You’re reading Best of New York, a monthly recap of the city’s very best restaurants, bars, arts, culture, shopping, etc. etc. It’s not necessarily the latest, greatest, newest, hottest (but those spots find their way in, too); it’s simply the places that made the city sing every month that I think you might like, too.
W. Village Nights
Fedora
Fedora, the historic West Village restaurant that dates back to 1917 is back, this time by the team behind wine bar St. Jardim around the corner. Its original 1952 neon sign blinked back on after a five year hiatus and drew me in for a nightcap. Down a few stairs, the long narrow space is dimly lit with candles flickering from a row of tables lining one wall, while a bar lines the other. It’s all very romantic. I had their martini, served in a feather light, acutely angled martini glass, and perused the food menu for future reference: European with a focus on seasonal ingredients. Everything about the experience made me want to return immediately to try more.
Commerce Inn
A W. Village go-to, where I always manage to slink in and find a spot for an impromptu bite or drink, the Commerce Innis set on one of the neighborhood’s most picturesque corners and manages to have both a nice bar scene (fashionable, grownup, boozy) and excellent food (American tavern-style by Rita Sodi and Jody Williams of impeccable neighborhood staples, Via Carota, Buvette, etc.) in a charming, old-timey, distinctly Shaker-inspired setting. On a recent visit, I shared oysters, a bright green spring salad, fluke with capers and lemon, and a patty melt, which is almost always on the specials board.
Smalls – cute lil jazz club
Cafe Culture
Cafe Commerce
Formerly occupying the same space as Commerce Inn (on Commerce Street), chef Harold Moore’s Cafe Commerce has been revived on Lexington Avenue on the Upper East Side. I wasn’t around for its downtown heyday (then known simply as Commerce), but I made a point to swing by the uptown outpost to see what the fuss was about. The intimate, narrow dining room is a touch mod (curving-square inlaid mirrors in white plaster lining one wall) and a touch deco (a wild mural behind the bar) with beautiful sconces that look like swirled candy and cast a strange, yet pleasant yellow glow on the space.
The food is the star of the show. You can taste every herb on the bright and verdant 20 herb salad with manchego cheese and lemon vinaigrette and the marinated hamachi bursts with flavor before melting in your mouth. We also shared the prettily plated rigatoni carbonara and the burger, but everything on the menu was tempting. For dessert, the restaurant does a giant slab of yellow birthday cake layered with chocolate frosting and sprinkles, always served with a candle. Watching these get paraded out of the kitchen all night is especially festive—and an irresistible way to end your meal.
Café Carmellini
I finally made it to Andrew Carmellini’s den of fancy pants dining, Café Carmellini (at top) at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, and it was a near pitch perfect experience. A lush, gorgeous dining room; sophisticated bar and wine program; charming and attentive hospitality; and everything we ate was transcendent. We started with the oysters à la pomme and a beet and caviar tart with crème fraiche. The pastas are so exquisite—we had the duck-duck-duck tortellini and spring pea caramelle—they’re best enjoyed as a mid-course where everyone gets a taste. After that, halibut au Riesling and veal medallions. And for dessert, the cutest little apple-Cognac souffle.
Afterwards, we found our way to The Campbell apartment at Grand Central for a nightcap, which remains clutch when you’re lost in midtown and don’t know what else to do.
Epic Theater
As part of my University of Georgia BA in Drama degree continuing education, I saw Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’sThreepenny Opera at BAM, performed in German by the Berliner Ensemble, which Brecht founded in 1928 when the play premiered. It was absolutely thrilling; like witnessing a piece of theater history a century later. This is the musical that gave us “Mack the Knife,” a song I’ve always associated with 1950s crooners, like Bobby Darin who covered it, rather than a sly, subversive sendup of the ills of capitalism from one of our most radical dramatists. It’s based on The Beggar’s Opera by John Gay, which premiered two centuries before that.
Brecht and Weill both fled to the US in the wake of Nazi Germany and were contemporaries of some of my favorite German Jewish philosophers who did the same, namely my grouchy boyfriend Theodor Adorno (thank you University of Georgia Sociology Department). After the war, Brecht returned to East Berlin, but Weill stayed in New York where he continued to work as a composer. Coincidentally, New York City Center recently revived Weill and Alan Jay Lerner’s1948 Broadway musical Love Life as part of their Encores! series, which I’m sad I missed, but was happy that Alex Ross wrote about both productions in The New Yorker (and that I can watch clips @nycitycenter’s Instagram).
I also came across “A Drink with Something In It,” a delightful poem by Ogden Nash that Weill set to music in 1938. Here’s the first stanza:
There is something about a Martini,
A tingle remarkably pleasant;
A yellow, a mellow Martini;
I wish I had one at present.
There is something about a Martini,
Ere the dining and dancing begin,
And to tell you the truth,
It is not the vermouth—
I think that perhaps it’s the gin.
We had pre-theater brunch at Gage & Tollner, a historic and truly charming steakhouse in Downtown Brooklyn that dates back to 1879. The menu has a lot to delight in, but dessert won the day on this visit: a dense, fudgy Brooklyn blackout cake with a side of mint ice cream and Irish coffee; the perfect prelude to a lesson in German theater history.
Trance Out
I’m a regular at Isle of Us, my favorite little salad restaurant on the Upper East Side, which is housed inside Sage + Sound, a spa and wellness center that I’d been meaning to try forever. They’ve got an impressive menu of facials, massages and holistic treatments, as well as classes and workshops that range from meditation to breathwork and Pilates, plus a nontoxic nail salon.
I booked their face and body lymphatic ritual, which sent me to another dimension before bringing me back to earth. The 90-minute treatment includes a head-to-toe aromatherapy lymphatic massage, including the buccal method (an intra-oral rubdown that’s all the rage these days—it was weird and nice), a hot oil hair ritual and scalp massage, plus post-massage infrared sauna sess with lemon water, and detox tea for the road. Like I said, otherworldly. I’ll def be back; next time for one of their fancy facials.
Shopping, way downtown
Printemps – worth a browse if you’re lost in FiDi and you’re feeling nostalgic for a Parisian concept/department store. It’s also probably the only store in the US where you can buy Repetto ballet flats.
UWS Report…
Birria Landia – for juicy, piping hot ($4) birria tacos that will transport you to the streets of Mexico City in a single bite. The food truck started in Jackson Heights, gained a cult following and now has an outpost on the UWS on 70th St. Pro Tip: Walk a block south where there’s a waist-high planter with a ledge that can serve as a makeshift counter and eat them while they’re hot.
Old John’s Diner – cutest little souped-up, old school diner that makes the best BEC on brioche, plus classic diner dishes and NYC-inspired cocktails thoughtful and delightful enough to warrant a Lincoln Center pre-theater meal if you were so inclined, or just a quick, casual lunch. I had a reuben on my last visit and it hit the spot.
Le Vin Coeuer – adorable new French wine bar on 81st Street
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