That’s what we asked some of the owners behind New York’s coolest counter spots. “I think we’re experiencing a renaissance of sandwich pleasure,” is how Dria Atencio, the owner of Salty Lunch Lady’s Little Luncheonette in Ridgewood, answered. “We have finally remembered how great they can be—and we are all eating accordingly.”

“Bread is useful because it can carry things.”

In today’s OTH, we’re sitting down with Atencio, as well as Willy Corman and Jack August of 20 Blocks in the East Village (opening tomorrow, 8/19!) and Gracie Gardner and Henry Wright of Barker in Bed-Stuy (a recent New York Times critics pick). They each talk about the sandwich that changed their lives, their must-have tools/formula for constructing the perfect one at home, and where THEY love to grab a sandwich in this city (that isn’t their own). But first…

Newsy Things This Week:

1. These vegetable chandeliers at Hermès’ summer dinner party —

   We got a quick exclusive with visionary florist Holly Hmiddouche of Flùr London — aka the creative brain/hands behind these sculptures — who told us each chandelier took 5+ hours to create, “from cleaning and prepping all of the vegetables to building the mechanics, constructing the arrangement, and rigging it into position,” and hundreds of items (including 250+ carrots alone). “We loved the idea of taking something incredibly familiar and humble, like a carrot or a cabbage, and using it in a completely unexpected and playful way,” she said of the inspiration behind the designs. “We wanted them to feel abundant, slightly surreal, and almost as though the garden had taken over.” Holly also noted that all usable produce left from the installation was given to the catering team and staff to ensure as little as possible went to waste. 🥕

2. A Tale of Two Ruths — We loved this Strategist interview with legendary food writer/editor Ruth Reichl on the items she can’t cook without (we couldn’t order this Celery Leaf vinegar quicker) as much as we enjoyed this Sotheby’s magazine ‘tour’ of the most collectible/special objects in Ruth Rogers’ London home that we discovered, published earlier this summer.

3. New New — Bon Appétit released its first-ever Pantry Awards that included a range of snacks and sweets, staples and sauces, and beverages. Consider us officially super fans of Row 7 tinned vegetables and GHIA’s Blood Orange Le Spritz.

4. Ladies who Lunch — For Airmail, Ruth Peltason reflected on the legacy of the department store lunch, charting its history from Helen Corbitt’s revival of the Zodiac Room at Neiman Marcus’ flagship in Dallas (still exists — but only until 9/30! — still gets great reviews) to the Blue Box Cafe at Tiffany & Co. on Fifth Avenue, which Daniel Boulud helped open in 2019. For us, and probably a million other New Yorkers, nothing will ever beat Freds at Barneys (RIP 🪦). Erin still makes its extremely zippy balsamic dressing at home at least once a month.

5. Little Touches — Eater’s Bettina Makalintal wrote about restaurants leaning into handmade touches in the age of AI. We’ve been working on a list of ways to make eating/entertaining at home feel luxuriously more analog, too. Stay tuned this weekend for a special OTH send.

What We’re Buying This Week:

1. For any spare sandwich halves you’re about to be eating.

2. This candleholder — aka a statement piece for absolutely any place.

3. These oversized Rawhide leather oven mitts with extra padding and dummy-proof extra-long sleeves…chic sans burns.

4. A portable oven for end-of-summer pizza nights and beyond (it’s built for patios and kitchens alike). And honestly, what a beauty!

5. Finally, any parting thoughts on the latest obsession over salmon sperm + DNA skincare?

And now, on to today’s story... — Team OTH

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When did a sandwich become a status symbol?

Lines for Salt Hank’s French Dip have gotten so long The New York Times compared them to “peak Cronut.” Salvatore La Rosa’s Italian sandwich pop-up Salvo’s earned such a cult following it became a full-on restaurant earlier this year. In March, The New Yorker declared the Court Street Grocers’ Vegitalian “New York’s finest sandwich.” (It’s Atencio’s go-to, too).

The truth is though: No one invented the sandwich to be special. Its whole point of existence (historically) was in fact the opposite. “It’s a quick snack…portable, accessible, FUN,” says Atencio. “It can be a casual dinner or a party food.” Its ease/comfort/simplicity is probably why people are craving them even more during these overstimulating times. “These past several years have shown a lot of uncertainty, and I think we all want to feel comforted during moments of instability,” she adds. “The people who cared for us growing up made them for us; we all know and love them. Now we have a whole crop of chefs who enjoy making their version of nostalgia.”

But it’s not just the sandwich. It’s the whole meal: “Lunch, unlike dinner, has never been one for attention,” say Gardner and Wright. “And that seems to have changed recently.” Here’s what they — and three other owners at the center of it — have to say.

Willy Corman + Jack August, 20 Blocks.

215 East 4th Street, East Village

OTH: Growing up in NYC, what was the first sandwich that truly blew your mind, and how did it influence what you’re doing at 20 Blocks?
Willy: “It was at Barney Greengrass, the Sturgeon King. As a kid, I perfected my order: Nova Scotia salmon scrambled with eggs and onions, piled between two cream cheese-shmeared halves of a toasted sesame bagel. It tasted as exceptional and welcoming as the atmosphere — and that is one hard thing to nail…the DREAM.”

“Jack asked me out of the blue in 2023 if I wanted to open a sandwich shop. I said yes. Sandwiches, because why not. Neither of us has a hospitality background, just a love of sandwiches, food, and people.

“For the first year, the whole idea was ‘sandwiches’ and nothing past that. We looked at a hundred spaces in New York, and not one had that Goldilocks “just right” vibe. So we started pop-ups just to DO something. The premise was simple: bring in a chef, put out a sandwich, a side, a drink, and set up in a community garden. We got to work with cooks from The Four Horsemen, Borgo, Blue Hill, Bread and Salt, and One White Street. People lined up by the truckload. We donated all the proceeds back to the gardens. And somewhere in that string of borrowed kitchens, we found our identity, and ultimately our space.

“20 Blocks is an American sandwich shop — a story of cross-regional American food. The first sandwich we cracked for the opening menu was the Fly Fish. Herb-heavy, citrus-forward smoked trout dip with homemade dilly beans and baby romaine on sourdough Pullman. It’s silly delicious.

Willy + Jack’s At-Home Tips/Tools.

OTH: Can you share your go-to places for sourcing ingredients in New York?

• Flowers (especially sunflowers): Trader Joe’s

• Tomatoes: Campo Rosso Farm (Union Square Greenmarket)

• Green Sichuan Peppercorns: SOS Chefs

• Kimchi: Lani’s Farm (Union Square Greenmarket)

• Sourdough Milk Bread: ACQ

• Meat: Paisano’s

• Beans & Herbs: Amoon Farm (Union Square Greenmarket)

• Mozzarella: Russo’s

• Fish: Aquabest (or if you’re up in the wee hours of the morning, Fulton Fish Market)

OTH: What are any must-have tools for making sandwiches at home?

• Offset spatula: is just an all-around great tool

• Food weight/press: to get some nice color when searing

• Cooling rack: for resting your bread. If you don’t have one, you can teepee them on your cutting board.

• Mandoline: for more precise prep

OTH: Constructing a truly great sandwich at home can be surprisingly tricky. What are your top tips for getting it right?

1. Main ingredients are on the bottom! This does two things: It lets the main/base flavor hit your tongue first, and it helps the sandwich hold together structurally. Heavy tops flop.

2. Try the secret ‘Inside-Out Toast:’ Sear one side of your bread in a hot, dry pan (or with a little butter). Do not flip it — that would defeat the purpose. Build your sandwich with the toasted side facing in. Best for soft sandwiches that need a little crunch.

3. Don’t try too hard. 😉

The perfect end-of-summer sandwich.

Dark chocolate and salted butter on a warm baguette.

The best local sandwiches (besides their own).

Willy: Salami, Gorgonzola, and Fig Jam from Bread and Salt
435 Palisade Avenue, Jersey City, NJ

Jack: EBBB from Elbow Bread
1 Ludlow Street, Lower East Side

Gracie Gardner + Henry Wright, Barker.

395 Nostrand Avenue, Brooklyn

Barker’s most popular sandwich: Roast beef with hickory sticks, horseradish cream, and watercress. Close second: Smoked turkey with apple butter, Dijonnaise, mizuna, and Jake’s Gouda.

OTH: What was the first sandwich that blew your mind?
Henry: “The first food I ever made was a tuna sandwich. My mum showed me how to drain the can, fluff it, add mayonnaise, and put it on bread. It was mind-blowing at the time to make something from raw ingredients. I was probably 10.”

Gracie: “When I was younger, I would come home from school and make a salami butter sandwich — toasted sourdough bread, too much butter, thin-cut salami, and a drizzle of honey. I would eat this and watch the Food Network or Oprah. This ritual, the making of the afterschool snack, was probably the beginning of my cooking life… learning the simple satisfaction of making something as a response to your cravings.”

OTH: How do you handle food trends, especially ones that impact ingredients core to sandwiches, like gluten-free/vegan/etc. Do you try to keep up with them?
Gracie + Henry: “Yes, we try to have something yummy for all. Each new food trend acts a bit like a vegan offering — you need to have it, you won’t sell all that much of it, and it won’t be a big moneymaker, but it makes those few people incredibly happy, and that’s important. But we don’t try to bend to the will of all culinary fads, because that can suck the joy out of cooking!”

Gracie + Henry’s At-Home Tips/Tools.

OTH: What’s your process for making the perfect sandwich at home?
Henry: “Things that don’t make a mess. The perfect sandwich at home is eaten off a paper towel and creates no dirty dishes. Certainly mayo and mustard. I am so lazy at home, so I love those squeeze-top ones. Good quality meat, good bread. Honestly, a good toaster oven (might be called an air fryer for marketing, but it’s a toaster oven.) We had a Breville that we adored when we lived in Canada. Something that heats things up fast is nice (also no cleanup).”

Gracie: “Sour pickles are required. If in NYC, Zabar’s has the best. Chips are also necessary. My preference is Cape Cod or Ruffles. I have a seasonal rotation of lazy sandwiches. Grilled cheese + pickle for colder months (or toasted ham + cheese); tuna fish + pickle for more neutral weather months; tomato toast for summer. Things I always have on hand for those are:

• Good bread

• Comté/cheddar

• Ham

• Honey

• Sour pickles

• Genova Yellowfin Tuna Fish in oil

• Hellmann’s mayo

• Good tomato

• Basil

• Garlic

• Olive oil”

The best local sandwiches (besides their own).

Henry: “Yuba Verde at Superiority Burger or Tuna at Subway with salt and vinegar chips and lots of pickles.”

Gracie: “Is a bagel a sandwich? Probably not but… Absolute Bagels on the UWS: an everything bagel with lox and scallion cream cheese, and a small carton of Tropicana orange juice.”

Dria Atencio, Salty Lunch Lady’s Little Luncheonette.

565 Woodward Ave, Ridgewood

Salty Lunch Lady’s most popular sandwich: “The Dill Party ⬇️, which is a fairly simple sandwich. It’s thinly sliced turkey, dill havarti, dill mayo, dill pickles, and avocado on a soft-but-chewy bread called Strecci Doppio from Sullivan Street Bakery. We brine, roast, and slice our turkey here every day, which is why I think it’s so special. Also, dill is just, well, great.”

OTH: Is there one sandwich that changed your life/has influenced what you’re doing at Salty Lunch Lady?
Dria: “Astro Burger is a really cool old spot by my childhood home in L.A., and they have the most amazing veggie burger called the Santa Fe Garden Burger (whether a burger is a sandwich or not is an argument that I’d rather not touch).

“Even though it’s not on the menu anymore, you can still get it if you ask nicely. It’s a garden burger, American cheese, mayo, grilled onions, lettuce, tomato, and roasted Anaheim peppers on a wheat bun. I make everyone I go with to LA try it, and they all love it. It’s shown me that even a simple addition or swap to a familiar dish can make a huge impact.“

Dria’s At-Home Tips.

OTH: Do you have any clever sandwich-making hacks?
Dria: “Freezing bread is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I love getting a really good loaf, slicing it, and storing it in the freezer so I have slices to pull out whenever I need them.”

OTH: Is there a special formula to making the perfect sandwich?
Dria: “For me, it’s always: Choose a turkey (or meat) that I love and cheese that goes with it, mayo (or mustard for moisture), lettuce (for crunch), onion (for sweetness and bite), and something pickled, whether that’s pickles themselves, or pickled jalapeño, or cherry peppers. I like tomatoes too, but then I have to eat the sandwich right away and can’t save leftovers, so I almost never get them. (Unless it’s the height of tomato season, of course).”

The best local sandwich (besides her own):

“The Vegitalian from Court Street Grocers! It’s so damn good.”

+++ Team OTH’s Favorite Sandwiches in NYC:

John: Rare roast beef, provolone, tomato, and peppers on a house roll with mayo and mustard from Faicco’s on Bleecker (260 Bleecker Street) AND (when it’s the carving board special) fresh, warm pork on a Portuguese roll from M&O Market (124 Thompson Street)

Erin: Turkey Muenster (that spicy house-made tomato jam!) from Welcome Home (1047 Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn)

Christene: Tuna Melt with tiny pickled peppers at Montague Diner (148 Montague Street, Brooklyn)

Landon: The Cha Siu BKRib at Bonnie’s (398 Manhattan Avenue, Brooklyn) AND Mortadella + Mozzarella on olive sourdough at A&C Super (292 Leonard Street, Brooklyn)

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A few weeks ago, one of our readers emailed us in response to this Real Simple piece we shared (as well as this essay we ran a while back) on the gradual death of the walk-in. “I really hate the idea of planning a dinner with friends four weeks ahead of time,” he wrote, “and would love an OTH piece recommending places that prioritize walk-ins.” (He also shared his own pro tip 🫡: “I’ve been loving Stars on 12th Street, which is walk-in-only; and the staff there helped us get in to Penny for more substantive food afterward, letting us know when space at the window had opened up.”)

John shared his take, too: “I don’t think anyone in restaurants would say technology as it relates to getting reservations and customer acquisition is inherently negative. But I will say there’s a good amount of technology fatigue we’re all feeling across the board. And because the various platforms have been purchasing exclusivity and also doing things behind the scenes that restrict inventory for guests, it’s caused more friction instead of less.”

And so, to everyone in our community here who still lives for the spontaneity of just grabbing dinner on a whim, we asked writer Eliza Dumais to call in some insider tips for getting a table the old-fashioned way. But first…

Newsy Things This Week:

1. Danny Meyer, unfiltered — Matt Rodbard, the editor of TASTE, wrote a great review of Danny Meyer’s upcoming book, What Could Possibly Go Right? (out 9/29), for his newsletter Food Time. In the memoir/business leadership how-to, Meyer is apparently as open about his misgivings as he is his successes, from keeping Tabla open longer than it should have been to his failed fresh juice collab with Equinox. Adding this to our reading pile stat.

2. The best of the newest — FOUND NY shared the FOUND 45, its inaugural list of favorite restaurants in New York City, which only considers spots that have opened within the past six months. We spotted some of our favorites: Kabawa, Borgo (where Christene had her best walk-in meal in FOREVER), and Theodora.

3. A nifty DIY idea for only the most-special meals —

4. Secret sauce 🤫 — Chef Flynn McGarry shared in this week’s Market Report that Anthony Ha (of Ha’s Dac Biet) added some bottles of Mr. Fish Sauce, a naturally fermented, aged one-year concoction made with the legendary Son Fish Sauce, to the shelves at Gem Home (181 Mott Street). Our intel says it’s only available there and at Marlow & Daughters.

5. Good vintage — Eric Asimov at The New York Times put together an A+ list of wines that taste good in this late-summer heat. (Erin’s been serving this Pouilly-Fuissé on repeat.)

What We’re Buying This Week:

1. This tasty upcycled button-up from Schloss Clothing. Four ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️s. ***OTH readers can get $25 off their purchase now through September 3 with the code onthehouse.

***Reminder: Exclusive discounts will be a regular part of the OTH Paid Membership tier (alongside IRL tastings, stylish merch, and more), launching in September.

2. We’re deep in building out a huge kitchen gadgets guide (coming 🔜) with recs from people we admire, and we’re surprised (or maybe not) by how many times a Very Good Mandolin has appeared at the top of a list.

3. Everyone’s talking about how unexpected and really fun the Target x Rosie Assoulin collab turned out, but these striped kitchen towels are the collection’s sleeper hit. (Just $20 for four!)

4. Sweetgreen has teamed up with Fishwife on a limited-edition niçoise salad, launching August 11, which has us thinking about ways we can enjoy some of Fishwife’s newly restocked items, like smoked salmon with sweet and spicy Zhong or mussels with basil pesto, at home. (PS: For a quickie fried fish cake for lunch, we tried this recipe, and it was pretty glorious (and fast).

5. A stylish wine bag that looks better — and is easier to carry — than a cooler.

See you next time. — Team OTH

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We are living in the grim chokehold of the reservation economy: AI assistants are scooping prime slots on reservation platforms; space for walk-ins shrinks by the day; and three-hour wait times are no longer an anomaly.

Many have warned that the death of culinary spontaneity is upon us.

While the plight of the walk-in is very real — you can hardly stroll into Wild Cherry or Bong on a whim (Friday night = never) — there are still a few tried-and-true ways to circumvent the irksome barriers between you and [insert your Unrequited New York Restaurant here]. Best of all: Even though it never hurts, you don’t need to have friends in high places (ie: someone on the inside you can text for a seat on a whim). Instead, here’s our Go-To Game Plan for when we need/want a table without all the nonsense (ie: BOTS 🤖).

1. Plan your dining adventure for off days/hours.

Seems simple, but honestly, dropping in either right as a restaurant is opening or once the dinner rush has subsided is likely the #1 way you’ll snag the table of your choice outside the usual (maddening) app guardrails. Even though 8 p.m. on a Saturday is still reservation gold, many of us have been gravitating to earlier spots anyway (and really, who isn’t hungry at 5:30 p.m.??). PLUS: We have it on good authority that the fringe reservations (ie: very early or very late) see the most last-minute cancellations. So don’t sleep on those Resy waitlists!

2. Roll the dice at the bar.

If you’re not in a rush, most busy restaurants will happily encourage you to wait at the bar for a table or a few stools to open up. And, as fellow New Yorkers, we know this is where the magic usually happens. Chance encounters, overheard unfiltered conversations, old-school flirting…the bar wait will always deliver a generous helping of good vibes if you’re in the headspace for it.

PLUS: There are countless places across the city where it’s entirely permissible to stand and have a martini (even if all bar seats are filled) while you wait. I’ve earned seats via the standing-and-drinking method countless times at The Odeon, Raoul’s, The Commerce Inn, and Minetta Tavern.

3. Drop by before the first seating.

Lining up outside a great restaurant pre-opening can feel embarrassingly over-eager, but hear me out! In most cases, there won’t actually be a line at this time. And being the very first to greet whoever is opening is your easiest entry point. If the spot in question opens at 5:30 p.m. and has a ton of 7 p.m. reservations, they might offer you a table for the next hour and a half. Perhaps not the lengthy meal you were hoping for, but a seat’s a seat. When the bar is reserved for walk-ins, this is obviously the move (early bird gets the stool, etc.).

Moreover, if there’s a) a table open later in the evening, b) a possibility of cancellation, or c) something else planned to bide the time, leaving your name with the host right out the gate will make you a primary candidate for access. (In an interview with Resy, Dimitrios Michalopoulos of Bemelmans Bar supports this tip: “Make a reservation for Dowling’s at The Carlyle, where you can enjoy a full meal, and put your name on the [Bemelmans] waitlist when you arrive. By the time you’re done with dinner, you can likely head to the bar.”)

Recently, I popped into Zig Zag, the brand-new Prospect Heights oyster bar from the team behind Hart’s (for the time being, they only take reservations for large parties). Moments after opening, there was already a line present, and most seats were filled. I left my number with the hostess, read a book at a bar around the corner, and within the hour, I was elbow-deep in a seafood tower, drinking a very cold martini.

4. Become a Regular.

In the restaurant universe, relationships matter — for access and for pure and simple human joy. If you love a spot that you can only squeeze into at 5 p.m. or perhaps at lunchtime, keep going back anyway. Be warm/kind to the host, introduce yourself, learn their name, and develop a rapport (plus, showing your enthusiasm to just be there — without any expectations — will likely get you a table quicker). Banter with your bartender (without usurping their time!), remembering details they share. Folks on the inside sincerely enjoy their regulars and know how critical they are to keeping business thriving. That, and you’ll be entering a long line of New York Lifers who can count their Regular status on one hand. Because nothing says I’ve Made It Here quite like having a place where you know the staff, notice when the menu changes or a dish is served differently, and the dining room feels like home.

While you may have to deal with lengthy wait times in the beginning, eventually, they’ll appreciate your persistence, and you’ll earn VIP status (ie: premium seat selection, preferred walk-in prestige, or a special direct reservation line, which exists at places like Balthazar) via the good old-fashioned method of kindness. I have dined at Roman’s in Fort Greene more times than I care to share, and the more often I go, the more lovely my rapport with the staff becomes and the more eager they are to help me out. Especially when I need/want a table I can’t easily get.

5. Party of one…or four…or more.

It goes without saying that dining as a party of one is an excellent way to secure a free bar seat. When seating pairs, there’s often the occasional in-between seat just waiting for an eager solo diner to appear. In that vein, if you’re walking in or putting your name down, two is typically the most popular (and therefore difficult) number to seat (Kathryn Maier has a great anecdote about this in her newsletter Good Taste about her twosome getting a table at Tatiana by combining parties with a couple in line behind them).

What’s more, a number of places will take special reservations or book tables for large parties (typically more than six) via a separate email address. Which is to say, if you’re willing to plan ahead, dining with a large group may give you more direct access to a restaurant you’re dying to get into. And to take that ethos to the logical extreme, if you’re down to properly ball out, the vast majority of restaurants offer private dining rooms, which are booked separately from standard reservations. If you wanna go big (and you wanna get in), the PDR might be a fun, sneaky route.

6. Money still talks.

In Michael Cecchi-Azzolina’s memoir from 2022, the veteran maître d’ says tipping still goes far: “If a guest comes in, gives their name, and hands you a hundred-dollar bill, are you not going to give them a great table? One hundred dollars is the gold standard and will get you pretty much anything you want.” While palming cash on arrival certainly works, real pros actually do it upon leaving, turning a simple transaction into a lasting relationship and securing better attention and access down the line.

7. Make your next booking on the way out.

After dining with a friend at Cervo’s, stop at the door on your way out to make your next reservation. Odds are, they’ll make it happen with ease. Passing by Bistrot Ha’s on your way to the train? Drop in and ask when they next have a table available. In both cases, it’s likely that all availability isn’t showing up on Resy or OpenTable. I’ve had great fortune making repeat reservations at Dean’s, the new British-style pub from the team behind the adjacent King, where Michael, the GM, is always generous re: locking in a future table.

OTH Recs: Spots with great walk-in potential

Corima, Chinatown

This Michelin-starred Mexican spot just off of Dimes Square serves wildly delicious plates (get the sourdough tortilla) alongside an extensive list of mezcals and an impressive roster of natural wines. While the weekends are busy, and the back is reserved for tasting menu seating, the lengthy front bar is rarely full on weeknights and is exclusively available for walk-ins.

Sailor, Fort Greene

For a neighborhood restaurant, Sailor is almost always packed. And while you won’t often see tables available on Resy, the bar is actually the premier seating option (in my humble opinion). If you go and leave your name with the hostess, odds are you won’t have to wait long for a couple of stools.

Keens Steakhouse, Midtown

You may have to wait for a table (or a seat at all) at Keen’s, but fortunately, the full bar room is available for walk-ins. The bar itself is first come, first served with a ledge along the opposite wall for reservation-less folks still looking for a steak and a martini (yes, you can order food there). And if there are no seats available, enjoy the standing room until one of the (many) stools becomes free.

The Odeon, Tribeca

The Odeon has been open 45 years, and still, its some 30 round tables (outdoor seating not included) are relentlessly full. The entire menu is, however, available at the bar — which is first come, first served. À la standing room laws, you’re welcome to hover wherever you like with a drink in hand while you await a seat. And given that the place is open continuously starting at 11:00 am, you should have no trouble securing a seat if you arrive before 5:00 pm.

Le French Diner, Lower East Side

Critics have called this one “your favorite chef’s favorite restaurant.” The walk-in-only spot on Orchard has about ten bar seats and three tables, but the food is excellent, and the wine is even better. Stop by at 5:30 p.m. when they open for a seat (it’s worth it).

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Newsy Things This Week:

1. The grand re-opening — Fitting for the theme of this week’s dispatch, longtime West Village eatery Mary’s Fish Camp, which closed in 2024, announced it reopened on July 31 at 626 Hudson Street. Everyone — and we mean everyone ⬇️ — is delighted by the news, ie: tables are going fast.

   

2. The restaurant business has changed beyond recognition — Perhaps the most staggering insight from this article from The Economist is that nearly three out of four restaurant meals in America were eaten off-site in 2025. While there’s no shame in takeout, we are firm believers that nothing compares to sharing a wonderful meal (and evening) with 120 other diners you don’t know. It’s its own kind of theater, and we love it.

3. A clever tip for getting wine home from Europe during summer travels:

4. New York’s best place to sleep (or not sleep) — Hotels in the city are a curious thing since so many of us rarely get a chance to stay at them. As big fans of The Portrait Bar, we weren’t surprised to see The Fifth Avenue Hotel was voted the best in NYC for the second year in a row by Travel + Leisure readers. Now we feel like we need to do our own OTH ranking of top hotels for when our friends come to visit.

5. Less food/more feeling — From Feed Me: Michael’s in Midtown feels stuck in 1989. Thank god. (We agree!) With the same-ification of NYC restaurants, critic J Lee offers a refreshing reminder that places exist that are less about the food and more about the feeling. Some other old-school spots our team still loves: the Russian Tea Room, Grand Central Oyster Bar, the Ear Inn, Pete’s Tavern (hard to beat a martini + nachos pairing), and the Tiffany blue chair’ed dining room at the National Arts Club, which Christene did a tour of last week for her newsletter A Tiny Apartment.

What We’re Buying This Week:

1. Laila Gohar partnered with ROCCO on a limited-edition “Mirror Black” drinks fridge that feels very Studio 54. Bonus: It comes with a complimentary pair of Gohar World champagne coupes ($128).

2. This exfoliating soap brick from Flamingo Estate’s new Fig line. Smells like a vacation, smooths like the sea.

3. These embroidered children’s aprons (handmade! in Italy!) are too sweet. We think the smallest chef in your life deserves a custom one.

4. To be fair, this is a pretty easy DIY project, but how cool are these water jug/fruit bowl covers for outdoor hosting? We were inspired to track down some for ourselves after seeing this prototype by Sandra Alexandra.

5. John has been looking for new espresso cups, and he’s into these from Alessi’s collab with C.P. Company.

But (and just because we’re curious), are black coffee cups weird?

Until next week! — Team OTH

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There are army brats, foreign service kids, and sons of preachers. I am a restaurant daughter.

Growing up, I wasn’t particularly conscious of being a restaurant daughter. I accepted this designation as perfectly natural.

I also knew it was special.

That’s because my family’s restaurant wasn’t just any restaurant. It was La Grenouille. A world unto itself; a place where beauty was the main event, cultivated with extraordinary care.

You did not just enter La Grenouille. You arrived.

First came the coat check. Then the ruby-red velvet curtain suspended from its brass rod. Pulling it aside always felt like stepping backstage and onstage simultaneously. Beyond it, the room revealed itself in one graceful breath: candlelight, polished silver, impeccably dressed patrons, soft conversation, and flowers. Flowers everywhere! Before you stepped into the dining room, the perfume of lilies and roses had already greeted you.

The most beautiful places are true reflections of an intense inner life: They reveal the values, memories, affections, and imagination of the people who create them. La Grenouille was my family. Its name came from my grandfather’s nickname for my grandmother: “ma petite grenouille”; in my late teens, I inherited my own version, being referred to as the “frog princess” well into my 20s. The tiny pleated lampshades, which are fashionable once again, were originally sewn by my great-grandmother; they were pale salmon with a green and pink imperial gimp trim, made from a box-pleated silk. (I still have an original from 1962 that I cherish far beyond what is reasonable.) Each lamp was famously fitted with a pink lightbulb — there’s a great story about hunting down the right shade here — which cast a flattering glow that became one of the restaurant’s signatures.

The restaurant’s original lampshades, left, and pink silk faille table lamp shades by House & Parties, inspired by La Grenouille, right.

The flowers, too, were never a branding exercise. They were simply who we were. My father would sometimes take my brother and me to the flower market very early in the morning. Monday was flower day at La Grenouille, and creating the bouquets was almost a sacred ritual for him. Every detail mattered because every detail contributed to the enchantment.

The kitchen was always my favorite place to visit, especially the pastry station. Watching the extraordinary things that could be created from sugar felt like witnessing magic — the most delicious kind of secret. I later realized restaurants were my first theater experience. There is a cast, a backstage, precise timing, invisible problem-solving, and, if all goes well, the audience never notices the immense work that made it all appear effortless. Where guests aren’t just served dinner, they are welcomed into another world.

When I was a child, the waiters would refill empty champagne bottles with ginger ale and grenadine, then pour it into a flute for me with complete solemnity, as though they were serving a Kir Royale. No one ever spoiled the illusion. It would be years before I realized I had been one of Manhattan’s youngest Shirley Temple connoisseurs. It showed me that true hospitality always exudes a touch of illusion: the smallest gesture, carried out with complete conviction, could transform an ordinary moment into something unforgettable. And make a little girl feel like she belonged.

Early on, I learned the restaurant had its own currency — and how to spend it. I was a terrible math student, and my very strict, very French teacher had little patience with me. However, I discovered a box of petits fours from La Grenouille softened her considerably. Once I understood their diplomatic value, I brought them to school as often as I could to avoid her wrath.

Something else La Grenouille taught me is that making people feel welcomed, valued, and completely delighted is hospitality. And beauty is never separate from that idea. Beautiful spaces don’t emerge from trends or concepts. They emerge from the people who feel at home there.

Today, I know whether I will like a restaurant before I’ve even taken my first bite. Before I’ve looked at the menu, I’ve already registered the lighting, the acoustics, the décor, the pace of the service, and the mood of the room. I feel a place before I engage with it. Being a restaurant daughter has taught me that the dining experience begins well before the first course arrives.

Atmosphere isn’t accidental — it is composed. Beauty provokes an encounter between ourselves and the world around us. It invites us to slow down, to notice, to savor our impressions. It grows naturally from authenticity. It asks us to be present. Perhaps that’s why so many restaurants today are rediscovering ornate flowers, candlelight, old-world service, and the rituals of fine dining. What people long for now isn’t nostalgia. It’s artistry.

When my brother and I were little, we would play hide-and-seek in the upstairs private dining rooms, which were filled with little nooks and crannies. Years later, when I worked in fashion, I would return after long days at the office, sit alone at the bar, have dinner, and take in the live theater of the diners around me — the same room I had once disappeared into as a child, revealing itself to me from an entirely different vantage point. The same room I believe my love of storytelling began. Where I would witness people creating intimate spaces through lighting, sound, flowers, furniture, fashion…all part of the choreography of creating an unforgettable experience, if only for a night.

People often ask me what growing up at La Grenouille was like. The short answer is that being raised in a restaurant leaves its mark. It taught me not just how to cultivate beauty, but to understand why it’s essential. Not only as frivolity or some form of indulgence, but as a way of deeply caring for others.

When you grow up in a restaurant like La Grenouille, you begin to see beauty everywhere.

And miss it terribly when it’s gone.

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1. How many is too many taverns?

For Grub Street, Matthew Schneier asked “Why is Every New Restaurant a ‘Tavern?’” highlighting some recent openings including Trudie’s, Graciela, and Grimm. And the trend doesn’t seem to be slowing: Erin spotted another — The Derby Club — on the @newopeningsnyc Instagram (a great follow if you don’t already).

2. Bear Sounds 🎶

The Bear’s five-season run ended a few weeks ago, and the music — curated by its show-runners Christopher Storer and Josh Senior — has been such a distinguishing treat, start to finish. We assembled a custom playlist of our favorite “Bear Sounds” from the show (and John enjoyed this take on why the soundtrack really hits).

3. Chef’s Table is coming to Park City in August — and OTH members get 25% off.

The people behind Netflix’s Chef’s Table are throwing their first festival August 13 to 16 in Park City. More than 70 chefs from the show, including Massimo Bottura, Francis Mallmann, Nancy Silverton, Sean Brock, and Dario Cecchini, are taking over restaurants across the city for one-of-a-kind dining experiences and intimate tastings. The festival is less than three weeks away, so consider this last call.

On the House subscribers use the code CTTF25 for 25% off every ticket tier***:

• Signature: $2,000, now $1,500.
  Includes two lunches, two dinners, and one guaranteed chef pick.

• Premier: $4,000, now $3,000.
  Guaranteed placement with two of your top chef picks.

• Elite: $7,500, now $5,625.
  Guaranteed placement with every chef you pick.

• Be a Chef: $15,000, now $11,250.
  Inside the kitchen with the masters.

Utah is Calling

***Custom discounts like this will be a regular part of our OTH Paid Membership tier (alongside IRL member tastings, stylish merch, and more), launching here in the fall.

4. A few more August events we’d be down to join.

Mexico City’s Masala y Maíz popping up at The Modern (the dinner, available exclusively to Chase Sapphire Reserve cardholders, includes a private after-hours tour (!!!) of the Frida Kahlo/Diego Rivera exhibit); Smithereens’ new Cook Lunch series with guests like Joe Beddia and Rita Jammet; if you’re upstate, Missy Robbins + MISIPASTA is hosting a special experience at Callisto Farm.

5. Chef pants for ALL.

From Hudson-based designer Nikki Chasin, they come in shades of blue cheese, flour, and split pea.

6. RIP Walk-ins.

Real Simple ran an excellent piece on the state of reservation culture. It reminded us of this story Marco Shalma did for us a while back about the disappearance of walk-ins…and how hard it is these days to just have a spontaneous NYC night out.

7. Happy birthday David Chang.

Celebrate the Momofuku founder’s b-day on August 5 by nabbing this mint collection of vintage Lucky Peach magazines. We want them!

8. Rumor has it that Polo Bar is moving to 625 Madison Avenue.

We ran a quick poll on the OTH IG and 80% of followers think changing locations isn’t the best idea. More to come when it becomes final.

9. Our new favorite market tote, because you definitely need just one more chic gigantic striped bag.

It’s lightweight, spacious, and durable. Plus, it looks charmingly like it was born in the atelier of a French heritage brand.

10. An underrated summer lunch spot.

The presentation at Nami Nori ⬇️ is always as brilliant as the sushi.

Locations in New York, Miami, Virginia Beach, and Montclair, NJ.

11. Matt Damon 🚫 gluten.

He recently told Amy Poehler on her Good Hang podcast that it “completely changed [his] life.” Here’s a link to the best GF pasta on the planet (tested and approved).

12. NYC restaurant merch is having a moment.

We have a big guide of the best picks, new AND vintage, coming 🔜. Until then, enjoy Gap’s collab with Los Tacos, one of the city’s most popular taquerias (those SHORTS). If you can’t get your hands on one of the pieces — it’s going quick — Los Tacos also sells its own tees.

13. Spend a Saturday at Amant Brooklyn.

Catch Kim Gordon’s show before it ends on August 16, then grab dinner at Zoli afterwards. For more art/food pairings, check out our collab with exhibits in new york that ran last week:

exhibits in new york

Go see something this week (with On the House)💫

Welcome to our first late summer edition of “Go See Something…

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a month ago · 47 likes · 1 comment · Erin Cunningham and exhibits in new york

14. Speaking of museum restaurants.

Julia Sherman, executive chef at Oberon at the New Museum, announced she’s leaving the restaurant to focus on her new line of salad dressing mixes.

15. That marvelous HAY x Jasper Morrison outdoor entertaining/camping/garden/chic/collapsible summer collection is ON SALE.

Yes, that striped folding chair is only $220 👀.

16. A reminder to support your local cookbook shop.

Laura Fenton wrote about some of the city’s best for T magazine. We’ve got a special story coming soon about our favorite outpost.

17. It’s Trip Time. (Even if it’s always Trip Time.)

The final leg of summer is upon us. If you’re in need of a bump up, we’ve got a few essentials on our list, including our new favorite luggage makers. Nice, right?

18. No assholes, please.

Vanity Fair reports that private clubs around the world are done with bad behavior. Amen.

19. And a final giggle from this week’s The New Yorker.

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Newsy Things This Week:

1. Air Mail highlighted the revival of 200-year-old restaurant Le Grand Véfour in Paris. It’s great to see an institution (it first opened in 1784) once “declared dead” experience a second life, and it makes me think about the spots I wish would make a comeback.

2. If you’re in need of a new summer dinner idea, I love this clip from my friend and chef Justin Bazdarich’s Norwegian/Mexican (yes, really) take on a tostada. (Fish fans might also appreciate this behind-the-scenes look at Seahorse’s Chef Villa breaking down a full tuna).

3. PORTA in Boerum Hill collaborated with decorative artist Tess Newall on a lovely collection of plates, bowls, and serving platters. On Instagram, Tess described how using the plates all weekend made eating feel like she was “on holiday” — capturing that little bit of escapism we’re all chasing at home.

4. I still can’t believe how many lines I see across the city of people waiting for…yogurt. Adam Chandler did an excellent deep dive into the current fro-yo phenomenon for the Wall Street Journal. Any favorites to share? Drop them in the comments ✅.

5. Thought this was a great feature on the current state of martini culture, and some of the places serving the best ones around the globe. If you happen to be traveling to one of these cities, order UP.

Cheers. — John

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As a New Yorker, here is the first thing you need to know about Rome: It is the embodiment of contradiction. That is its magic and its curse. You will likely find yourself asking, “How does a city run like this?” But Rome is. And it has been. The saying here: Roma e Roma.

Rome runs on an unspoken game: Who will lose their shit first? Don’t. You win by staying upbeat, unfailingly polite, and courteous — even when the person across from you is rude, intransigent, or just totally absurd.

Why? Because no one cares about pleasing you. Not even waiters. They have salaries; they don’t work off tips. So, the best restaurants in Rome — places like Cresci with genuine excellence — often have unimpressive Google reviews. Mediocre tourist traps with friendly staff get five stars. Don’t fall for it. Romans have built two cities: one for tourists and one for themselves. Rome was not built around the American culture of convenience. Two millennia in, Rome has no idea what that even means.

In winning this game, Rome slowly unfurls and reveals her secrets to you, some of which cannot be captured in writing.

Visiting Rome with kids? Here’s your first collision with Rome’s contradiction: Romans adore children — perhaps spurred by Italy’s population decline. Yet Rome has 900 churches, and in my year here, I found maybe five usable playgrounds. The sanpietrini cobblestones will render your travel stroller useless and destroy any romantic notions of sleepy strolls in darkened alleys.

When your kid realizes there are no nightly gladiator fights at the Colosseum, they’ll be disappointed. Exhaustion helps. Get a hotel or Airbnb near a green space: Piazza San Cosimato, Villa Pamphili (Vivi Bistrot marks the playground), or Villa Borghese. Or try Aventino, where you’ll stumble upon secret gardens with trickling ancient fountains, like Giardino degli Aranci. This matters in summer…

Here’s why: Rome’s summer heat is truly Something Else. I get New York City summers — 117F heat index with the baking concrete. Rome’s heat is somatically different. It bakes you from the inside. Italians are convinced AC is a public health emergency. They blame it for stomach cramps, neck problems, colds, coughs, vomiting — everything. So, there’s almost no air conditioning. Venture out early, resume life after sunset.

You can use this to your advantage: Book the Vatican, the Sistine Chapel, Appartamenti Segreti, museums — anything — for early morning slots. An 8 a.m. Sistine booking gave my husband and his friend 40 minutes alone with Michelangelo. Normally you’re crammed in with hundreds. Most tourists party late and sleep in. Rookie mistake. Here, you can have it all: quiet magic and daytime drinking with no judgment.

Bad weather or heat? Cinema Troisi is what American cinemas should be: 24/7 sophisticated hybrid cinema/free working space with strong WiFi/cafe, mixing new releases, classics, and global retrospectives. It also hosts talks and screenings with filmmakers. Cinema Barberini, recently renovated, is a jewel — impeccable small theaters, with love-seat options. Both show films in English (VO).

For a day steeped in contradiction, start at the Capuchin Crypt. An off-the-beaten-path chapel where monks have exhumed their brethren’s bones and built a chapel from them. Walls, chandeliers, decor, even beds where decaying bodies rest — all bones. Imagine being the person who originally pitched that and hearing “Great idea! We’re all in!” Skip the museum, hang with the bones. The crypt is near Villa Borghese — Rome’s Central Park, perched above the Spanish Steps. Spend the rest of the day celebrating being alive by soaking in the gentle beauty of this historic 200-acre park.

Some of the best bites are in the Jewish Ghetto, which also holds Teatro Marcello. From there, walk to Tiberina — a tiny island with two good restaurants for a bite, a drink, a coffee, or a gelato. Look for the hard-to-spot staircases leading to an unforgettable walk along the water. This is where I came whenever I had a bad day. There’s something about it that can’t help but lift your chin up. Cross Tiberina into quieter Trastevere, ripe for wandering, eating, drinking, shopping, and discovery.

Testaccio is Rome’s Brooklyn — a working-class neighborhood with a new playground and piazza where Roman families gather nightly for a community playdate with soccer, chalk, bubbles, and more. Testaccio Market is Rome’s Chelsea Market — excellent for food shopping, food stalls, or a good lunch.

There’s too much to take in. Don’t try. The New Yorker impulse for efficiency fails here. Instead, do what Romans do: Slow down. Hang out. Indulge. Because as this ancient city will remind you: One day you and everyone you know will be gone. To surrender to this moment — with its pleasures and its pains — is to genuinely embrace and just enjoy it.

Wander and discover Rome’s timeless magic, like these singing priests over a quiet piazza.

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As such, I’ve been endlessly intrigued by what Mason Acevedo has been doing with his branzino pop-up Piscator (people are going wild over it, and with good reason). Today, Mason shares some great tips for buying and cooking seafood, including two easy but delicious recipes (scroll all the way to the bottom for them). Before we talk to Mason…

Newsy Things This Week:

1. Two sides of the same coin: Grub Street’s How Pop-Up Bagels Remade the Bagel Shop for Gen-Z and Curbed’s It’s Humiliating. It’s Exhilarating. It’s a Line. both capture the ways food hype has become a product in itself.

2. April Bloomfield shared the two places everyone should try before they die with Interview magazine.

3. In an interesting (curious?) move, Major Food Group, alongside Palm Tree Crew and 8K Capital, has purchased a golf course in Colorado.

4. Two new great spots have recently opened in the West Village, including Capitaine (formerly Libertine) and Graciela, which I had the pleasure of trying over the weekend. The food, mostly made over a wood-fired grill, lived up to all the buzz that comes with any Pablo Rivero endeavor.

5. This month from the critics across the country—New York: Oriana (New York Magazine), Salt Hank’s (The New York Times); Baltimore: Wren (Washington Post); San Francisco: The Big Four (SF Chronicle); Los Angeles: Yerord Mas (L.A. Times)

6. I also thought this was an interesting take on an NYC-to-L.A. transplant…

See you next time. —John

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Mason’s Story.

“I am obsessed with whole branzino: the ritual of eating it, the visible connection to the ocean, the attention it demands,” says Southern California native Mason Acevedo, founder of Piscator, a seafood pop-up in New York and Los Angeles.

In April 2024, while working full-time as a data analyst, Acevedo decided it was time to explore his true passion: cooking/serving branzino in a decidedly unfussy, more casual way. He developed his concept, studied for a license, and cold-called more than 50 bars around New York City, asking to sell fish in their yards. “Two got back to me,” he says. “I started selling around eight fish for walk-up diners every two weeks, lugging my camping equipment from place to place, and up and down the five flights to my East Village studio each night.” That first summer, the operation stayed small; some weekends, he only sold six fish.

The following summer, mostly through word of mouth, his pop-ups began selling out online in seconds. He finished the season selling 120 fish each week. “I was working full-time at Google then,” he reflects. “Each day I’d stay up prepping until 1 or 2 am, then wake up, work a full corporate day, and do it again. Finally, I quit. I was exhausted, but the want became greater than the fear of running out of savings. I’m still working every day well into the night, but now it’s in pursuit of the thing I’ve always wanted to do.”

Piscator is now described as “one of the hardest reservations to snag.” It was the subject of a NYT Cooking mini-doc released in February. And Acevedo now has a residency at The Test Brewery in Williamsburg, in addition to special one-offs at buzzy spots like Little Island and Jean’s.

Pre-orders for Piscator’s weekly pop-ups are released every Monday at 10 am. The schedule, locations, and more can be found here.

Mason’s Take-Home Tips/Tools.

OTH: Let’s start with the basics. WHY branzino?
Mason: I think of branzino as a “gateway” fish. It’s tender and flaky, with a bone structure that’s simple to navigate.

Serving it whole and bone-in matters a lot to me. It enhances flavor and retains moisture, but more importantly, eating it sparks conversation. You cannot share a bone-in branzino with someone without talking to or acknowledging them.

Eating it this way also automatically connects you to the ocean and where it’s sourced from. Knowing that about something I’m eating comforts me.

OTH: Where are the best places to source ingredients in the city?

Mason: New York City can be challenging because, while we have everything here, there is no one-stop shop. Everything must be sourced from different places if you want top quality without spending your whole budget in one go.

• Seafood: Aquabest on the Lower East Side. Their quality is top-notch, and Steven knows everything there is to know about seafood. He supplies so many chefs and home cooks and still maintains a personal connection with everyone.

• Vegetables: We’re so fortunate to have the Union Square Greenmarket every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday. I recommend asking the vendors about the different produce and putting a spin on your dishes at home by substituting in a vegetable you found at the market. Remember, you can cook anything with salt, pepper, oil, and some heat.

• I think people can be hesitant to go to fruit carts around Manhattan, but these are a great way to get affordable produce that you can use the same day. I do advise using this produce the day of, as it is typically ripe the day it is on the cart.

• Bread: We have such amazing bakeries in New York. My favorites are C&B Bakery in the East Village and Smør Bakery (locations in Manhattan and Brooklyn). They both have incredible sourdough and focaccia, styled slightly differently, but equally delicious.

OTH: Since you’re always on the move, what kitchen tools do you rely on to help keep prep low-maintenance?
Mason: My setup may seem low-maintenance, but it was out of necessity, as I was loading this stuff up and down my fifth-floor apartment to different bars around Manhattan and Brooklyn that first summer. So, the tools and equipment I look for must be multi-use, light, and easily transportable. Ones I swear by:

Metal Cake Tester, Rolling Tote, Fish Spatula

Metal cake tester: If I’m ever unsure whether a fish is cooked through, I pull out my cake tester. If it goes through the meat without any resistance, it’s done. If you’re still unsure, press the cake tester tip on your wrist and ensure it’s warm to the touch.

Rolling tote: As New Yorkers, we’re constantly hauling things around. And as a pop-up, this includes produce, equipment, merch that needs to be mailed out, and so much more. A rolling tote changed my life because I can drag it along the sidewalk, but also lift it up when I’m headed down the subway stairs. It’s a great substitute for trying to haul 30 lbs of cabbage in a canvas tote on your shoulder.

Fish spatula: This is expected, but I don’t use it solely for fish. A fish spatula is flexible, slotted, and beveled, so it’s perfect for lifting delicate pastries like galettes or puff pastry, or flipping delicate items like fried eggs and crepes.

OTH: A lot of people find cooking fish intimidating. What are some tips they can start with?
Mason: The beauty of seafood is that you can be incredibly simple with it. Start with salt, pepper, olive oil, and a dried herb of choice and go from there. The protein does all of the work for you. And it’s perfectly fine to source at your local grocery store. A few other suggestions for questions I get a lot:

• Ask your fishmonger to prepare the fish how you want to eat it at home (as intimidating as it may seem). If you want to put a filet on a pan, ask them to filet the fish. If you want to eat it whole, ask them to gut and scale the fish so you don’t have to.

• Moisture is the enemy with fish! It dilutes the seasoning, causes sticking, and contributes to bacterial growth during storage. Leave the raw fish in a slightly covered/vented container (not airtight) when storing, and pat dry before seasoning and cooking.

• Fish should never smell fishy. If anything, it should smell like the ocean. People always ask if my apartment and kitchen smell like fish, and the answer is no! A fishy smell is bad!

• Eat the fish skin! Just crisp it up first. If you’re cooking a salmon filet in your home kitchen, heat your pan on high, place the filet skin side down to crisp it up, then cover and move it into the oven to finish cooking.

Mason’s 2 Easiest At-Home Recipes.

“These recipes are incredibly simple for good reason. I want to show that the fish itself does most of the work, and that you can really do anything with salt, pepper, and oil. From that foundation, you can add herbs and switch out ingredients based on what looks interesting at the market, etc.”

I’m including one for indoors/one for outdoors since an outdoor area is a luxury here in the city (I sure as heck don’t have a patio):”

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One of the things we meditate on a lot over here is how our favorite restaurants have the power to influence our lives at home. Not just what we eat but the way we eat it…and what happens before/after that meal, too. One of those things we keep coming back to is lighting: That just-right warm glow and perhaps the tell-tale sign of a place we want to tuck into — over and over again — and never leave.

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Earlier this week, I was chatting with my friend Will Meyer of architecture and interiors firm Meyer-Davis about how this new wave of good-looking portable lamps has only really become a “thing” in the past five years.

In the wake of COVID, restaurants used rechargeable/cordless lamps outside in an attempt to recreate the connection and coziness of a (pre-pandemic) dining room on a street corner. That trend, which emerged out of necessity, has since flourished, indoors and out. IE: You can’t go to an upscale spot in New York, LA, or London without seeing a very good one on your dining table.

“We saw the benefits in restaurants and hotels of using portable lamps in flexible locations, so we recommend them for the home, too,” Will says. “Low, precise, glowing light can enhance that desired feel.”

It's the same instinct that’s drawn people to candlelight or bonfires for centuries, over deals or dinners. And, it's what I keep coming back to whenever I think about lighting a room well. It’s also shaped a few rules about good lighting that I tend to follow:

• Keep it warm. Always 2200k or less.

• Light the perimeter, not just the ceiling. The biggest mistake people make is relying on harsh downlight and ignoring the edges of a room, where said warmth actually lives and draws us in.

• Good design always wins. I prefer vintage lighting of all types: lamps, pendants, and sconces. At home, I also like to find key spots for picture lights. Feel free to focus purely on style: You can just adjust the bulb type and shade to make almost anything work.

• Go incandescent, whenever possible. Even though they’re getting tougher to find each year, it’s always worth it.

Not that we’ve cooled on a good tea light (nothing feels more festive than real flickering fire). But for a supper outside or an impromptu pizza-and-champagne night, any of the options below can bring that instantly calm, lingering glow to your dining table, kitchen counter, or corner nook.

They’re also a great reminder that flexibility is the ultimate luxury: Because being able to change the mood and utility of a space based on where a light source lives is pretty empowering.

What we like best, from left: &Tradition Flowerpot VP9 Lamp, Jessica Corr for Tzelan Ongo Battery Lamp, HAY Mousqueton Portable Lamp, Lumens Bellhop Rechargeable LED Lamp

Notion Studio Mono Portable Lamp, NEOZ Victoria Cordless Light (this company is the Ferrari of lamps — you’ll see them at most of the Major Food Group spots), Addison Ross Cherry Lacquer Bobbin LED Lamp, AUDO Copenhagen Carrie Portable Indoor/Outdoor LED Lamp

And a few more delicious things.

Now that we’re knee-deep in summer, we pulled out a classic Jean-Georges recipe from our CITY archive: chilled cantaloupe and tomato — to sip or spoon, both hit the spot on the hottest days. And make a terrific party starter, too.

I did a lot of reading over the weekend, and thought these were worth sharing:

1. The Infatuation looked into the “same-ification of New York City,” which is something I think about a lot as I’ve watched my neighborhood change over the years. It’s probably why I — and so many other New Yorkers — feel such an attachment to institutions like Raoul’s or The Odeon.

2. Here’s a great roundup of omakase that isn’t outrageously expensive.

3. Family Style by Complex cataloged the history of Chino Latino food in the city, highlighting spots old (La Dinastia) and new (Chino Grande).

4. If you’re heading to the South of France (or even if you’re not), I loved browsing through this design + art travel guide from W.

5. JDS did a great take on Graciela, the coming-soon Argentine tavern in the West Village. We’re cooking up something fun with the team there…more soon.

6. “New York is a good place to come and pretend to be someone that you’re not,” is just one of many quotables from Jay McInerney’s interview with Gentleman’s Journal.

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1. Lure Fishbar is here to stay after Prada scraps plans to open eatery.

2. The Sussmans rounded up some food friends for a fun game show on Instagram.

3. Stalin loved wine, and Jay Cheshes did a deep dive into his collection for Air Mail.

4. Speaking of wine, this corkscrew is my go-to tool for summer’s endless bottles of rosé.

Thanks for joining us. —John

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Over 70 photographs and paintings line the walls of Raoul’s, the iconic French bistro that has occupied the same Soho address since 1975, when the neighborhood had almost nowhere to eat (well, other than Prince Street Bar and maybe a teeny corner market). Many of these pieces of art have their own stories — some even help tell the story of the restaurant itself, having been gifted, traded, and, in some cases, bartered for a plat du jour.

“Artists would offer their work, and I’d say, ‘Here’s a hole in the wall. You can put it up there,’” remembers Guy Raoul, Serge’s brother, the restaurant’s original chef, and accidental curator.

When Raoul’s opened in 1975, it became an artists' refuge; Basquiat, Koons, and Warhol were all regulars. It wasn’t entirely coincidental. The staff was largely made up of artists themselves: painters, photographers, and sculptors who waited tables or bussed dishes by night.

Creativity runs in the Raoul family, too. Serge (1937-2024) was a filmmaker-turned-restaurateur; his son, Karim, also a filmmaker, currently runs the restaurant (released last year, the documentary Raoul’s, A New York Story, chronicles the father/son journey).

Fifty years on, the walls still tell a story — one that so few patrons and New Yorkers even know about. Here are a few of the pieces that capture Raoul’s history maybe better than anyone.

1. Self-Portrait, Delmas Howe

The young man sitting just next to the chalkboard in the rear of the restaurant could be considered Raoul’s longest regular: Delmas Howe’s self-portrait was the very first painting on the restaurant’s walls. In fact, the piece has been a fixture in the space before Raoul’s even existed, and Howe is responsible for the restaurant finding a home in Soho.

Howe had been a longtime friend of Serge’s when he and his brother Guy first decided to open in 1975.

“My father asked Delmas if he knew of any restaurant spaces, and he mentioned Luizzi’s, an Italian restaurant he frequented on Prince Street, was looking for someone to take it over,” Karim says. When the brothers checked the place out, the only piece of art there was Howe’s portrait, which he had given to the Luizzi family in exchange for a meal seven years earlier. After the Raoul brothers took over 180 Prince Street, they kept his painting exactly where they had found it.

2. Nude, Martin H.M. Schreiber

The image most linked to Raoul’s is the giant canvas photograph of a reclining woman with auburn hair, her elbow mysteriously covering her face. Legendary Raoul’s maître d’, Rob Jones, who was also a sculptor, had it commissioned from Martin Schreiber, a restaurant regular, in the mid-’80s. “Schreiber was known as the ‘photographer on roller skates’ at clubs like the Roxy,” Karim recalls. Ever since, the portrait, which dominates the dining room, often sparks speculation about who the model might have been. One rumor that seems to be most popular is that the woman/model is Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, whom Schreiber briefly dated before her marriage to Prince Andrew, though Schreiber and the Royal Family have denied the rumors.

3. Andy Warhol’s Torso, Art Kane

Raoul’s regular Art Kane made his name with “A Great Day in Harlem,” a 1958 photograph of a group of renowned jazz musicians, including Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, and Coleman Hawkins. That image launched a decades-long career of capturing legendary musical artists like the Rolling Stones, The Who, Janis Joplin, and Bob Dylan. But a photograph he gifted the Raouls of another frequent diner is perhaps the restaurant’s rarest piece. It’s a shot of a shirtless Andy Warhol, before he himself was shot (with a gun) by Valerie Solanas in 1968. The uplit artwork literally glows, overlooking the restaurant high above one of the most in-demand booths in the dining room. This piece created in 1962 is even more notable given as much as Warhol loved the camera, he was extremely modest about his body — especially after the gunshot wound left scars, physically and emotionally. One of Warhol’s last outings happened to be a party at Raoul’s, just two weeks before he died in 1987.

4 + 5. Photographs by Pepe Diniz

Pepe Diniz worked as a busboy at Raoul’s for ten years while launching his career as a photographer (chronicled in his book My Nights at Raoul’s). Three of his black-and-white pictures are permanently on display at the restaurant, including:

1/ His photo of a gazing Julie Christie, which hangs in the bar room, once caught the eye of the famous street photographer Lisette Model. When she asked who shot it, Diniz replied, “Don’t tell anyone, but I did,” to which she jokingly responded, “Don’t tell anyone, I painted the Mona Lisa.” When the bartender confirmed that the busboy was indeed the photographer, Model asked to see more of his work. She was so impressed, she became one of his mentors.

2/ Perhaps the most captivating Diniz photo in Raoul’s was shot just outside the restaurant. One night, when tipped off by maître d’ Rob Jones that Miles Davis was leaving a party across the street, Diniz threw off his apron, grabbed his camera, and raced out the door. He asked the jazz legend for permission to take his portrait and Davis warily agreed. The photo, of a cagey Davis, hangs above the kitchen’s swinging doors to this day.

6. Portrait of Rob Jones

A photo of Rob Jones, Raoul's maître d’, taken by Wolfgang (Wowe) Wesener in the 1980s, sits just to the left of the bar. “Rob would perform in drag after midnight on the bar and turn Raoul’s into a nightclub after hours,” Karim recalls.

7. Abhimanyu Warrior Prince, Gde

In the 1970s, while on his honeymoon in Bali, Serge Raoul shot a documentary on rice farmers. He became so enamored with the island that he later opened a Raoul’s there. “In 1981, my father’s friend Gde came to New York from Bali as part of a dance troupe,” Karim recalls. “He was also an artist.” Gde’s image of Abhimanyu, the tragic Hindu warrior prince, hangs above a booth in the dining room as an homage to the Raoul family’s spiritual home. “Gde didn’t have the money to frame it, so my father did it for him,” he adds. “It’s been here ever since.”

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Although a lot of people like to say Brooklyn Heights has quietly become the new West Village, those of us who have lived here for a while know that’s not exactly true. Sandeep Salter is one of this leafy maritime neighborhood’s longtime residents. So, it made sense that she would conceive an iconic spot on the corner of Atlantic Avenue and Henry Street back in 2018 that would come to define the city’s cafe-meets-cottagecore culture as we know it today.

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More than just a stop for an Americano, Salter House’s spare, almost rustic interior features a cross-section of stylish objects and essentials that have become a must-stop for visitors strolling the neighborhood. Quilts, candles, handmade children’s toys, and organza daywear in a tiny back room form the quintessential general store-meets-atelier Salter House vibe (which has since expanded to a cafe/shop on East Second Street, too). Next door to the main shop, Salter also runs/curates an art gallery called Picture Room, where she sells work by Joana Avillez and Vita Yang. It’s another venue to experience her impeccable eye for precision and beauty.

As the city starts winding down for the summer season, traffic at Salter House speeds up w/even more people dropping in for a banana muffin and some summer pajamas. We asked Salter to be our first Taste Maker here — read on, and you’ll know why.

Tell us your favorite food memory: “Oh, so many! Eating my grandmother’s cooking; sitting on the floor with my family in Leeds; pasta in Florence in the rain with my husband and daughters; lobster at our friend’s studio in Martha’s Vineyard.”

How about your go-to dinner party essential: “Organic wine — anything chilled, light, and under $30. I'm not fussy.”

Ruth Lewandowski Feints 2024, La Collina Lambrusco Dell’Emilia, Christina St. Laurent 2022

Your must-have kitchen tool: “Nesting bowls that are good for everything.”

A New York City restaurant with the best interiors: “Cafe Sabarsky.”

One dish you’ll always order if it’s on the menu: “Gluten-free pasta bolognese. But Noodle Pudding in Brooklyn Heights [further down on Henry Street] makes it the best.”

The most New York spot you’ve ever been to: “Stage restaurant — it was a proper New York counter diner, and it was perfect. I lived around the corner for the first decade of living in NYC, and I miss it.”

How do you define taste? “One’s preferences, expressed through aesthetic choices.”

Sandeep’s TASTE 😍

What’s something you genuinely think is perfect? “Mountain Laurel.”

Tell us about something you loved before everyone else? “Nightgowns and bloomers.”

Lamb Nightdress and Striped Mini Bloomer Shorts, both by Salter House.

If you click on or buy anything throughout this newsletter, we might earn a small commission at no cost to you.

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A big thank you to Emily Sundberg of Feed Me for the lovely shout-out last week on the launch of On the House! ⬇️ More good things to come…

Feed Me

Kyla Scanlon has a new gig at CNN.

Good afternoon, everyone…

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2 months ago · 85 likes · 17 comments · Emily Sundberg

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Many of you from that time are still here. When the company was sold, I brought that audience here to Substack, where I sent off newsletters on restaurants that shaped the city and conversations with legendary New Yorkers like Graydon Carter under the name Broken Palate. You loved reading those stories…and we loved making them. But, earlier this year, we decided it was time to do it more thoughtfully, more often, and with more focus.

And so, together with Christene and Erin Cunningham, we are officially relaunching as On the House with a new look and a new perspective.

The longer I worked across both publishing and food, the more the two industries started to look the same. A restaurant and a magazine run on a point of view. You decide what you stand for, you set that standard, and you hold to it. If you do that, people start to trust you: A reader trusts what you put in front of them, a guest trusts what shows up on the table. And that trust is the Whole Thing. It’s why they come back, over issues, years, changes, and many more meals to come.

That trust is central to On the House, too.

Our weekly dispatch of good taste — on our plates and in our lives — will deliver a steady distillation of that trust, with fresh resources, tips, secret gems, New York City nostalgia, and, of course, style, all from New Yorkers who know where to find the best stuff. The kind that gets shared, swapped, tabbed, and revisited when you’re truly a regular somewhere, when you take the time to know a place, its gifts, its (occasional) foibles, its comforts...

And it knows you back.

A heads-up: This newsletter will be free through the summer season as we take the next few months to get OTH into a groove and listen and learn more about what you love and crave, while creating a series of smart, absorbing stories that mean something to our readers, old and new. After Labor Day, we’ll share more about what our Paid tier will look like, including special content series, fun seasonal pop-ups, merch, and more.

Until then, cozy up to our table. We’ve got some great stuff in the works to share.

John McDonald
Founder

Erin Cunningham
Editor

Christene Barberich
Editor-at-Large

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Here, author Peter Maguire writes on La Côte Basque. He is the director of Fainting Robin Foundation and the author of the 2021 New York Times bestseller, Breathe: A Life in Flow; Thai Stick: Surfers, Scammers, and the Untold History of the Marijuana Trade; Facing Death in Cambodia; and Law and War: American History and International Law. He has taught the law and theory of war at Columbia University, Bard College, and the University of North Carolina Wilmington. You can find the longer version of this article, “Rōshi Chef: Jacques Rachou and the La Côte Basque Zendō” at Sour Milk on Substack.

The first time I saw Jean-Jacques Rachou in his kitchen at La Côte Basque at 60 W. 55th St., dressed in immaculate chef’s whites and a toque blanche, he reminded me more of a martial arts master than a chef. Carefully observing an athletic young grillardin who was laboring over a hot range, he said nothing. When his apprentice plated his steak, Jean-Jacques studied the meat, spun the plate, and signaled his approval with a nod. Like my jujitsu teacher, the legendary Rickson Gracie, Jean-Jacques is a stern but fair master who leads by example.

Born an orphan in Toulouse, France, in 1935, Rachou was taken in by a local woman. As a child, he worked long hours at a nearby farm and delivered vegetables to restaurants and hotels. In 1946, a local restaurateur offered eleven-year-old Jean-Jacques a job in his kitchen and transformed the boy’s hardscrabble life forever. “It was deliverance,” Rachou said. “It was freedom.” 

For the next four years, Jean-Jacques worked as an apprentice at Le Grand Hôtel Régina and learned classical French cooking according to the rules of Auguste Escoffier’s hundred-year-old brigade de cuisine system. Escoffier divided a kitchen into ranked positions: executive chef; chef de cuisine; sous chefs; chefs de partie; commis chefs (junior chefs); and stations (grill, roast, pastry, butcher, fish).

Rachou left France in the 1950s to cook in the La Mamounia Hotel in Marrakesh, Morocco, then went to Lisbon to open the Hotel Ritz. Next, he went to Bermuda and finally arrived in New York in 1962 to work at Gene Cavallero’s legendary Colony restaurant on Madison Avenue. When he finally opened his first restaurant, Le Lavandou, on East 61st St. in 1975, he quickly developed a . following. “If a Jewish mother could be French, she would be Jean-Jacques Rachou,” wrote food critic Gael Greene. “He seems to have a fix on how to please a hungry New Yorker.”

In 1979, Rachou spent all his accumulated savings to buy Henri Soulé’s La Côte Basque. One of the first to introduce classic French dining to New York at the fabled Le Pavillion, Soulé moved closer to his Bayonne roots when he opened La Côte Basque in the late ‘50s. Truman Capote, one of New York cafe society’s favorite celebrities, satirized the restaurant and its patrons in Esquire Magazine in 1965. He was never forgiven.

Rachou’s attention to detail was unmatched. He spent thousands each week on beautiful cut flowers, used only the finest linen, and his dining room staff was the best in New York City. “The ingredients that we used were the finest that your hands could touch,” recalled Neil Murphy of the Park Avenue Cafe, now in Hawaii at Merriman’s. When Jean-Jacques reopened a completely renovated La Côte Basque, it was an instant success. “In typical Rachou style, La Côte Basque offers big portions or bigger portions,” wrote The New York Times. The restaurant’s oversize plates are typically garnished with levees of wild rice, ramparts of carrot puree, towering timbales, and puff-pastry sculptures.”

What most people do not know is what a huge impact Jean-Jacques Rachou and his restaurant had on the future of American gastronomy. “No one has been more responsible in training the first generation of great American chefs and restaurateurs than Jack Rachou,” said Mike Colameco, host and producer of Mike Colameco’s Real Food on PBS. Rachou was one of the first French chefs willing to hire and train Americans.

“Back in that day, the Frenchmen didn’t think we could work,” recalled chef Gregory Godon. “When Jack realized that we didn’t mind working, we opened the floodgate for the rest of the crew.” For Charlie Palmer, now head of his own small empire of restaurants, it was his big break after graduating from culinary school. “For us young American guys coming to New York working in basically the French mafia for lack of a better term,” said Palmer, “he stood up for American cooks in the beginning.” “You learn the correct way to work,” observed chef Stephan Kopf, formerly of Tavern on the Green, “How to work together, how to be organized, how to produce, just from A to Z.”

“Jack” Rachou taught a group of young American chefs fresh out of culinary school how to work as an organized team, control costs, and run a world-class restaurant. They started making puff pastry, boning quail, crushing bones for stock, and cleaning the kitchen. Michael Handal had just graduated from the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY, when he started at the soufflé station. “We were making a minimum of 200 soufflés each night, fresh to order — easily 250 on the weekends — as well as tuiles, petits fours, marzipan, etc.”

After Handal was promoted to garde manger, where butchering was among the responsibilities, he would get “full, primal cuts of animals — not just vacuum-sealed veal loin, but a huge cut, covered in layers of fat and simply wrapped with cheesecloth.” 

When Jean-Jacques called out the orders to the kitchen in his heavily accented English, he sounded like an auctioneer. “He would order like a maniac, and you would have to get it out and organized yourself — it was a matter of survival,” said Rick Moonen. “We worked together on the line, it was total synchronization and he loved us! Just as it was getting out of control, and [we] couldn’t keep up any longer, Jean-Jacques would give you one of his little half-smiles, just a slight one, and wink.”   

“They get the classic cuisine and the principles, and they were very, very, very, very willing to learn,” said Rachou. “They were good to me. I was strong with them.” Sometimes, like my martial arts teacher, Rickson Gracie (who once nearly choked me unconscious for struggling while escaping his headlock) Rachou taught his charges the hard way if they failed to meet his expectations. “Busy lunch — 300, 350 covers. All of a sudden you hear this scream and here comes the Chef down the stairs with a tray,” remembered Charlie Palmer, “with four chickens lined up on the tray. ‘You assholes!’”

“And he throws them!” added Neil Murphy. “I learned a new dish, it was called ‘duck.’” Just as I never struggled to get out of another headlock again, Murphy never served another undercooked chicken. “After that, you learn. You make sure you … check! You got to touch, you got to look, you got to smell, you got to really work with the food,” continued Murphy. “I never served a medium-rare chicken after that. I never embarrassed him like that either. That’s how you learn.”

Today the La Côte Basque alumni include Daniel Boulud, Waldy Malouf, Todd English, Charlie Palmer, Stephan Kopf, Rick Moonen, Charles Tutino, Ali Barker, Neil Murphy, and many others. “The morning shift you had Rick Moonan, Charles Palmer. At night it was Henry Mir, Todd English, myself,” recalled Bruce Egdahl, now executive chef at Round Hill Country Club in Greenwich, CT. “It was a pretty good crew. We were a busy restaurant and Monsieur Rachou is the papa.” 

Despite the amazing food and impeccable service, by the late 1990s, La Côte Basque was at a crossroads, and Rachou knew it. Not only were many of his longtime patrons dying, so was the formal French dining experience. “I think you'll see less and less of grand dining on this level. Before, parents used to take children to good restaurants so they could learn,” Rachou told The New York Times, “Where do they take them today? People don't want to dress up today.” Although he was trying to attract younger patrons, their moderation baffled him. “They split appetizers?” he said to me with a Gallic shrug.

I first went to La Côte Basque in the late 1990s with Didier Rachou, Jean-Jacques’s music-composer son, his wife Lucy, and my fiancee Annabelle Lee. The restaurant was packed with a well-dressed, older crowd, and they took notice when Didier was treated like Henry Hill at the Copacabana in Goodfellas. There were no empty tables, but as we approached the dining room, a squad of servers emerged from the back with a table, chairs, linen, and silverware and set the table with the speed and precision of a Marine Color Guard.

Over the next three hours, I enjoyed the best meal I had ever eaten in New York City. Unlike many restaurants in the 1990s, the food, not the scene, was the main attraction. The maître d'hôtel, captain, and servers were unobtrusive and the service was seamless. Not one of these middle-aged European men aspired to be actors, and it showed as they effortlessly boned fish, carved roast chickens, decanted wine, and anticipated their guests’ every whim. Toward the end of our dinner, Jean-Jacques emerged from the kitchen. With his trademark pencil mustache, custom-tailored blazer, and shirt, he cut a very dashing figure. After he kissed the women’s hands, he shook mine. He could tell that my compliments about his food were sincere and encouraged me to bring my business associates to his restaurant. Very selectively, I did.

While I would like to think it was my bad present-tense French and scintillating wit that forged my friendship with Jean-Jacques Rachou, it was really my enormous appetite. The only people I invited to join me at La Côte Basque were those without food fetishes who were prepared to eat and drink their fill.

I was coming to the end of a long run as a bachelor. For decades, my energy went into my scholarship, martial arts training, and aquatics (swimming and surfing). Most of the time, I ate and drank very moderately. However, if I were going to break training, I would put on a jacket and tie and head to La Côte Basque. I and my guest usually started at the bar. I always ordered a vodka tonic. Like any good bar, the glass had only ice, a lime slice, and a generous pour of vodka in it. A small bottle of tonic water accompanied the glass so I could mix my drink according to taste. Once our table was ready, the tuxedoed maître d’ would lead us into the dining room and seat us. A server would follow us with our drinks if we had not finished them.

Next, we would order. Just before the meal arrived, a cold bottle of Pouilly-Fuissé or some other excellent white wine would arrive at the table. “This is from Chef,” our server would say with a smile. My first course was salmon, smoked on the premises, with perfect toast points, minced red onions, capers, and lemon. If they offered oysters, I had a dozen because I knew that they were the best in the city. Resting on a bed of crushed ice, the muscle was always cut neatly from the shell. Never once was I served one with a hacked mantle, heart, or stomach. The mignonette sauce was little more than red wine vinegar, ground black pepper, and chopped shallots, and it was always perfect.

After we finished our starters and the plates were cleared, our server would walk over to our table with an excellent Latour — also a gift from the kitchen.  If it was on the menu, my main course was always venison grand veneur. The roasted lean meat was served medium-rare with a rich, dark sauce made from pheasant stock, red wine, and cream. If there was no venison, then it was Dover sole, sautéed simply and deboned tableside. Dessert was always a chocolate soufflé, ordered in advance, and served hot. When the server brought it to the table, he dented the top and put a dollop of homemade whipped cream in the crease. Although the next day usually began in the sauna at Columbia University with a stack of newspapers, trying to sweat out the night’s excesses, it was always worth it.

Over long, luxurious dinners in the banquette against the wall beneath Bernard Lamotte’s mural of Saint-Jean-de-Luz, I discussed terrorism cases with criminal defense attorney Andy Patel, lambasted the human rights industry with writer David Rieff, compared notes on the Khmer Rouge with war crimes investigator Craig Etcheson, talked about whatever book I was writing with my editor Peter Dimock, and lamented the death of newspapers with my Newsday editor Spencer Rumsey.

The most memorable meal I had there was with my father, the late Rob Maguire. In the late 1940s, my dad lived in Israel while his father, the chief pilot for Operation Ali Baba and Operation Magic Carpet, flew refugees into the country. After my grandfather remarried in 1948, he shipped my dad off to a boarding school in Paris. My dad rarely attended. Instead, Rob studied in the jazz clubs of St. Germain, Pigalle’s maisons closes, and even sampled the good life in Nice with a classmate who was a French nobleman. As my father and I were finishing our chocolate soufflés, Jean-Jacques came out from the kitchen and poured each of us a glass of rare Calvados. As the two men talked, they were transported back to the postwar France of their youth.

Shortly thereafter, it all suddenly ended. I got married, moved away, and started a family. Sadly, La Côte Basque closed for good in 2004, and several years later, Jean-Jacques retired. Thank you, Jean-Jacques, for so generously introducing me, my friends, and my family to Escoffier’s “tasteful simplicity.” I will always remember this long-lost time, before Wi-Fi and selfies invaded the dining room, and there was a consensus — from Marie-Antoine Carême to Rachou — that Escoffier put it best when he said: “Every meal was a ceremony and a celebration.” 

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Most people walk into a steakhouse obsessing over ribeye versus New York strip. But the conversation should start with the grade. USDA Prime represents roughly the top 2% of all beef produced in the United States. Choice is solid. Select is what you’re getting at the supermarket and pretending you didn’t notice.

The difference is marbling, which is just a polite word for intramuscular fat. More marbling means more flavor, more juice, more of everything you showed up for. A Choice ribeye will always lose to a Prime strip.

“People come in and say they want the leanest cut, then wonder why it doesn’t taste like what they had last time, when it was a steak with amazing fat marbling,” says David DiSalvo, executive chef at Bowery Meat Company. “But the fat is the flavor. That’s not an opinion. That’s just how it works.”

A Quick Guide to Cuts

Ribeye. Heavily marbled and rich, almost buttery when it’s cooked right. The spinalis (that outer cap of fat and muscle) is genuinely one of the best bites of beef on the planet. If your steakhouse serves a tomahawk, that’s a ribeye on the bone with a long frenched rib.

New York Strip. Firmer than a ribeye, with a thick cap of fat running along one side. This is the steak for people who want flavor but also want to feel like they’re eating actual meat, not beef butter. A strip tells you more about the quality of the restaurant than almost any other cut because there’s less marbling to hide behind.

Filet Mignon. Tender, yes. Flavorful, not especially. It comes from the tenderloin, a muscle that does almost no work, which is why it has the texture of a cloud and the beefy depth of one, too. Great steakhouses will compensate with a serious sear and maybe a bone marrow butter.

Porterhouse and T Bone. Same cut, different sizes. You’re getting a strip on one side of the bone and a filet on the other. The porterhouse just has a larger filet portion. It’s the best of both worlds if you genuinely can’t decide and also don’t mind paying for two steaks at once.

Hanger. The butcher’s cut. There’s only one per animal, which is why you don’t see it everywhere. Loose-grained, deeply beefy, and best at medium rare or below. DiSalvo calls it “the most underappreciated cut in the case. It eats like a ribeye at half the attitude.”

Dry Aged vs. Wet Aged: The Argument That Never Ends

Wet aging is simple. The beef sits in its own juices in a vacuum-sealed bag for a few weeks. It gets more tender. It tastes like very good beef.

Dry aging is a commitment. The beef hangs in a controlled environment, losing moisture over weeks (sometimes months), while enzymes break down the muscle. The result is concentrated, funky, almost nutty. A 45-day dry-aged ribeye tastes nothing like a fresh one. It tastes like beef that went to graduate school.

Most serious steakhouses dry-age in-house. If they do, they’ll tell you. Loudly.

The Temperature Conversation

Order what you want. But know this: rare to medium rare (120°F to 135°F internal) is where you get the fullest expression of what that cut actually is. Past medium, you’re essentially cooking out everything that made it worth the price.

A good kitchen will also let the steak rest before it hits your table. If it arrives in a pool of liquid, it hasn’t rested. That’s not juice on your plate. That’s money.

Table Tip

Ask your server what the aging program looks like. Ask if they butcher in-house. Ask where the beef comes from. Good steakhouses love these questions. Bad ones change the subject. And if you see a cut you don’t recognize, order it. That’s usually where the kitchen is showing off, and showing off at a steakhouse is almost always worth your time.

The OTH Five: NYC Steakhouses Worth Your Time

These are the spots we keep going back to, each for a completely different reason. If you’re serious about steak in this city, start here.

Keens Steakhouse

72 West 36th Street, Midtown
Reserve on Resy

Open since 1885. Ninety thousand clay pipes hanging from the ceiling. A collection of Americana on the walls that could fill a small museum. Keens is the steakhouse that every other steakhouse in this city is quietly trying to live up to, and almost none of them do. The porterhouse is outstanding, but you came here for the mutton chop, and you know it. Thick, almost absurdly tender, served with mint jelly that somehow doesn’t feel like a relic. The single malt scotch collection alone is worth a visit. This is old New York, the real kind, not the kind someone decorated to look that way.

Order this: The mutton chop. Always the mutton chop. Prime rib — King’s Cut — if you’re feeling reckless.

COTE Korean Steakhouse

16 West 22nd Street, Flatiron
Reserve on Resy

Simon Kim built something that shouldn’t work on paper: a Michelin-starred Korean barbecue restaurant that also functions as a legitimate high-end steakhouse. Smokeless Japanese grills are set into every table. There’s a dry aging room visible from the dining floor. The wine list runs past 1,200 labels. The Butcher’s Feast is the move for first timers, a prix fixe parade of USDA Prime and American Wagyu that the kitchen grills tableside.

Order this: The Butcher’s Feast. Don’t overthink it.

Bowery Meat Company

9 East 1st Street, East Village
Reserve on Resy

Bowery Meat is the steakhouse for people who find most steakhouses a little boring. The room is moody and downtown without trying too hard. The cocktail program is genuinely good, and the menu wanders beyond the standard porterhouse playbook into territory that most traditional houses wouldn’t touch. The 40oz porterhouse is the anchor, and it’s excellent, but the octopus appetizer, the hash browns (crispy, shattered, almost potato rosti territory), and the bread pudding dessert are the things people actually can’t stop talking about. This is a New York Times two-star Critics’ Pick running out of a space that feels more like a great downtown restaurant that happens to serve incredible beef.

Order this: Porterhouse for the table. Hash browns, no debate. Bread pudding to close.

Carne Mare

89 South Street, Pier 17, Seaport
Reserve on Resy

Andrew Carmellini’s Italian chophouse is doing something none of the other spots on this list are doing: making you forget you’re eating at a steakhouse. The space, designed by Martin Brudnizki, is two stories of Tuscan leather, Venetian mirrors, and views of the East River and the Brooklyn Bridge that genuinely stop conversation. The menu opens with oysters, carpaccio, and Sorrento arancini before it even gets to the beef. And when it does, the gorgonzola-cured Wagyu strip is unlike anything else in the city.

Order this: Octopus carpaccio to start. The gorgonzola-cured Wagyu strip. Tableside salad, because the theater of it is half the fun.

Hawksmoor

109 East 22nd Street, Gramercy
Reserve on Resy

The London import that quietly became one of the best steakhouses in the city. Hawksmoor does things simply and does them extremely well. All-natural beef from family farms across the Northeast, cooked over charcoal with nothing more than sea salt. No truffle butter. No wagyu flights. Just really, really good steak in a room with vaulted ceilings, stained glass, and emerald leather booths that make you feel like you wandered into a very expensive gentleman’s library.

Order this: Bone-in prime rib or the porterhouse. Peppercorn sauce.

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New York has never had more great cocktail bars. The problem actually isn’t finding them — it’s knowing which ones are worth fighting for a reservation. This list cuts through the noise: five bars that are legitimately world-class, each with a distinct identity, each earning its praise through the drinks and not the hype.

1. Double Chicken Please

GN Chan and Faye Chen’s Lower East Side marvel is the bar that rewrote the rulebook. Two rooms, two worlds: the casual front room (Free Range) pours kegged cocktails on tap, while The Coop's sleek, candlelit, intimate serves mind-bending cocktails modeled on dishes. Think Key Lime Pie and Cold Pizza, but in glass form. Ranked #1 in North America and #2 globally in 2023, the daily queue down Allen Street says everything.

Must order: French Toast or Key Lime Pie cocktail

Insider tip: Book The Coop specifically. Reservations drop on Resy at midnight, exactly six days in advance. Set an alarm. Over 70% of seating is walk-in only, so arriving right at opening is your other best bet.

#1 North America’s 50 Best Bars 2023. #2 World’s 50 Best Bars 2023. Reserve on Resy

2. Overstory

Sixty-four floors above the Financial District, Overstory is the city’s most dramatically situated bar, and somehow the drinks match the view. Just 28 seats inside a jewel-box space, with a 360° panorama of Manhattan as your backdrop. The cocktail program is restrained, seasonal, and exceptional. Perched a floor above the Michelin-starred Saga restaurant, it’s one of those rare places that actually lives up to the hype. Come for the skyline, stay for the craft. A $75-per-person minimum keeps things serious.

Must order: Whatever’s seasonal, trust the bartender completely.

Insider tip: Walk-ins are common and encouraged. Show up early on a weeknight, and you’ll likely get a seat. Summer terrace reservations open for parties of 4–8, and those views are worth planning ahead.

#7 North America’s 50 Best Bars 2023. Reserve on Resy

3. Superbueno

Nacho Jimenez’s Mexican-American bar is loud, red-lit, and genuinely joyful: a rare combination in a city that often mistakes somber for sophisticated. The salted plum and tamarind milk punch (Bon Appétit’s favorite drink of 2024) is the kind of cocktail that makes you reconsider everything you thought you knew about flavor. Jimenez took home the 2025 James Beard Award for Outstanding Professional in Cocktail Service. The bar earned every bit of it.

Must order: Salted Plum & Tamarind Milk Punch

Insider tip: It gets loud and buzzy on weekends, which is half the fun. Weeknights feel more intimate, and you’ll actually get to talk to the bartenders, which is worth doing.

James Beard Award 2025 Outstanding Professional in Cocktail Service. Reserve on Resy

4. Katana Kitten

Masa Urushido’s West Village bar is the platonic ideal of the Japanese-American cocktail bar: highballs on draft, yuzu spritzes, umami-laced creations, and a buzzy izakaya energy that keeps things from ever feeling precious. The retro J-pop decor is genuinely fun, the bar staff is world-class, and the Hinoki Martini — vodka, gin, fino sherry, junmai daiginjo, and hinoki tree essence — is unlike anything else in the city.

Must order: Highball on draft or the Hinoki Martini

Insider tip: Grab a spot downstairs at the bar if you can — the energy there is electric. Great for solo drinkers and dates alike.

#3 North America’s 50 Best Bars 2023 · #9 World’s 50 Best Bars 2022. Reserve on Resy.

5. Bar Snack

Don’t let the name fool you, Bar Snack is not casual. Time Out named it the #1 bar in New York City in early 2026, and it earned that distinction with matcha mint frozens, salad Negronis, and a Spirited Awards nomination for Best New Cocktail Bar. The snacks are genuinely great: pickle-dusted cheese curds, and a Spice Bag hiding chicken tenders, fries, and curry sauce inside packaging printed with a Spice Girls-style logo. Only opened in November 2024, it already feels like a New York classic.

Must order: Matcha Mint Frozen or the Salad Negroni

Insider tip: No reservations needed, just show up. Arrive early on weekends to skip the wait. This one rewards the spontaneous visitor.

Time Out NYC’s #1 Bar, 2026 · Spirited Awards Best New Cocktail Bar Finalist. Walk-ins only.

You showed up. You waited a little. Maybe you got lucky.

A table opened because someone finished early. A bartender slid two stools together. A host looked at the room, did some mental math, and said, “Give me fifteen minutes.”

Dinner was never supposed to be perfectly organized.

It was supposed to move.

New York’s restaurant culture grew out of that motion. You finished work late, texted a friend, and wandered somewhere. Some nights you landed somewhere incredible. Other nights you ended up at a late-night dumpling spot because everything else was slammed.

That unpredictability was the ecosystem.

What most people are noticing now is that the ecosystem is changing.

Dining rooms across New York are no longer shaped primarily by the host stand. They are shaped by software weeks before the first customer walks through the door. Platforms like Resy and OpenTable map the floor in advance. Every table gets assigned a time slot. Every seat gets priced according to demand. Every reservation becomes a predicted revenue block.

From a restaurant’s perspective the system makes sense.

Margins in hospitality are brutal. Empty seats are expensive. If software can help forecast demand, reduce no-shows, and maximize turnover, operators are going to use it.

But technology rarely stops at solving the problem it was built to fix.

Reservation platforms did not simply help restaurants manage traffic. They reorganized how access to dining works in the city.

In the old system, demand happened inside the room.

A restaurant might look full at seven and wide open at nine. A cancellation created opportunity. A bar seat turned into dinner. The host stand functioned like an air-traffic controller, constantly adjusting the room in real time.

Today demand happens before service even starts.

When reservations open online, the dining room is effectively sold hours or days in advance. The algorithm allocates the seats. By the time the doors unlock, the software already decided who gets to eat there.

The person walking down the block hungry is no longer part of the equation.

The winners in this system are planners.

They set alarms for reservation drops. They refresh apps the moment tables release. They subscribe to cancellation alerts and race to grab the opening before someone else does.

The losers are the people who used to define New York dining culture.

The walk-ins.

For decades walk-ins were not an inconvenience. They were the backbone of the room. Bars existed for them. Small tables existed for them. Restaurants expected that a certain percentage of the night would arrive through the door rather than through a booking system.

That flow created the accidental energy that made restaurants feel alive.

You waited next to strangers. Someone recommended a dish. A bartender overheard a conversation and sent something over. The couple next to you told you about a place three blocks away that was even better.

Those moments cannot be programmed.

When the entire dining room becomes pre-allocated inventory, the restaurant stops behaving like a social organism and starts behaving like a logistics system.

And the experience changes.

Dinner begins to feel less like a night out and more like navigating a schedule. You get an alert. You confirm the slot. You show up at exactly the assigned time. Ninety minutes later the system turns the table and moves the next group in.

Efficient. Predictable. Slightly sterile.

Restaurants did not choose this culture intentionally. They followed incentives. If the reservation grid increases revenue stability, it becomes difficult for operators to reject it.

But the consequences ripple outward.

Reservation culture compresses attention toward a small cluster of restaurants. Once tables become scarce, everyone chases the same handful of places appearing on social media feeds and “best of” lists. The result is artificial scarcity in a city with thousands of restaurants.

You see it every week.

Reservation drops behave like sneaker releases. Apps crash. Tables disappear in seconds. Bots scrape cancellations. People trade notifications like concert tickets.

Meanwhile the neighborhood restaurant down the street still has open seats.

The irony is that the restaurants that tend to last twenty years rarely surrender completely to the grid. They protect bar seats. They leave space for regulars. They keep a few tables off the system.

Not because they hate technology. Because they understand what the software does not. Restaurants are not simply revenue machines. They are social infrastructure.

New York built its food culture on movement. The ability to wander through a neighborhood and discover somewhere unexpected is part of the city’s DNA. Some of the best restaurants in the city built their reputation because people stumbled into them by accident.

Reservation culture slowly flips that model.

Instead of discovering restaurants while moving through the city, people now scroll through apps waiting for openings. Instead of wandering into dinner, they chase alerts.

The city becomes more scheduled and less lived in.

This shift also changes who participates in restaurant culture.

Access now favors diners who have time to track reservation drops, flexibility to plan weeks ahead, and constant phone access to chase cancellations. The system quietly filters out the late-shift worker, the spontaneous friend group, and the person who simply decides at eight-thirty that they want to go eat.

The algorithm does not recognize those differences.

It only recognizes inventory.

None of this means reservation platforms should disappear. Restaurants need tools to manage demand. Technology solved real operational problems inside an industry that already struggles with profitability.

But when the tool becomes the authority running the room, something essential disappears.

The restaurants that still feel like New York almost always leave cracks in the system. They protect bar seating. They hold tables for the neighborhood. They allow the unexpected customer to exist.

Those decisions are not inefficient.

They are cultural maintenance.

Because once a city loses the ability to walk around hungry and find somewhere to eat, it loses something deeper.

New York was never supposed to run on reservation alerts.

It was supposed to run on people.

This story was originally published on March 11th in New York Eats Here. Marc Shalma is a 20-year NYC hospitality veteran and the editor-in-chief of We Eat Here: Food culture from the operator's view.

What makes the ultimate club sandwich?

It’s a very personal subject. Not unlike lasagna, barbecue, and Bloody Marys, it’s purely subjective — a recipe to which countless people have claimed authority. White or wheat? Turkey or chicken? Open or closed? As with any recipe, there is no right answer, only what you prefer. Here’s my favorite: an adaptation of the sandwich we offer on the room-service menu for guests at the Trump International Hotel, inspired by the flavors of Thailand.

Like any much-heralded recipe, the origins of the club are a little fuzzy, but we can thank the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis for introducing it to the public at large. The sandwich’s early fans championed its complete-meal benefits — meat, bread, mayo, and veggies claim four of the basic food groups (though mayo is hardly an ideal source for dairy). I added avocado and an egg to give it an Eastern appeal.

Remember, though, it’s the layering that defines a club sandwich; the ingredients depend on the cravings of its creator. Just don’t forget to add toothpicks.

Ingredients

• 3 slices sourdough bread

• 8 oz skinless, boneless chicken, pounded thin

• Mayonnaise

• 3 slices bacon (2 oz)

• ¼ avocado, sliced

• 1 large romaine lettuce leaf

• 4 slices tomato

• 1 egg, cooked over easy

Method

Toast bread. Season and grill chicken. Spread mayonnaise on each slice of toast. Then add the following to the first slice:

First Layer

• Chicken

• Bacon

• Avocado

Then, cover with the second slice of bread and add:

Second Layer

• Lettuce

• Tomato

• Egg

Top with the final piece of bread. Press sandwich down firmly, then skewer toothpicks into each corner. Cut on the diagonal, twice, to create four triangles.

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To the uninitiated, a frittata is nothing more than a failed omelette. But what Americans call an omelette is accurately a “French omelette,” while the frittata is its unfolded, Italian counterpart and arguably the better one.

Why do we praise the frittata? Because it’s an infinitely flexible recipe: easy to prepare and update season to season. It can be served warm or cold, for breakfast or dinner, with tinned corn or truffles. The frittata can be high- or low-brow, and it never judges you for it.

Since eggs cool quickly, serving en cocette benefits both presentation and taste. As the protein base of the dish that breaks apart and re-bonds, the egg melds with the ingredients which makes timing crucial. Don’t fold the frittata in half like the French omelette. Rather, allow the dish to heat until nearly solid, then, as it nears completion, move it to the oven or broiler and let the top achieve a crispy finish. Then it’s ready to serve.

Below are two versions from Jean-Georges Vongerichten one a classic spring combination, the other a study in simplicity. Jet off to the greenmarket or rummage through the crisper. Either way, you’ll have dinner on the table in under 20 minutes.

Frittata of Black Trumpet Mushroom and Asparagus

Makes one hearty serving

Ingredients

• ½ cup black trumpet mushrooms, several heads

• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

• ½ cup shallots, chopped

• 3 cloves garlic, chopped

• ½ cup parsley, chopped

• ½ cup chives, chopped

• ¼ cup Parmesan cheese, grated

• 4 asparagus spears — cut 2” tips and the 2” section just below

• Asparagus tips, 2”, pre-cooked

• 2 eggs

• Salt and pepper, to taste

Method

Heat olive oil in a medium sauté pan. Add shallots and garlic. Toss in mushrooms and cook through. Add parsley and chives. In a separate bowl, beat 2 eggs seasoned with salt and pepper. Add to a heated pan with olive oil and cook until firm. Garnish the top with Parmesan and asparagus tips. Finish under the broiler or in the oven until the top is golden and set.

Frittata of Zucchini and Basil

Makes one hearty serving

Ingredients

• 1 medium, firm zucchini

• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

• 3 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped

• ½ cup basil, finely chopped

• 2 eggs

• ½ cup Parmesan cheese, grated

• Salt and pepper, to taste

Method

Cut zucchini into quarters lengthwise, remove the seeds, then chop on an angle about ¼” thick. Heat olive oil in a medium flat pan. Add zucchini and garlic and sauté until lightly browned. Add basil, salt, and pepper. Beat eggs, season with salt and pepper, and mix together with the zucchini. Cook until firm. Add additional zucchini for garnish and top with Parmesan and fresh basil. Finish under the broiler or in the oven until set.

Originally published in CITY, February 2005. Photography by Mary Ellen Bartley.

Somewhere along the line, a rumor took hold: Don’t eat sushi on Monday. It’s treated like insider gospel, as if chefs spend Sunday letting their fish fade. But talk to anyone who actually works in a serious sushi kitchen, and you’ll hear the opposite. The myth hinges on a mistaken idea that “fresh” means “caught yesterday.” Accurate? Not even close.

Start at Sea

Take premium bluefin tuna. These fish aren’t hauled in at dawn and rushed to a chef by sunset. A single high-grade tuna might be caught far offshore and kept aboard for several days under tightly controlled temperatures. This isn’t corner-cutting—it’s essential. Tuna needs time for rigor mortis to pass and the flesh to relax, develop texture, and settle into the quality sushi chefs want. Freshness isn’t measured in hours. It’s measured in handling.

Then the Real Journey Begins

When the boat finally lands, the tuna moves through expert graders, wholesalers, and global auctions before flying to cities around the world. It’s broken down, repacked, sometimes frozen at ultra-low temperatures, and eventually delivered to your local sushi bar.

From hook to nigiri, even the finest tuna often takes 5–10 days to reach a restaurant. In the right hands, that timeline isn’t a flaw—it’s the reason the fish tastes the way it does. The Irony? Monday is perfectly safe.

Here’s the real industry rhythm:

• Quality suppliers deliver multiple times a week, not just before weekends.

• Cold-chain logistics are highly reliable and built for consistency.

• Reputable sushi bars know exactly when and how every fish was harvested and handled.

So no, you’re not getting “old fish” on Monday. You’re getting product sourced through a global network that operates continuously, not around a weekend market schedule. Japan has long understood that fish often improves with controlled aging.

Snapper? Commonly rested a day or two. Mackerel? Salted and vinegared. Tuna? Allowed to settle for optimal texture and flavor. Many of the best sushi bites you’ve ever had weren’t “same-day” fresh—they were prepared with time and intention.

So, can you eat sushi on Monday? If the restaurant is reputable, absolutely. Quality sushi doesn’t depend on the calendar; it depends on expertise, sourcing, temperature control, and respect for the ingredient.

The Final Cut

The Monday myth misunderstands how the sushi world works. Great sushi is the product of technique, not timing. Eat it whenever you want. The fish has traveled far, been handled meticulously, and become its best self — Monday included.

The humble egg might be the simplest thing in your kitchen, yet few ingredients spark more aisle-side confusion. You’ve been there: staring at the cartons, wondering if brown means “better,” white means “cheaper,” and blue means “I’m about to overpay at a farmers market.”

The truth is simple: shell color is about genetics, not nutrition. As long as the hens are raised the same way and eat the same feed, a white egg, a brown egg, and a blue egg are nutritionally the same. The drama is mostly in our heads, not in the carton.

The Color Question

Shell color comes down to breed. White-feathered hens like White Leghorns typically lay white eggs. Reddish birds such as Rhode Island Reds lay brown. Breeds like Araucanas and Ameraucanas lay blue or green eggs thanks to a pigment that’s deposited as the shell forms.

That pigment only touches the shell. It doesn’t change what’s inside. Large reviews and USDA guidance all land on the same point: there is no meaningful nutritional advantage to one shell color over another.

So why the myth that brown is “healthier”? Brown-egg layers are often bigger birds that eat more feed, which pushes up production costs and price. You’re mostly paying for the bird, not a better nutrient profile.

Taste follows the same logic. Shell color doesn’t affect flavor; freshness, diet, and handling do. A fresh white egg from a well-kept hen will taste better than a tired brown egg that’s been sitting in the back of the fridge.

And blue or green eggs? They may look special, but nutritionally they’re in the same league. Claims that they’re dramatically lower in cholesterol or uniquely “super” haven’t held up in research.

Myths We Can Retire

• “Brown eggs are healthier.”
  Not on their own. Color tells you breed, not nutrient content. Unless you change how the hen lives and what she eats, brown and white eggs are functionally the same food.

• “Color affects taste.”
  In blind tastings, people can’t reliably tell brown from white. What they can pick up is age and diet: fresher eggs and hens with access to better forage tend to give richer flavor and more vivid yolks.

• “Blue eggs are a nutritional upgrade.”
  They look great in an Instagram flat lay, but there’s no solid evidence they’re inherently more nutritious than other eggs from hens raised the same way.

What Does Make an Egg Exceptional

If color’s a red herring, what actually separates an average egg from a great one?

• Hen diet and access to the outdoors
  When hens are truly pasture-raised, with real access to grass and bugs plus a decent base feed, their eggs often show higher levels of omega-3 fats and certain vitamins (particularly A, E, and D), along with deeper-colored yolks. Multiple controlled studies comparing pastured flocks to standard commercial systems have found these kinds of differences.

• Specialized feed
  Feed enriched with omega-3 sources (like flax or fish oil) can push omega-3 levels up regardless of shell color or label. Same story for other nutrients: tweak the diet, tweak the egg.

• Farming system and labels
  “Organic” mainly speaks to how the feed is grown and what’s not allowed (certain pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, GM crops, routine antibiotics), plus basic access-to-outdoors rules. Some studies suggest organic or higher-welfare systems can shift aspects of the nutrient profile, but the differences are modest and not nearly as dramatic or consistent as the marketing implies.

• Freshness
  Fresh eggs hold their shape better, taste cleaner, and are the real driver in any “this one tasted better” anecdote.

So yes, a fresh white egg from a genuinely pasture-raised flock can absolutely “beat” a brown egg from a cramped indoor system on both taste and certain nutrients. That’s about how the hen lived, not what color ended up on the shell.

Crack the Right Code

Pick whatever shell color you like looking at, but don’t use it as a health proxy. If you care about nutrition and flavor, focus on:

• how the hens were raised (pasture access, real outdoor time)

• what they were fed (especially if you want higher omega-3s)

• and how fresh the eggs are

The best eggs come from the best conditions, not the prettiest shells.

Seahorse

Just after its 5 pm opening last Wednesday night, I claimed one of the few empty seats at the vibrant central bar of the reborn W Union Square’s new restaurant, Seahorse. Sunlight poured in through slats on the west- and south-facing windows, drenching the room in a dreamy autumnal late-afternoon glow. Waiting for a friend, I watched the light chase itself across the bar into the adjacent dining room, which was also about to come alive.

Around the turn of the century, this restaurant space housed Olives, the first New York City restaurant from Boston wunderkind chef Todd English. Believe me when I tell you: in its early years, Olives was a cool power center that balanced the perennially hot Blue Water Grill on Union Square’s west side. Olives shuttered in 2014, Blue Water Grill in 2019, and with the loss of Coffee Shop around the same time, Union Square itself lost its luster as a dining (and drinking) destination.

Seahorse changes that. It’s impossible not to think of Soho classic Lure Fishbar when stepping inside, and not just because they both put seafood at the center of the menu and share longtime restaurateur John McDonald as owner and impresario. But the restaurants are not twins.

There’s no sushi at Seahorse, for one, though a sizable oyster bar, clad in blue tiles that evoke mermaid scales, anchors the far side of the bright, airy dining room. There’s also that sunlight, which helps give the room — crowned by a whimsical seafaring mural — a light, airy feel, distinct from Lure’s below-deck vibes.

At a preview dinner at Seahorse a few weeks earlier, I went deep on chef John Villa’s relatively straightforward menu, starting with a platter of Kumamoto, Oishii, and Beau Soleil oysters, proffered with individualized relishes for each. A trio of crudos was served simply and properly with salt and abundant olive oil, while Skull Island prawns, drenched in Calabrian chili, brought the heat. Main courses upped the wow factor, with seared tuna au poivre (accompanied by perfect McDonald ’s-style fries) and Dover sole, a platonic ideal of the dish, artfully filleted at a tableside cart and doused in Meuniere. (The turf options include roasted duck a l’orange and Amish farm chicken.)

Back at the bar last week with my just-arrived friend, sipping a house white Negroni and eating a bar snack of Maine lobster on brioche toast — an open-faced lobster roll, delightful — I couldn’t help but feel that New York City needed this once-vibrant corner of the city to come back to life. Yes, there’s a passageway at the back of the bar into the W hotel lobby. And yes, hotel guests make up part of the clientele (shoutout to the two women from Seattle sitting next to us at the bar watching the ALDS on their iPad).

But Seahorse is also an instantly cool new New York City destination, for a power dinner or just a quick drink, right where we always needed it. –Lockhart Steele

→ Seahorse (Union Square) • 201 Park Avenue South • Reserve.

Restaurant Rush, Fall 2025

• Unglo (Upper West Side), Thai barbecue in former Picholine space, reserve

• Danny’s (Flatiron, above top), ABC legal analyst Dan Abrams’ clubhouse for media friends and more, reserve

• La Boca (Chelsea), Argentine chef Francis Mallmann’s first NYC spot, for food charred on plancha at new Faena NY, intel, reserve

• Seahorse (Union Square), upscale seafood spot grabs pole position at remade W Union Square, intel above, reserve

• Wild Cherry (West Village), Le Rock’s Riad Nasr and Lee Hanson take over restaurant at Cherry Lane Theater, reserve

• Cove (Hudson Square), chef Flynn McGarry’s new spot, for 8-course tasting menu ($210 per) or à la carte, reserve

• Muku (Tribeca), Sushi Ichimura reborn as kaiseki-inspired 10-course counter, $295 per, intel, reserve

• Barbuto Brooklyn (Brooklyn Heights, above), chef Jonathan Waxman takes his West Village classic to 1Hotel Brooklyn Bridge, reserve

• Bar Lumière (Columbia St. Waterfront), New American cooking from Junoon vet, plus wines by Andre Mack, reserve

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Soho has changed a lot over the years. The cobblestones and cast-iron facades are still there, but the spirit—the mix of creativity, grit, and neighborhood familiarity—feels harder to find. Every once in a while, I think about the places that gave Soho its pulse. These five spots weren’t just restaurants or bars—they were part of the fabric of downtown life, each unforgettable in its own way.

1. Jerry’s on Prince Street
Opened in 1987, Jerry’s was the definition of a Soho institution. A place where artists, locals, and downtown regulars gathered for breakfast or lunch long before brunch was a “thing” in Soho. Owned by Jerry Joseph, it was a scene without trying to be one, with great daily specials, a strong Bloody Mary, and the sense that everyone knew each other. It captured the unforced neighborhood rhythm that’s hard to find today.

2. Honmura An
Before sushi counters and omakase bars became the norm, Honmura An quietly served hand-cut soba that felt almost spiritual. The space was minimalist, the food disciplined, and the owner’s dedication to Japanese craftsmanship unmatched. It was the kind of restaurant that slowed you down, a reminder that true hospitality can exist in restraint.

3. MercBar
My first venture, MercBar, opened in 1993 and became one of Soho’s longest-running and most iconic nightlife spots (opinion). Hidden behind an unmarked door on Mercer Street, it was warm, candle-lit, and quietly electric, a place where the fashion crowd, artists, and downtown insiders crossed paths night after night. For over two decades, it stood the test of time until the building was finally demolished.

4. Dean & DeLuca on Broadway
Dean & DeLuca wasn’t just a gourmet market; it was a classroom for taste. The marble counters, the coffee bar, the gleaming produce, it made everyday ingredients feel luxurious. For many of us, it was where we learned what olive oil, prosciutto, and French butter actually tasted like. Its loss left a real hole in Soho’s food identity.

5. Kelly & Ping on Greene Street
Part market, part noodle house, part design statement, Kelly & Ping was decades ahead of its time. The space blended Asian street-food culture with Soho cool in a way that felt effortless. Its open kitchen, communal tables, and inventive menu made it a gathering place for anyone chasing something different before “fusion” became cliché. Thanks to Lee Ping and Brad Kelly.