New York - What's the Big Apple got that no other great American food city has?
Just about everything - and more of everything than anywhere else, its tastemakers will tell you.
“New York has a diversity and depth” rivalled possibly only by London's, says Mimi Sheraton, the author most recently of last year's “1 000 Foods to Eat Before You Die.”
“New Yorkers love the concept of more, more, more,” says Clark Wolf, an influential restaurant consultant with bases in Manhattan and Sonoma County, Calif.
When it comes to restaurants, “New York has a deeper bench of them than any other American city,” says former New York Times food critic Frank Bruni. “It's pure numbers.”
I recognise the city they're all talking about, the metropolis of 8.5 million eaters in five boroughs. As a regular visitor to New York for more than 25 years, I've paid respects to the trailblazers of the times and checked off the cooking of some of the most famous chefs in the country. A cursory roll call might trumpet the Quilted Giraffe, Le Bernardin, the Spotted Pig, Daniel Boulud, Mario Batali, David Chang - followed by at least 100 more names.
New York is a Big Deal. But New York is not all that, 24/7.
I say this having spent 11 days there recently, logging time at nearly 50 restaurants, bars, shops and markets as part of my continuing survey of the 10 best food cities in the country. Libraries of books have been written about what makes Manhattan tick; my mission was to focus on how it stacks up, foodwise, against other destinations. Such a task in a city with more than 45,000 restaurants is, to put it mildly, daunting; in a roundup this month of new restaurants, the New York Times previewed more than 60 fresh faces. So I ate, drank and shopped - high and low; inside luxe dining rooms and outside on dirty streets; in Manhattan and in two other boroughs - to try to make sense of what many consider the greatest show on Earth.
Can we talk about a few things? Like the $700 omakase - for one - at Masa in the Time Warner Centre? I've had better Japanese tasting menus in Denver, with fewer restrictions. (“No photographs,” a hostess warned me on my way to the pale hinoki-wood sushi counter.) The nearly $900 (about R9 000) for two at Eleven Madison Park under chef Daniel Humm? Honestly, the highlight of the night was watching the sommelier open my neighbor's wine using a tong heated over a flame. New Yorkers tend to get pretty excited about even routine Mexican food, perhaps because Mexican isn't one of the market's many strengths. The raves lavished on Cosme, a current darling in the Flatiron District, wouldn't apply to my dinner there and left my companions scratching their heads, as well. And a dinner at Peter Luger Steak House in Brooklyn suggested the icon had seen better days. Everything about the place felt tired, including a waiter who seemed to be sleepwalking and a porterhouse missing its trademark mineral tang. Maybe you have to be a native to love the place.
Or maybe the city that never sleeps should take a restorative nap.
It's dangerous for a writer to jump into a story thinking he knows how it's going to end, and I'll confess that ahead of my time in New York, I figured I'd be using up my annual allotment of exclamation points. New York, after all, claims more awards from the James Beard Foundation than any other city. Michelin inspectors weigh in here. The world comes here to eat and to cook. The rest of the country is reminded of that, constantly, by the critics and editors who call New York home, and by the morning TV network shows that introduce Flyover Country to, say, a cronut.
So perhaps my expectations were a bit high.
And sometimes they were met. I had a fabulous dinner at Jean-Georges, where the hostess let me know I could order anything from the formal dining room even though I was perched in the bar. A lunch of barbecued short ribs and spicy squid at Kang Ho Dong Baekjeong in Koreatown conjured Seoul in every bite (and sight), and despite the ear-splitting noise at Momofuku Noodle Bar in the East Village, I could still hear my companions swoon over David Chang's spicy fried chicken sandwich, secreted in from his new Fuku next door and some of the best fast food of my life. Los Angeles is a month away for me; for now, Sushi Nakazawa in New York serves the finest omakase in the land. Carbone for updated Italian-American? Daniel, even if only for drinks and Frenchy snacks in the hushed lounge? Russ & Daughters, the beloved shop on the Lower East Side, for pastrami-cured salmon and a side of people-watching? I have nothing but happy memories of them all. And munching on a hot dog from Gray's Papaya, amid exhaust fumes and a sea of humanity, I sensed that all seemed right.
You can't mention New York without tawking about Brooklyn, blanketed with dozens of dining rooms that feel like the platonic ideal of a neighborhood restaurant (the models being Franny's and Marlow & Sons) and concepts designed to please millennials (as its name suggests, Heatonist sells hot sauce, period). The rustic Hometown Bar-B-Que in Red Hook bests some of the South's famous pit stops, and my new favorite fusion cuisine may be Jewish-Japanese after eating a grilled Japanese pancake, okonomiyaki, dressed with sauerkraut and pastrami at Shalom Japan.
Other moments during my exploration of New York, I thought that sometimes more is just . . . more.
'Going out to eat is easy'
Food shopping in New York is complicated. On one hand, superior steaks can be carved while you wait at gems such as Florence Prime Meat Market; Fairway Market is sought out for groceries; and every possible spice seems to be in stock at the worldly Kalustyan's. But the weekend farmers markets take a back seat to their counterparts on the West Coast, and some shoppers consider themselves lucky to be able to procure their day-to-day fuel from Whole Foods Market rather than from the neighborhood bodega.
“The secret in New York: The ingredients aren't as good as other places,” says Wolf, the restaurant consultant who might be spoiled by his time in California. He has joked that “if it was grown in Manhattan, scrape it off. If it was grown in Brooklyn, you might want it.” His point: It's a farm-to-table world, and New York's tomatoes are probably “coming in by subway.”
Because of the city's notoriously small home kitchens, a lot of New Yorkers opt to either order in or dine out, says Ruth Reichl, the influential former editor of Gourmet magazine. “This has always been a city that ate out. It's part of the zeitgeist.”
Restaurants swell not just with locals, but also with tourists. (A record 56.4 million visitors dropped by last year.) Dining rooms typically collect “the Japanese at 6, the Americans at 8 and the Spaniards at 10:30,” Reichl says chefs have told her. “That's probably not true of other cities.”
Reliable public transportation, including forthcoming ferry service to the outer boroughs, is another boon for restaurants. “Going out to eat is easy here,” says Reichl. Back when she was the restaurant critic for the Los Angeles Times and Bryan Miller had the job for the New York Times, Reichl would find herself driving home from Malibu thinking, “When Bryan Miller leaves a restaurant, all he has to do is say, “Taxi!' “
Speaking of the Gray Lady, Craig Claiborne, hired as food editor by the Times in 1957, is credited with creating the template for modern-day newspaper food sections. He brought an exactitude to the paper's recipes, travelled the country and the world to report on culinary finds and introduced readers to great cooks who, because of what he had written, became some of the best-known in the business: Marcella Hazan, Diana Kennedy and Julie Sahni. Claiborne applied the same rigor to restaurants when he became a critic and began visiting anonymously, multiple times, paying for the meals and rating them using a star system. Novel at the time, the protocol remains in effect. So does the paper's influence.
When it comes to telling the world about New York, the city's powerful media are “kingmakers,” says the celebrity chef Mario Batali. As a consequence, ambitious chefs flock to New York from around the world, bringing new ingredients and techniques. “The innovation just never stops,” says Danny Meyer, the visionary behind Union Square Hospitality Group and the restaurateur who wrote the book on hospitality, 2007's “Setting the Table.”
The sheer volume of what Meyer calls “gastronauts who eat out for sport in New York” allows for such specialised spots as Superiority Burger, a vegetarian burger joint in the East Village with only six seats and four-hour business days.
More about Brooklyn, the borough that some compare to the Berkeley of yore and that food fans seek out for such local artisanal gems as Mast Brothers chocolate and OddFellows Ice Cream Co.: At some point after 9/11, Meyer says, the cooks and servers living there and commuting to Manhattan discovered they could have successful careers without getting on the subway, even as some of his customers in the city would jest that, for them, “it's easier to go to London or Paris than Brooklyn,” says the restaurateur. It didn't take long for Brooklyn to teach Manhattan a few tricks, some as simple as how to improve a basic green salad. “What we have today is a mixed salad of classic lettuces mixed in with purslane and lamb's quarters that used to be considered weeds by some but are now prized,” Meyer says.
As precious as Brooklyn can be, its hospitality workers could teach Manhattan's a thing or two, too. My server at Marlowe & Sons went over every dish on the menu as if she had cooked the food herself, and a manager at the go-to Middle Eastern bazaar, Sahadi's, gave me a tiny container of the store's superior hummus for free when I merely asked for a sample.
The No. 1 enemy of the restaurant trade: real estate prices, which tend to minimize the number of risk-takers and mom-and-pop shops. In negotiating a new lease for his signature restaurant, Meyer says he “almost renamed Union Square Cafe 'Long Island City Cafe.' “ The $6-million it cost to open the luxury seafood restaurant Le Bernardin in 1986 would probably be $15-million now, says Eric Ripert, its acclaimed chef for the past 24 years.
'You can't beat Queens for diversity'
In New York, everything seems to boil down to numbers - usually big ones.
Take cooking styles. Robert Sietsema figures there are nearly 200 distinct cuisines, including regional Chinese, Indian and even Ecuadoran styles, in the city he has covered for more than three decades, first as a chowhound for the Village Voice and more recently for the online Eater New York. Who better to introduce me to the largess than my distant relation and the author of this year's “New York in a Dozen Dishes”?
We could've spent a day on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx eating Italian food or in Astoria eating Greek, but instead we meet on a Saturday morning at the gates of the Ganesh Temple Canteen in Flushing with plans to graze around the borough until one of us waves a white flag or turns green. “You can't beat Queens for diversity,” says Sietsema, who guides me to a basement cafeteria where we feast on dosas and other South Indian dishes while religious cartoons play on overhead TVs.
From there, we taxi a mile northwest to the Golden Shopping Mall and head to an underground maze of food stalls, where we hopscotch from a $4 bowl of chili-oil-slicked julienned potatoes, tempeh and mushrooms from Chen du Tian Fu to a cumin-laced, jalapeño-ignited lamb burger from Xi'an Famous Snacks, pausing to marvel at a guy pulling noodles by hand across the aisle. A few blocks away, we stop to see what looks interesting at the carryout window of the sprawling Red Bowl Noodle Shop. My new favorite street food is a Taiwanese sausage-within-a-(rice)-sausage that we devour on the sidewalk.
Then it's off to East Elmhurst on the 7 train (facetiously dubbed the “Orient Express”) and tacos and tequila at Tacos Morelos, where the signatures include a zesty red pumpkin-seed mole and a taco (over)stuffed with a gooey and delicious chili relleno. The little English in the dining room is on a sign on the wall that reads “CPR available at the counter.”
Hang out with the foreign cuisine expert, whom humorist Calvin Trillin dubs “my man Sietsema,” and you learn a few tricks for finding good food on unfamiliar turf. One is to give a restaurant a smell test; cooking aromas are good, “floor wax and urinal cakes” not so much, he advises. Another tip is to check out the diners. Do they look happy? Are they cleaning their plates or merely pushing food around? Sietsema is no snob when it comes to foreign food that might be unfamiliar on its home turf. “Fusion food can be as good as native,” says the man who can be as content eating a pastrami pizza as a pastrami sandwich.
Sietsema is eager to show off even more menus (“Have you ever had momos?” he asks, pausing at a food cart selling nothing but Tibetan dumplings), but I apologize and excuse myself from our high-calorie half-marathon. Regretfully, I have but one stomach to offer, and the previous night had me dining at the new Jams and the starry Jean-Georges and Daniel restaurants, after which I had an only-in-New York moment when I stopped outside Sprinkles on my way back to my hotel to buy a banana cupcake.
It was dispensed from an ATM.
A city of food halls
The leader in American fashion is also a tastemaker when it comes to culinary trends, and has been, seemingly forever: Delmonico's, opened in 1837, made chic the custom of a la carte menus, liberal dining hours, a plenitude of (French) options and a garden of its own when suppliers couldn't provide the quality sought by the owners. Today, there may be no better place in the country to catch great art and great food under the same roof as in the museums of Manhattan: Consider the Modern within MoMA, and Untitled on display at the Whitney.
If what's an even bigger development here spreads, cities around the country can expect more food halls in their future. The Italian extravaganza known as Eataly in the Flatiron got the ball rolling five years ago, followed two years later by Plaza Food Hall near Central Park. Few neighborhoods have been untouched by the delectable phenomenon. Spring saw the debut of Le District in the financial district, an all-French assortment with shops devoted to charcuterie, pastries, cheese, seafood and wine.
Exhibit A at the moment is the freshly minted UrbanSpace Vanderbilt. Among the 20-plus vendors spread over 12 000 feet in the Helmsley Building are Delaney Chicken, Red Hook Lobster Pound and Roberta's, an offshoot of a popular Italian roost in Brooklyn with great pizza. Project manager Emily Soukas says the guiding principle behind the gathering of artisans is to create or revitalise communities by supporting small businesses in areas where they otherwise couldn't afford to set up shop. A few of the booths in the venue rotate vendors every few months. “Not only does it help keep the market fresh and exciting,” says Soukas, “it also helps us stay connected to our pop-up-market roots.”
Coming up in 2017, star chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten expects to unveil a 40 000-square-foot food market, along with a seafood restaurant, at the South Street Seaport. Grander still will be the 155 000-square-foot Bourdain Market at Chelsea's Pier 57, from Anthony Bourdain of “Parts Unknown” acclaim. The smorgasbord of 100 or so retail and wholesale vendors will include a butcher, a fishmonger, a full-fledged restaurant, late hours and food stalls reminiscent of Asian hawker markets, according to the New York Times, which puts the cost at $60-million.
From the mouths of critics
For a state-of-the-plate assessment, I asked some of the biggest bylines in local restaurant criticism - just about every living Times reviewer - to share a taste of their tenure.
Sheraton (1976-1983) covered a scene influenced by second-career chefs, home cooks taking culinary instruction, nouvelle cuisine, then the rage in France, and “expanded cuisines we thought we knew about,” she says, including the food of north Italy and north China. “A theatrical aspect” came on the scene, she says, and “food began to look glamorous.”
Says Reichl (1993-1999): “The Food Network started just as I got there, and it changed the audience for restaurants, making them part of the popular culture. We began looking away from Europe, to Asia and Latin America.” The boundaries of the city changed, too. “When I first reviewed restaurants out of Manhattan,” Reichl says, “readers complained.”
William Grimes (1999-2003) remembers a flush economy and “a building boom, delivering a lot of boutique hotels, each with an ambitious restaurant,” plus “a real dessert explosion” resulting in star billing for pastry chefs. “The task for me,” he says, “was not so much identifying the trends as keeping up with the openings,” including the early farm-to-table establishment Blue Hill. Recalls Bruni (2004-2009): “The two hottest restaurants on my watch: Spotted Pig and Momofuku.” Those and similar establishments were notable not for what they added to the dining experience but for what they subtracted: formality and “lumbar support,” among other details. Also, “Brooklyn began to happen in a big way.”
The holder of the mightiest keyboard in the city for the past four years, at least when it comes to places to eat, Pete Wells watches over a landscape strewn with restaurants that offer only tasting menus, vegetables treated with the respect that meat used to get, serious Thai restaurants cooking other than “American takeout Thai” and “the bar-ification of restaurants and the restaurant-ification of bars,” a shift from the traditional structure of a three-course meal. That last trend, says Wells via e-mail, “seems to reflect a change in the way we socialize, maybe even in the way we experience the world, now that our attention spans have all been zapped down to nothing.”
In his engaging romp through Manhattan's restaurant history, “Appetite City” (2009), Grimes wrote: “New York is a present-tense city. It lives in the moment, perhaps because the city's full-blast immediacy engages all the senses simultaneously, squeezing the faculties that allow for reflection on the past and speculation about the future. Like riders on a roller coaster, New Yorkers simply hold on tight.”
As high as the bar and the stakes are, the numbers always seem to be in New York's favor. If one place disappoints, there's always another - and another - on the next block that might not. More is more, and it works the same way for the restaurateurs.
“I tell my team, don't be bothered if 3 million people hate you,” says Batali. “That's 5 million left.”
Interactive map: http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/style/2015/09/29/the-search-for-americas-best-food-cities-new-york/
New York: Where to go
By Tom Sietsema
Restaurants and bars
ABC Kitchen
35 E. 18th St., 212-475-5829
www.abchome.com/eat/abc-kitchen
An extension of ABC Carpet & Home, this picture in white from esteemed chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten tilts natural and luscious at lunch with cold-pressed juices, lemony crab toast, whole-wheat pizza scattered with spinach and goat cheese, and whimsies including pretzel-dusted squid. Lunch also yields a deal: three courses for $33.
Aquavit
65 E. 55th St., 212-307-7311
www.aquavit.org
A rare and wonderful taste of Nordic cuisine from chef Emma Bengtsson in an austere Midtown setting, Aquavit entices fans with an exquisite herring sampler; Swedish meatballs with lingonberries; and kroppkakor (dumplings), along with the option of washing back a meal with potent house-made aquavit in a dozen intriguing flavors.
Balthazar
80 Spring St., 212-965-1414
balthazarny.com
Ask a discerning local to name the restaurant that sums up New York, and “Balthazar” is the likely response. “It's inspired by French brasseries, but very American, and it looks like it's been around forever,” says no less than Eric Ripert, the chef of Le Bernardin. Of course, it's cramped, and of course, it's loud.
Carbone
181 Thompson St., 212-254-3000
carbonenewyork.com
Bring an appetite, a fat wallet and a sense of humor to this over-the-top celebration of yesteryear's red-sauce joints. Enough for two, the veal parm costs $64. But it's the best marriage of meat, cheese and fried basil of your life, dropped off by a waiter who could have stepped out of a mob movie while Sinatra is singing “Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing.”
The Dead Rabbit
30 Water St., 646-422-7906
www.deadrabbitnyc.com
Honored at the Tales of the Cocktail conference this summer with two prestigious awards - World's Best Bar and World's Best Cocktail Menu - the Dead Rabbit unfolds across three floors in the Financial District.
Franny's
348 Flatbush Ave., Brooklyn, 718-230-0221
frannysbrooklyn.com
A Berkeley vibe courses through this neighborly Italian restaurant in Brooklyn, home to fine pastas and peerless Neapolitan pizzas baked in wood-fired ovens. Expect the cocktails to rock, the coffee to be fair-trade and the menus to be printed on recycled paper.
Ganesh Temple Canteen
45-57 Bowne St., Flushing, 718-460-8493
www.nyganeshtemplecanteen.com
Outftted with rows of folding chairs and metal tables, with religious cartoons playing on overhead TVs, this popular cafeteria in the basement of a temple in residential Flushing could pass for a church basement. But the aromas wafting from the kitchen whet an appetite for South Indian cooking. Crisp, kite-shaped crepes made from rice and lentils, and eaten with a choice of mild-to-wild vegetarian fillings, are a major draw.
Gray's Papaya
2090 Broadway, 212-799-0243
grayspapayanyc.com
Count Ruth Reichl a fan of this round-the-clock hot dog joint with the juicy franks and lord-knows-what in the tropical drinks. “If you're a New Yorker, it's in your blood,” says the former editor of Gourmet. Songs have been written about the place, and more than a few TV and film characters have professed their affection.
Hometown Bar-B-Que
454 Van Brunt St., Brooklyn, 347-294-4644
www.hometownbarbque.com
Billy Durney, a security agent turned pit master, does right by brisket, smoky baked beans and collard greens in a barn of a barbecue joint in Red Hook. The sleeper of the lot: pulled lamb. Pluses include live music Thursdays through Saturdays and margaritas sweetened with peaches.
Kang Ho Dong Baekjeong
One E. 32nd St., 212-966-9839
baekjeongnyc.com
The New York food mafia's choice for meat grilled at the table in Koreatown (Anthony Bourdain has been in), this is an outpost of a popular South Korean chain. (Another branch, in Flushing, is under different management.)
Katz's Delicatessen
205 E. Houston St., 212-254-2246
katzsdelicatessen.com
Don't even think about waiter service. Part of the fun of a run to this icon on the Lower East Side is taking a ticket, getting in line, enjoying a gratis taste of the glorious pastrami/corned beef/brisket before it's piled into a rye sandwich (say yes to the garlicky pickles) and finding a seat in the clattery dining room plastered with celebrity mug shots. Just remember to tip the counterman and wash back the feast with a fizzy egg cream.
Le Bernardin
155 W. 51st St., 212-554-1515
www.le-bernardin.com
The restaurant that raised the bar for seafood establishments in the country when it opened almost 30 years ago continues to lead by example, thanks to chef Eric Ripert and a stellar crew of cooks, waiters and hosts. A recent repast netted charred calamari on a pool of Basque sauce, poached skate set against a golden kimchi broth, and a contemporary Pavlova with tropical fruit.
Maison Premiere
298 Bedford Ave., Brooklyn, 347-335-0446
maisonpremiere.com
Possibly the most romantic bar in Brooklyn is the petite, U-shaped marble counter at which absinthe and oysters serve as the signatures. Imagine if the French Quarter were airlifted to Williamsburg. Better yet, order the French Roulette, a rival to the Sazerac, in the company of someone you care about.
Marlow & Sons
81 Broadway, Brooklyn, 718-384-1441
marlowandsons.com
One diner's definition of perfection in Williamsburg: a table straddling inside and patio, weather permitting; a short menu of dishes, each intriguing in a different way (spicy yogurt with Sungold tomatoes and eggplant); and service that feels as if family is taking care of you. To order the brick-pressed chicken is to see why the classic has been on the list for more than a decade.
Momofuku Noodle Bar
171 First Ave., 212-777-7773
momofuku.com/new-york/noodle-bar
Eleven years after it made its debut in the East Village and rocketed David Chang to world renown, the first of the Momofuko brands continues to thrill with its menu, slightly less for the signature bowls than for the buns (go for shrimp with spicy mayo).
Peter Luger's
178 Broadway, Brooklyn, 718-387-7400
peterluger.com
Arguably the most famous steakhouse in New York is in Brookyln. Here's what you should know going in: The institution doesn't take credit cards, the creamed spinach bests the German fried potatoes and the dry-aged porterhouse is the fan's cut of choice. No need to commit that advice to memory; a no-nonsense waiter basically tells you what to order at the table of what could pass for a tavern.
Red Bowl Noodle Shop
40-52 Main St., Flushing, 718-353-7683
(no Web site)
Look no further than the carryout window of the vast Red Bowl for instant street-food gratification: Among the finds is a plump Taiwanese sausage-within-a-sausage, its outer layer made from rice and playing the part of a bun.
Shalom Japan
310 S. Fourth St., Brooklyn, 718-388-4012
shalomjapannyc.com
Chefs and owners Aaron Israel and Sawako Okochi merge their roots in a cozy corner space in South Williamsburg with a delightful hybrid menu that runs from glossy challah whose ingredients include sake lees to succulent pork chop schnitzel with tonkatsu. Among the drinks is the mezcal-fueled (ha!) L'Chaim Loca.
Smorgasburg (Williamsburg)
Kent Avenue and N. Seventh Street
(no number)
www.smorgasburg.com
A spinoff of the popular Brooklyn Flea, Smorgasburg has been called “the Woodstock of Eating” by the New York Times. One hundred or so local vendors sell po' boys, pierogis, mofongo and one-bite cheesecakes against a stunning view of Manhattan on the Williamsburg waterfront. The long line in front of Goa Taco should tell you something: Coal-roasted pork belly and pickled red cabbage cradled in flaky paratha is amazing.
Sushi Nakazawa
23 Commerce St., 212-924-2212
www.sushinakazawa.com
New York's premiere omakase ($120 and worth every penny) commences in a hushed environment with a server introducing you to the condiments you'll be tasting throughout the night, then sails on to some of the most pristine raw fish you can imagine. At the helm: Daisuke Nakazawa, an apprentice to the star of “Jiro Dreams of Sushi.”
Tacos Morelos
94-13 37th Ave., Queens, 347-832-0193
www.tacosmorelos.com
Among food critic Robert Sietsema's favorite pit stops in Jackson Heights is this dining room painted in the colors of the Mexican flag. The draws include a taco placero (“market taco”), stuffed with a rich chili relleno, and a liquor license - rare, he says, for a non-gringo taqueria. Sí, the tortillas are made here.
Bakeries and ice cream
Dominique Ansel Bakery
189 Spring St., 212-219-2773
dominiqueansel.com
The world knows Dominique Ansel as the creator of the cronut, the love child of a croissant and a doughnut that spawned countless imitators. Visitors to his slim bakery in SoHo can also testify to the pastry maven's wonderful way with multi-flavoured Mini-Me (miniature meringues), after-school cookie shots, “cotton-soft” cheesecake and kouign-amann.
Morgenstern's Finest Ice Cream
Two Rivington St., 212-209-7684
www.morgensternsnyc.com
New York's “it” ice cream parlor delivers on its name with scoops of egg-free ice cream in true-tasting flavors. Spring for the breezy mint, the spicy Sichuan peppercorn or the heavenly angel food.
OddFellows Ice Cream Co.
175 Kent Ave., Brooklyn, 347-599-0556
75 E. Fourth St., 917-475-1812
www.oddfellowsnyc.com
A window behind the front counter lets visitors see the house draw, available in such fun flavors as miso-cherry and corn bread, being made in small batches. Popsicles for the over-21 set include strawberry daiquiri; the delicious waffle cones are made on site. The Manhattan outpost is smaller, with fewer flavors.
Markets and shops
Bonnie Slotnick Cookbooks
28 E. Second St., 212-989-8962
www.bonnieslotnickcookbooks.com
A food fan could spend hours browsing in Slotnick's homey shop in the East Village, which stocks a collection of more than 4,000 titles, a mix that includes old Sunbeam recipe pamphlets and menus from trains and ocean liners (along with vintage aprons and other culinary ephemera). Pets are welcome, as are children, who get a nook and a table of their own. Out back: a garden for reading.
Eataly
200 Fifth Ave., 212-229-2560
www.eataly.com/us_en/stores/new-york
Celebrity chef Mario Batali, a partner in the project, has described this 50,000-square-foot emporium near Madison Square Park as a grocery store with tasting rooms. Birreria, one of several places therein to eat and drink, pours cask ales and serves fried sweetbreads with tuna sauce, among other lures, on Eataly's rooftop.
Fishs Eddy
889 Broadway, 212-420-9020
www.fishseddy.com
Whether you're in the market for a sugar bowl labeled in Brooklynese (“shuguh”), vintage yokes for hanging pots and pans, or just a set of dinnerware or dish towels, this housewares emporium near Gramercy Park lets you fulfill your shopping list.
Florence Prime Meat Market
5 Jones St., 212-242-6531
(no Web site)
Adam Rapoport, the editor of Bon Appétit, buys his meat here. So does Mimi Sheraton, the legendary food critic. Dressed with little more than family photos on the walls and sawdust on the floor, this slip of a butcher shop lives up to its name: The meat is prime, the steaks are dry-aged in-house and everything is cut to order. Florence's claim to fame is its signature Newport, a triangle-shaped Centre cut of sirloin.
Kalustyan's
123 Lexington Ave., 212-685-3451
www.kalustyans.com
Name a spice you need, and Kalustyan's has it. Roaming the aisles of this epic pantry in Murray Hill is like walking around the globe.
Murray's
254 Bleecker St., 212-243-3289
Grand Central Market, 43rd Street and Lexington Avenue, 212-922-1540
www.murrayscheese.com
One of the premiere cheese stores in the country, this fragrant fixture in Greenwich Village since 1940 (with an outpost in Grand Central Station) entices fromage fans with wares from around the world, in-store classes and just about everything (charcuterie, spreads) you'd want to eat with the house specialties.
Sahadi's
187 Atlantic Ave, Brooklyn, 718-624-4550
www.sahadis.com
A bazaar of Middle Eastern everything - seeds, spices, grains, coffee, halva -- watched over by a staff that treats everyone like a neighbor. If you try only one dish from the take-away section, make it a tub of the thick and garlicky hummus.
Whisk
231 Bedford Ave., Brooklyn, 718-218-7230
933 Broadway, 212-477-8680
www.whisknyc.com
Whisks don't begin to depict the scope here. The rambling housewares store, with locations in two boroughs, also packs in Mason jars, cake stands, a nook devoted to cocktails, aprons, coffeemakers and Le Creuset pots in a rainbow of colors. Nice touch in Brooklyn: a “Recipe of the Week,” available at the door.
Tom Sietsema, The Washington Post