Headliner
ANNICKA RESTAURANT AND BAR A significant and unusual feature of this airy yet intimate new spot is that all the beers, wines, ciders and spirits served are produced in New York State, often using ingredients grown in the state. That’s because the owner, Ed Raven, who also owns Greenpoint Beer & Ale nearby, is running the restaurant under a farm brewery license from the state. It permits him to serve beer by the glass without a separate license and, as a brewery owner, to open an off-premises restaurant or retail establishment. Mr. Raven has also collaborated with North Brooklyn Farms in Williamsburg for many of the ingredients used by the three chefs, each of whom has a specialty. Christian Perkins, who worked at Marlow & Daughters, is the butcher. Emma Jane Gonzalez, a vegan, and the omnivorous Kenneth Monroe come from North Brooklyn Farms. Their menu features seafood, steaks, sausages and vegetable specialties like charred sweet potatoes with kale and tahini, celery root with apples and crispy nori, and a green chile stew. Seats are at marble tables and a long, circular bar: 544 Manhattan Avenue (Driggs Avenue), Greenpoint, Brooklyn, 718-599-1556, annickanyc.com.
Opening
SCARPETTA John Meadow, whose restaurant company LDV Hospitality owns Scarpetta, orchestrated a very quick turnaround. The original location, on West 14th Street for 10 years, closed three weeks ago, and he’s set to reopen the restaurant in the just-renovated James New York-NoMad. New features in this location include a 50-seat bar and cafe for food and drinks all day and evening, and a private dining room. The main dining room, for dinner only, is handsomely done in pale wood with dark contrasts by Thomas Juul-Hansen. The chef, Jorge Espinoza, who was on board when the original opened, is offering an Italian menu with many of the pastas that were popular from the beginning, along with a new emphasis on vegetables. (Opens Wednesday): 88 Madison Avenue (29th Street), 212-691-0555, scarpettarestaurants.com.
GENERAL DEB’S Sichuan sizzle comes to Bushwick, Brooklyn, in the hands of Kevin Adey, the chef and owner of the nearby farm-to-table restaurant Faro. The place is named for his wife, Debbie Adey, the general manager and a partner, who takes care of the wine, beer and other drinks. It sounds as if you don’t want to mess with her. (Daniel Blumberg is another owner.) In an intimate red and black space that permits a glimpse into the kitchen, Mr. Adey is dishing up favorites like smashed cucumbers, dan-dan noodles, twice-cooked pork and mapo tofu with homemade tofu, as well as more esoteric bang bang rabbit and noodles in soup with red-cooked cow head. (Thursday): 24 Irving Avenue (Jefferson Street), Bushwick, Brooklyn, 718-417-3300.
MR. WHITE Jeffrey White, who was on the finance side of the hospitality industry, is opening this taste of New Orleans with Kelly Rheel, who worked with him on several bars. Elegant décor with crystal chandeliers, gold and black accents, a fireplace and velvet curtains are meant to evoke a Southern mansion. The chef and partner, Andrew Dunleavy, is serving chargrilled oysters, collard green spring rolls, smoked duck, shrimp and grits and brûlée bananas. There’s beer and French wine for now; that Sazerac will have to wait until the full liquor license comes through. (Monday): 123 St. Marks Place (Avenue A), 212-510-7229, mrwhitecooks.com.
PORTERHOUSE BREW CO. With Eddie Travers and Dervila Bowler, the owners of historic Fraunces Tavern in the financial district, and Jason Francisco, another partner, this brewery based in Dublin, Ireland, has opened its first stand-alone Irish pub in the United States. The company has six places in England and Ireland. The New York branch will not include a brewery. It’s a spacious affair, with 190 seats. The restaurant is starting with a preliminary menu of Irish bar foods, like oysters, and a short rib and stout pie, and will introduce a more complete menu this month. The space is shared by a fancy liquor bar, the Lovelace, named for a bar that once occupied the space; it specializes in gin, notably Dingle Gin, distilled by Porterhouse Brew: 66 Pearl Street (Water Street), 212-425-7171, porterhousebrewconyc.com.
NODA Once upon a time just about every neighborhood had a bodega. Now it seems that a tiny, high-end sushi bar is the new local staple. This one is distinguished by having its eight seats at a half-moon counter staffed by Shigeyuki Tsunoda, whose $285 omakase is wrought with seafood flown in from Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo. The owners, Justin Hauser and David Hess, have installed a Japanese whiskey and sake lounge with servers clad by Comme des Garçons in the front of the space: 6 West 28th Street, 917-873-9708, noda.nyc.
LA CENTRALE This is among the first of a flurry of food halls set to open in Miami this year. The Italian theme sprawls over 40,000 square feet on three floors, where the emphasis is on eating, not shopping, though there are some retail components among the 14 different areas laid out in an open plan. Restaurants are dedicated to various Italian regions and categories of food, including seafood and meat. Except for a chocolatier and gelateria, run by an outside vendor, they’re all managed in-house. The managing partners are Jacopo Giustiniani, who owns the Felice wine bars in New York, and Matthias Kiehm, whose résumé includes the Harrods food hall in London. The chef is Vincenzo Scarmiglia, who worked for many years at Italian restaurants in Las Vegas. Customers can request recipes served in the restaurants and come away with the necessary ingredients. (Friday): 701 South Miami Avenue, Miami, 305-720-2401 lacentralemiami.com.
SWEET CHICKA What was Sweet Chick on the Lower East Side has temporarily become a spot for tacos holding fillings like pork belly and blackened catfish. The shift occurred because the restaurant’s gas was suddenly turned off pending the installation of a new meter: 178 Ludlow Street (Houston Street), 646-657-0233, sweetchick.com.
OPHELIA A spacious all-weather enclosed rooftop lounge has been added to the Beekman Tower. Merchants Hospitality and Public Agenda have collaborated on the food and drinks for the 26th-floor aerie, which also has an outdoor terrace. (Monday): 3 Mitchell Place (49th Street and First Avenue), 212-980-4796, opheliany.com.
Looking Ahead
MARKET LINE AND ESSEX STREET MARKET This vast shopping hub for food, fashion, art and music is to be completed on the Lower East Side by the end of 2020. This year, it will open its first phase at Delancey and Essex Streets. There will be dozens of new food sellers in the market, including Saxelby Cheesemongers and Formaggio Kitchen, from the historic Essex Street Market, which is being relocated from across the street because its original building is coming down. The developers have just confirmed a vibrant mix for the starting lineup: Tortilleria Nixtamal, Veselka for Ukrainian comfort food, Nom Wah dim sum, Schaller & Weber for German goods, Kuro-Obi from Ippudo, Cafe Grumpy, Pilot Kombucha, Ends Meat for charcuterie and Essex Pearl for seafood. Another dozen or so will be announced soon. The market will stretch over three city blocks and eventually comprise 150,000 square feet of space — most of it on the cellar level, with about two-thirds devoted to food. The market’s developers are already comparing it to world-class establishments like the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul; Boqueria in Barcelona, Spain; and Borough Market in London.
Chefs on the Move
MARSIA TAHA, one of the head chefs at Gustu, the restaurant in La Paz, Bolivia, that Claus Meyer’s Melting Pot Foundation started five years ago, will be cooking dinners at two of Mr. Meyer’s New York restaurants. On Feb. 20, she will be at Restaurant Norman, 29 Norman Avenue, Greenpoint, Brooklyn, serving a four-course dinner, $70, with tickets available at gustuatnorman.splashthat.com. On Feb. 21, she will take over the kitchen at Agern in Grand Central Terminal and prepare a five-course tasting menu, $155, as well as serve some dishes for the à la carte menu, agernrestaurant.com/events.
Closed
ED’S CHOWDER HOUSE After nine years, this seafood staple just steps from Lincoln Center has closed.
GASTRONOMIE 491 The Upper West Side fancy food market and cafe has closed. Nicole Ahronee, the owner, said it may reopen in a few months as a different food-related entity.
VIA EMILIA The appealing Flatiron district outpost for the food and wine of the Emilia-Romagna region, in business since 1994, has bid arrivederci.
In the News
MICHELIN FRANCE 2018 The Michelin Red Guide for France 2018 was just published, and it added two restaurants to the top-tier three-star level. Christophe Bacquié, of the restaurant that bears his name in Provence, is known for his creative interpretations of the food of the region. La Maison des Bois-Marc Veyrat, in the mountainous Savoie region of eastern France, celebrates a chef who was among the early foragers and whose standing in the guide has fluctuated over the years. These additions bring the total three-star count to 28. Also in Savoie, among the five new two-star awards, is the Auberge du Père Bise, on the shores of Lake Annecy, with a new owner, Jean Sulpice. The restaurant and inn, once a celebrity magnet and now more than 100 years old, had three stars for decades starting in 1951 but sank in the ratings in recent years.