Copyright 2008 The New York Sun Wed, 24 Sep 2008 02:56:11 -0400 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Paul Adams :: Stories from The New York Sun http://www.nysun.com/authors/Paul+Adams istoll@nysun.com (Ira Stoll) webmaster@nysun.com en-us PAUL ADAMS http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/joedoe-lives-up-to-its-name/86455/ Wed, 24 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST When a restaurant bears the name of its chef, be it ill-fated Grayz (whose founding namesake, Gray Kunz, departed this month) or Gordon Ramsay's tepid Gordon Ramsay, the name on the sign often seems like a substitute for — rather than a token of — any personality within. JoeDoe is an unlovely name for a restaurant, but it feels like a true expression of its chef, Joe Dobias. Mr. Dobias has cooked at Savoy, and his menu at JoeDoe has a similar foundation in thoughtfully sourced ingredients. But... PAUL ADAMS http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/sheridan-squares-go-round-ends-with-impressive/86007/ Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST The fast churn of the restaurant world can pack a lot of history into a short time. It was only last summer when I enjoyed Central Kitchen and its adjoining tapas bar, Tasca. Central Kitchen closed before I had a chance to commit my enjoyment to print, while Tasca survived only several more months. Sheridan Square replaced Central Kitchen in the space, with chef Gary Robins; I had one of his meals there before he left the position in July. Franklin Becker is now manning the kitchen at Sheridan... PAUL ADAMS http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/at-macondo-size-may-vary/85494/ Wed, 10 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST New York City's streets offer more than their share of miscellaneous food. But somehow, when used in a restaurant context, the words "street food" remain evocative. They conjure not boiled beef dogs and hot roasted nuts but a world of exotic, bargain-priced, authentic treats. Macondo is the latest restaurant to promise its customers the enchantment of pedestrian fare. The name comes from a town in Gabriel Garcia Márquez's magic-realist novel "One Hundred Years of Solitude," and accordingly, the... PAUL ADAMS http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/convivio-revamps-the-old-limpero/85055/ Wed, 3 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST 'Did you see him?" a customer at Convivio's copper-topped bar whispered excitedly to her companion. "Mario just walked by." She was referring to Michael White, the chef of this newly reconfigured restaurant, who does bear a certain resemblance, in shape and coloring, to his fellow Italian chef. L'Impero, whose dark staidness sat easily in hushed, clubby Tudor City, closed in June, and reopened shortly afterward with the same chef but with a new name, bright Mediterranean colors, and a menu that... PAUL ADAMS http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/socarrat-takes-a-secure-attitude-toward-tapas/84672/ Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST The popularity of tapas has led to an escalation of sorts, with "pan-Asian tapas" and the like on the one hand, and ever more strenuously authentic Spanish tapas on the other hand. To judge by the press releases, New York chefs are endlessly, tirelessly junketing to the farthest reaches of Andalusia to learn the real, truest way of stewing a cuttlefish in its own ink, or olive-oiling a white anchovy. Socarrat, on West 19th Street, feels like a pleasant step off the more-authentic-than-thou... PAUL ADAMS http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/kafana-takes-on-momofukus-attitude/84194/ Wed, 20 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST There is a breed of trendy restaurant where one gets the sense that the chef thinks he or she was the first to discover meat. The group of Momofuku establishments, which serve dozens of pork-exalting dishes to a young clientele that seems unendingly starry-eyed about them, is a prime example. I see Kafana as a response to this breed of restaurant. Is Kafana newly opened? Check. In a hip neighborhood? Check. Glorifying meat? Deliciously. But there's nothing sassy about the little rustic bistro... PAUL ADAMS http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/powerful-flavor-reported-in-alphabet-city/83736/ Wed, 13 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST One little spot on Avenue A, which seems to be perpetually shaded by sidewalk scaffolding, has housed a series of restaurants in just a few years. The latest occupant, Yerba Buena, is completely unassuming from the passerby's view, but packs a ton of excitement into the small space. To the constant icy rhythm of cocktails being shaken — excellent $11 drinks devised by Artemio Vasquez — the staff weaves among close-set dark wood tables, plying customers with complex, vigorous pan-Latin food... PAUL ADAMS http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/a-rising-son-forges-ahead/83254/ Wed, 6 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST New York is not a dynastic restaurant city in the way that some are. Here, in the competitive thick of things, culinary institutions that last beyond a generation are more likely to be bargain ethnic gems than high-end palaces. But Forgione, a name that conjures remembrances of the highest of the city's eating echelons, is a name that is now being carried forward with distinction. Larry Forgione opened An American Place in 1983, popularizing the now-ubiquitous mantra of regional, seasonal... PAUL ADAMS http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/why-leave-the-flavor-downtown/82846/ Wed, 30 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST King Phojanakong creates terrific, inventive plates at his Lower East Side hideaway Kuma Inn. The most recognizable culinary influences there come from the Philippines and Thailand, but flavors from all over make welcome cameo stints. The chef has no shortage of talent or ideas, and, over the years, I've had nothing but praise for him. So it's hard not to feel a little insulted, as an uptown-dweller, that the cooking at his new restaurant, Talay, aims so low. The restaurant options on this... PAUL ADAMS http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/hundred-acres-is-miles-better-the-second-time/82422/ Wed, 23 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST When Marc Meyer and Vicki Freeman took over the old SoHo favorite Provence, they kept the name but imbued the space with a dark louche-ness ill-suited to the sunny Provençal cuisine. The food, in turn, wasn't bright enough to penetrate the sleaze and rescue the restaurant. Now, though, they've reworked and renamed it Hundred Acres, and have refreshed the menu with the source-conscious, "farm-forward" style of cooking with which they've had great success at Cookshop. The transformation is a... PAUL ADAMS http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/scott-conants-scarpetta-a-memorable-space-a-meal/81957/ Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST The last time I went to the Village Idiot, I splurged: $6 for a pitcher of beer and $1 to cue up Willie Nelson on the jukebox. I knew it would be my last visit to the honky-tonk, the victim of a rent increase. I didn't guess, however, that soon I'd be back in the same space, nibbling foie-gras dumplings at a mahogany bar. Scarpetta is the latest upscale Italian restaurant by chef Scott Conant, known for simple, luxurious cooking at L'Impero and Alto. A scarpetta is what we call a sop, a hunk of... PAUL ADAMS http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/cafe-society-suffers-from-a-mixed-bag-menu/81480/ Wed, 9 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST Its name bespeaks sophistication, its neon sign competes with the fashionable Coffee Shop across the street, but Cafe Society feels like a restaurant desperately in search of a personality. Deco-pink walls, mirrored columns, and Warhol-print banquettes collide in an awkward interior that seems to grasp ambitiously for both comfort and glamour and achieve neither. Much as the restaurant fails to settle into one social niche or another, customers can meander among mediocre representatives of... PAUL ADAMS http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/elizabeth-serves-up-comfort-food-in-crowded/81105/ Wed, 2 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST Last month, Colin Alevras's ambitious Tasting Room restaurant closed its doors. Its dedication to painstakingly sourced, exquisite ingredients resulted in delicacies such as $40 entrées of exotic mushrooms that, culinarily exciting though they were, tested the adventurousness of customers who ultimately found the restaurant wanting. At about the same time, Elizabeth opened across the street. The two eateries could hardly be more different. Where the Tasting Room was uncompromising and required... PAUL ADAMS http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/struggling-to-raise-the-bar-at-bar-milano/80596/ Wed, 25 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST It's only natural to expect excellency from the team that created Lupa and 'inoteca: Restaurateurs Jason and Joe Denton and chefs Eric Kleinman and Steve Connaughton bring a sure-handed balance to those successful downtown restaurants. So when the group's new restaurant frustrates those high hopes, the disappointment is deeper than it would be otherwise. Bar Milano is of the new breed of Italian restaurants, places that have a familiarity with a global culinary vernacular, and a light touch in... PAUL ADAMS http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/heres-not-looking-at-you-kid/80175/ Wed, 18 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST My native-grown friend put it well: If this place had opened 20 years ago, its food would have been an afterthought at best. Cabrito is a Caliente Cab Co. for the dining-conscious New York of this millennium, a Tortilla Flats for 2008. It's done up in Mexican kitsch, with Day of the Dead skeletons, beautifully colored tiles, and margaritas flowing by the $60 pitcher. It's a boutique version of a pastiche roadhouse, where gourmet details on the menu justify the prices — or try to: The margaritas... PAUL ADAMS http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/confederated-cuisines-of-the-21st-century/79705/ Wed, 11 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST America's red-sauce interpretation of Italian cuisine seems so natural by now that it's hard to think of it as a synthetic cuisine at all, even when it's contrasted with the true indigenous dishes of Italy. So it's startling to encounter a different thriving hybrid: Japanese-Italian cuisine. For a long time, Italy has been exerting a culinary influence in Japan as surely as it has here: The two cultures, bound together by noodles and other commonalities, mesh neatly on the plate. A couple of... PAUL ADAMS http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/where-old-becomes-nouveau/79213/ Wed, 4 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST French dining in New York often has a theme-park feel, perhaps intended to soften the seriousness of the cuisine's recherché sauces and preparations. The mid-century palace milieu of places such as La Caravelle and Le Côte Basque is out of vogue, but nowadays, we eat in loud halls of de-silvered mirrors such as Balthazar that strain to evoke a fantasy France. At first glance, Brasserie Cognac looks like another of these, its windows painted with words in red and gold, the requisite sconces... PAUL ADAMS http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/bar-qs-asian-barbecue-inspired-fare/78705/ Wed, 28 May 2008 00:00:00 EST Annisa always had the air of a well-guarded secret, the coolly excellent little den coyly tucked away on a West Village side street, hidden from the throngs and duly appreciated by those in the know. With Bar Q, chef Anita Lo seems to have set aside that aesthetic of quiet elegance. Palely gleaming onto bustling Bleecker Street from two storefronts, the new restaurant has none of Annisa's coziness. It's about as cozy as Penn Station, and manages to feel both austere and cramped. Its tall... PAUL ADAMS http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/flexitarians-delight/76765/ Wed, 21 May 2008 00:00:00 EST Broadway East might easily be taken for a vegetarian restaurant, with its plates of macrobiotic grains and dairy-free simulated cheeses. But close perusal of the menu turns up a roast chicken dish that's made with real chicken. The black cod is not ersatz either. The attractive, dully named new spot on the edge of Chinatown is built for flexitarians, that breed of mostly vegetarian eater that doesn't mind a helping of animal protein now and then. Under executive chef Lee Gross, the bulk of the... PAUL ADAMS http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/charmer-of-tribeca/76410/ Wed, 14 May 2008 00:00:00 EST Duane Park Cafe was always an under-heralded charmer, even something of a well-kept secret, its prime TriBeCa location forcing it to hold ground against a phalanx of the city's top restaurants. Last year, it was bought out by its general manager and shut down for a re-envisioning. It reopened earlier this year, losing the "Cafe" part of the name and leaving the new owners to tackle the same issue the space has always faced. The dining room pulls off a somewhat awkward straddle between elegant... PAUL ADAMS http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/labor-of-love-in-the-west-village/76004/ Wed, 7 May 2008 00:00:00 EST To throw another Italian restaurant into the brimming pot of Italian restaurants that is New York is to risk its submerging in the mass. I Sodi, a new little one in the West Village, is the inevitably stylish creation of an Italian-raised fashion executive, Rita Sodi, but it doesn't always muster the substance to back up its style. The skinny space is laden with attractive features: paneling that looks like polished driftwood, luminous marble shelves, sliding wooden bathroom doors whose locks... PAUL ADAMS http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/terroir-is-on-its-game/75587/ Wed, 30 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EST In 2002, when the restaurant Craftbar was new and small, I used to go there again and again for chef Marco Canora's hot pressed sandwich of duck ham, Taleggio cheese, and hen-of-the-woods mushrooms. Since those days, Mr. Canora has moved on to success with his own Italian restaurants, Hearth and Insieme; and Craftbar, part of the Craft empire, has evolved into a fancier destination and spawned a chain of 'wichcraft sandwich shops, none of which serve the duck ham. I was very happy to be... PAUL ADAMS http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/flavor-fusion-at-elettaria/75177/ Wed, 23 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EST Chef Akhtar Nawab attracted attention at Craftbar and E.U. with his sly insinuations of South Asian and Middle Eastern flavor elements into familiar Western dishes. At Elettaria, Mr. Nawab's own new restaurant, the chef, who was raised in an Indian household in Kentucky, works well beyond the level of insinuation: West and East are on equal footing in a majority of the smartly inventive dishes. The name itself, the Latin word for an Asian spice, sums it up nicely. The restaurant, incongruously... PAUL ADAMS http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/pouring-over-the-menu/74768/ Wed, 16 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EST At Olana — a new East Side restaurant — there's one immediate disappointment. At an establishment named after artist Frederic Church's magnificent Persian-style Hudson Valley landmark estate, it's natural to expect some attention to interior design. But the dark beams, landscape murals, and red velvet seats with protruding handles on their backs give the place all the charm of a suburban Radisson. Fortunately, chef and owner Al Di Meglio, who worked for years at Osteria del Circo, keeps other... PAUL ADAMS http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/dinner-theater/74371/ Wed, 9 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EST Eighty One, the new restaurant attached to the Excelsior Hotel, feels like it is run by a bunch of well-funded children doing their best to play Restaurant, with all of the trappings and none of the understanding. Up front, four or five people consistently crowd around the reservation machine, peering intently at its screen and blocking customers trying to pass. The restaurant's pageantry and indulgence in upscale cliché verge on the ridiculous. The service staff milling around the bright... PAUL ADAMS http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/out-of-africa-2008-04-02/74008/ Wed, 2 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EST For years, it's been confounding to New York's lovers of African cuisines that options are so slim: a few Ethiopian and Moroccan joints, or a jaunt up to West 116th Street for authentic, low-budget West African fare. Meanwhile, our most prominent African-born chef, Marcus Samuelsson, has kept busy doing great things at Aquavit with the cuisine of Sweden, where he was raised, and then with Japanese fusion at Riingo. In 2006, Mr. Samuelsson tantalized us by publishing a book of pan-African... PAUL ADAMS http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/neither-here-nor-there/73667/ Wed, 26 Mar 2008 00:00:00 EST It's not every restaurant that serves pitchers of Pabst alongside $400 bottles of Château Pape-Clément. Mia Dona, the latest in a series of collaborations between chef Michael Psilakis and restaurateur Donatella Arpaia, has a little identity crisis. The new restaurant is a mutation of the pair's 2006 flash in the pan, Dona, which was just half a dozen blocks away geographically, but somewhat further conceptually. Dona was hushed and white-tablecloth'd; Mia Dona is raucous and pub-like. Dona... PAUL ADAMS http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/south-by-upper-west/73179/ Wed, 19 Mar 2008 00:00:00 EST Jonathan Waxman's name is linked in restaurantgoers' minds with light California cuisine, but the latest project where he's listed as "consulting chef" is far from that. Madaleine Mae, a new restaurant on the Upper West Side, serves Southern cooking with few of the fresh fillips that characterized Michael's and Jams, the restaurants where Mr. Waxman earned his reputation. Except in Harlem, New York's Southern restaurants typically have a theme-park feel. Madaleine Mae isn't the worst offender... PAUL ADAMS http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/dinner-by-design/72790/ Wed, 12 Mar 2008 00:00:00 EST One evening at Bar Blanc's eponymous white marble-topped bar, I sat next to two men who, after a couple of $15 drinks at the bar, wanted a bite to eat. But a quick perusal of the menu sent them on their way without ordering. As one of the pair remarked: "This place is like a museum for food." The West Village restaurant is remarkably stiff and unwelcoming by design, literally and figuratively colorless so as to throw Bouley-trained chef César Ramirez's jewel-like food into thrilling relief. But... PAUL ADAMS http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/unfinished-symphony/72357/ Wed, 5 Mar 2008 00:00:00 EST It takes courage to open a restaurant in a space you haven't finished remodeling yet, a confidence that your food will win over a clientele even after they've been put off by loose hanging wires, unpainted plaster, and queasily sloping, crater-pocked floors. The two owners of Seymour Burton have that courage, and it seems well-founded: Their East Village restaurant has been operating in what looks like a construction site for a few months, and it even has a coterie of regulars. A long communal... PAUL ADAMS http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/new-horizons/71931/ Wed, 27 Feb 2008 00:00:00 EST The day that New York gets tired of its evergreen every-block favorite, the Italian restaurant, is still pretty far off, but there are signs of it on the horizon. New restaurants, uptown and downtown, are invigorating their Italian menus with a variety of ploys, such as the unusual regional specialties and creative hybridizations. I've recently eaten at Matilda, a restaurant that merges Tuscan and Mexican traditions; Insieme, whose menu is split into modern and classical Italian cuisine, and... PAUL ADAMS http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/happy-marriage/71560/ Wed, 20 Feb 2008 00:00:00 EST A willingness to experiment is a fine thing in a chef, even if a few chefs, too eager to share their experiments' indifferent results, sometimes give it a bad name. But without that inventive spirit, we'd be without a lot of good restaurants, including Matilda, which opened recently in the East Village. Matilda is the creation of chef Esteban Molina and his wife Maristella Innocenti. The restaurant — named after their daughter — is a tribute to their partnership and a test of how comfortably... PAUL ADAMS http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/whats-in-a-name-2008-02-13/71240/ Wed, 13 Feb 2008 00:00:00 EST The name of John Fraser's new restaurant, Dovetail, invites clever metaphors about the neat integration of various things. But in truth the restaurant is not really characterized by the sort of seamlessness that its name evokes. Its older, low-key clientele and its location, tucked on a residential block by the Museum of Natural History, in the spot I remember as the old-school Ethiopian restaurant Blue Nile, mark it as a neighborhood restaurant. Yet, its $30-and-up main courses and an unusual... PAUL ADAMS http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/counter-culture/70802/ Wed, 6 Feb 2008 00:00:00 EST Shortly after Tia Pol opened, it became evident that the cramped, wildly popular tapas joint was going to need to expand if it hoped to accommodate all of its would-be customers. Three years later, the owners have at last opened a new restaurant, just a couple of blocks from the first, serving an even simpler version of the simple, often exquisite Spanish food that made Tia Pol a hit. But, in a move that's true to the spirit of the nook-like bars of Spain, El Quinto Pino, the new spot, is even... PAUL ADAMS http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/poised-to-please/70425/ Wed, 30 Jan 2008 00:00:00 EST Chef Michael Bao's ambition is plainly visible: The chopstick wrappers and napkins at his newest restaurant both read, "Bún Soho by Michael Bao." Bún is the latest project in a rapid series of Vietnamese restaurants from the chef, following success at Mai House and Southern California's Hidden, as well as the hits Bao 111 and Bao Noodles. This one is a small-plates joint that's both more casual and hipper (read: louder, faster music) than the chef's other ventures. The name, pronounced "boon,"... PAUL ADAMS http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/courting-townies-tourists/70004/ Wed, 23 Jan 2008 00:00:00 EST Running a hotel restaurant in New York City is a tricky proposition. It has to cater to two sets of tastes: the tourists' and the natives', two notoriously finicky groups in wildly disparate ways. A few places have succeeded in keeping their offerings nonthreatening enough for less adventurous out-of-towners while still edgy enough to stay on discerning locals' lists. One of those successes was Monkey Bar during Julian Clauss-Ehlers's tenure, which is why I was intrigued to see that... PAUL ADAMS http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/distinguished-as-its-name/69600/ Wed, 16 Jan 2008 00:00:00 EST Jane, on West Houston Street, has long been a reliable American joint — crowded at brunch and casually elegant at dinner. So when its chef and owners embarked on another venture, I gave the new place, which lacks some of Jane's finesse, perhaps a little more benefit of the doubt than I would have without that context. The initial signs weren't terribly promising. The Smith takes the place of Pizzeria Uno in a neighborhood crowded with New York University students and, despite a handsome... PAUL ADAMS http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/burgers-and-beignets/69179/ Wed, 9 Jan 2008 00:00:00 EST It's not in the nature of a chef to be self-deprecating; sending food out night after night into a hungry room requires a healthy confidence. But as the spotlight du moment turns toward fresh, local, wonderful ingredients, there's sometimes an implication that creativity and execution can take a backseat. Lost in the spell of a magnificent tomato or piece of fish, it's easy to imagine that these elements alone could carry a restaurant. But, for better or worse, that's not necessarily the case... PAUL ADAMS http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/venturing-beyond-falafel/68796/ Wed, 2 Jan 2008 00:00:00 EST There are plenty of unpleasant surprises in this business, but sometimes there are happy surprises as well. The early reports I heard from friends about Ilili condemned the upscale Lebanese restaurant for miserably poor service and indifferent cooking. That was all too believable of an oversized new restaurant in dark lower Midtown with a DJ, serving a mix of familiar Middle Eastern dishes and creative updates of Lebanese cuisine. So it seemed at first like a fluke, then like a very nice... PAUL ADAMS http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/pillar-of-the-community/68527/ Wed, 26 Dec 2007 00:00:00 EST The photograph on Community Food and Juice's Web site inspires a double take. It looks like a picture of the restaurant a century ago, with young men leaning against the counter next to a fresh pie. The photo, of course, is just of some general store, not the two-month-old restaurant, but the likeness is interesting. In its brief existence to date, Community has integrated itself into the neighborhood — to be sure, a restaurant-hungry neighborhood, centered around Columbia — so smoothly that... PAUL ADAMS http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/year-in-reviews/68556/ Wed, 26 Dec 2007 00:00:00 EST New York's restaurant scene has always been volatile, but the rate of change seems to be accelerating. In 2007, I wrote about 50-plus new restaurants, of which a dozen have already, before the year is out, closed or changed chefs. I kicked off the year at Gordon Ramsay at the London, the New York palace of the eponymous Scottish celebrity chef, where I was fairly unimpressed. In March, Mr. Ramsay dismissed the restaurant's chef, Neil Ferguson, who is now at the helm of Allen & Delancey. Mr... PAUL ADAMS http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/rich-and-famous/68360/ Wed, 19 Dec 2007 00:00:00 EST Sometimes it's puzzling how the word about a new restaurant spreads. Smith's, on MacDougal Street just around the corner from Bleecker Street's seedy tourist shops, hasn't been open long, but even in the middle of the week it's packed. And with a particularly desirable sort of clientele, which is dropped off out front by Jaguars and Bentleys, and which one overhears in the dining room talking about the golf courses they're buying. To be sure, Danny Abrams, who owns the restaurant with his... PAUL ADAMS http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/in-nobodys-shadow/67955/ Wed, 12 Dec 2007 09:20:51 EST Gordon Ramsay has built a bleeped-out television career on advising chefs, so it's definitely interesting to visit the restaurant of Ramsay's ex-lieutenant. Neil Ferguson worked under Mr. Ramsay for more than a decade, and headed up the television chef's first American restaurant until he was dismissed, reportedly for being too gentle with his underlings. Mr. Ferguson has stayed in New York, moving just a few miles downtown to the corner of Allen and Delancey streets. Hence the namesake... PAUL ADAMS http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/courtly-affair/67943/ Wed, 12 Dec 2007 00:00:00 EST A few weeks before I actually ate there, I was recommending Belcourt to friends. Usually I'm more circumspect, but I've eaten more than a few meals cooked by Matt Hamilton in various places, and I was confident that his latest kitchen would be as reliable as that of Uovo, Mr. Hamilton's exciting East Village solo venture, which closed last year. Belcourt's looks give little notion of what diners can expect. It's built, very attractively, of parts salvaged from old Paris, with distinctive doors... PAUL ADAMS http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/its-a-small-wonder/67545/ Wed, 5 Dec 2007 00:00:00 EST It's hardly newsworthy anymore when an established pastry chef breaks off to open his own restaurant. Iacopo Falai has Falai, Pichet Ong has P*Ong, Sam Mason has Tailor, and each has a keenness of vision that results in a restaurant that's decidedly out of the ordinary in one way or another. The rigor that's necessary to make fine desserts seems to translate into exactingly controlled environments, with every element in place. Chef Jehangir Mehta has made innovative desserts at Jean-Georges and... PAUL ADAMS http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/comfort-food-upgraded/67151/ Wed, 28 Nov 2007 08:30:11 EST With their year-and-a-half-old restaurant packed to the gills, some restaurateurs would be content to let things be for a while. Not Gabriel Stulman and Joey Campanaro, whose tiny West Village place Little Owl is still hard to get into a year and a half after it opened. Customers who sit facing the big plate-glass window at Market Table — the duo's new venture, situated a few blocks from the first — can see the energetic Mr. Stulman sprinting across Carmine Street in his nightly patrol between... PAUL ADAMS http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/chefs-second-act/66860/ Wed, 21 Nov 2007 00:00:00 EST When Alex Ureña opened Ureña last year, reactions, including mine, were mixed. The Spanish restaurant reached impressive heights of creativity, with dishes such as foie gras yogurt, but the dining room's bright infelicity coupled with highish prices to make the overall experience somewhat unwelcoming. In my March 2006 review, I preferred the experience of sitting at the restaurant's front bar, where inexpensive and fun tapas made for a much more comfortable evening of dining. So I was pleased... PAUL ADAMS http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/menu-that-is-just-sew/66405/ Wed, 14 Nov 2007 00:00:00 EST To work at Tailor, a chic new SoHo restaurant, servers are required to dress the part. They are fitted for custom-made suits by local English tailor Lord Willy's; they have to purchase the natty bespoke outfits and keep them clean and pressed for night after night of service. That, in addition to the hardship of memorizing the ins and outs of a short but deeply esoteric menu, is the price to pay for employment at the long-awaited new establishment. The welted lapels and pinstriped vests are... PAUL ADAMS http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/taqueria-goes-upscale/66028/ Wed, 7 Nov 2007 00:00:00 EST At Sueños, in Chelsea, chef Sue Torres brought a creative, upscale excitement to Mexican cooking that was scarce in the city. It still is, although the restaurant's opening in 2003 helped turn local attention to the wonderful potential of the cuisine. So you'd think the last thing the city needs is a high-priced taqueria offering little of that sort of creativity. But that's exactly what Ms. Torres's latest project is. Los Dados, deep in the meatpacking district, feels like a botched attempt at... PAUL ADAMS http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/where-beer-is-the-star/65576/ Wed, 31 Oct 2007 00:00:00 EST Spitzer's Corner is a long-awaited attempt to bring the gastropub phenomenon to the Lower East Side. In a handsome, prominent corner location, the pub serves 40 draught beers and almost as many in bottles, along with a menu of food. The place received attention from culinary onlookers before it opened, when it signed on "Top Chef" semifinalist Sam Talbot as chef (not to be confused with the Sam Talbot who made his mark selling kimchi hot dogs one block from Spitzer's Corner). But Mr. Talbot...