipster neighborhood of Greenpoint, installed a state-of-the-art wood-burning oven from Naples and opened for business. He makes his own dough and mozzarella and will focus on seasonal ingredients from Rooftop Farms, Greenpoint's 6,000-square-foot organic vegetable farm.

Satay Junction
28 Greenwich Ave., 212-929-9400, West Village, Manhattan
Indonesian street food has found a home in a spare, 16-seat sliver of a place in the West Village. Managing partner Raj Dodani (Brick Lane Curry House) and chef Duryati Djunaedi are natives of Indonesia, so expect authentic flavors in the signature meat and vegetable satays served with savory peanut sauce. Fried rice and pan-seared flat noodles come with a choice of chicken, beef, pork, lamb, seafood, shrimp, vegetables or tofu. A beer and wine license is pending.