Kitchen Dish

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MORE MEAT New York City has a new member of its growing club of Churrascarias. Carne Vale (46 Avenue B, between 3rd and 4th streets, 212-777-4686) is brought to you by Marcus Jacob, who also owns Le Souk and Casbah Rouge.

This Brazilian-style meat palace offers its all-you-can-eat extravaganza for $34, including the usual roasted meats, but also pheasant and quail. Signature salads at the salad bar include the Fla X Flu, which combines strawberries, spinach, and scallions in honey-mustard dressing. The Beija-flor salad includes prunes, figs, cream cheese, peppers, and edible flowers.

EARLY RISER Elsewhere in the East Village, Knife + Fork (108 E. 4th St., between 1st and 2nd avenues, 212-228-4885 ) is the first solo venture of 30-year-old chef Damien Brassel. A native of Ireland, Mr. Brassel has classic European training, so he doesn’t mind the endless work hours he puts in as the restaurant’s only cook.

“If you organize yourself correctly, you can have fun getting the food out,” says the chef owner, who starts his day at the dinner-only restaurant (except for weekend brunch) at 5:30 a.m., baking bread.

Mr. Brassel draws his culinary influence from avant-garde chefs such as Heston Blumenthal of The Fat Duck in Bray, England, and Parisian chef Pierre Gagnaire. His sauces are cream-based rather than stock based, and he particularly likes goat milk for its added sweetness.

The menu changes constantly, but currently one of his favorite dishes is a beef carpaccio, house cured with black, white, pink, and Szechwan pepper corns, served over caramelized sweet potatoes with whole grain mustard and a fired quail egg on a mini-salad with honey-thyme-rosemary vinaigrette.

Another is lamb loin, wrapped in leek and crepinette, then poached and served with goat cheese and thyme puree and saffron toasted barley flavored with marjoram.

The wine list includes five whites and five reds by the glass. A six-course tasting menu is $45.

IT TAKES A VILLAGE This week Village (62 W. 9th St., between Fifth and Sixth avenues, 212-505-3355 ) is presenting a tribute to chef Leslie Revsin, who died of cancer last year.

Ms. Revsin was the first woman in the previously all-male kitchen of the Waldorf-Astoria hotel. In the 1980s her Restaurant Leslie counted David Bowie and Bette Davis among its guests.

Village chef-owner Stephen Lyle cooked at Leslie for a couple of years and married one of the waitresses.

He is serving a prix-fixe menu of Ms. Revsin’s signature dishes through Sunday for $32.50. That includes, for the first course, a choice of Roquefort beignets or smoked trout salad with leeks baked in grape leaves.

Chicken breast with mustard and Bearnaise sauce, or rainbow trout with red wine, escarole and oysters are your entree options. For dessert: amaretti torte.

AL FRESCO The Campbell Terrace, the outdoor space of the Campbell Apartment at Grand Central Terminal (15 Vanderbilt Ave., between 42nd and 43rd streets, 212-953-0409) is open for the summer. The only outdoor space at Grand Central’s Vanderbilt portico this year, it has expanded its menu, which includes raw bar fare from the Grand Central Oyster bar. It seats 50.

Mr. Thorn is food editor at Nation’s Restaurant News. He can be reached at bthorn@nrn.com.


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