Veranda, From George Mendes of Aldea, Opens in SoHo

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/27/dining/nyc-restaurant-news.html

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George Mendes, the chef who enlivened menus at Aldea and Lupulo with Portuguese flavors, is back at the stove. He closed Lupulo more than three years ago and Aldea a little over a year ago after a 10-year run, because he felt that he needed a break. Now, he will be the chef and a partner at this new SoHo restaurant. He will be running it with David Rabin, a hospitality veteran who is also a partner in the Lambs Club, the new Sona and others. “I always knew I’d be back,” Mr. Mendes said. “I’ve spent the past year cooking at home, baking sourdough and exploring new flavors, and I’m ready to translate them to a restaurant.” Veranda is in the new ModernHaus hotel, a property that was the James, and has been completely reconfigured. Veranda’s main dining room is up from the street, and designed in greenhouse fashion with a retractable ceiling. It’s surrounded by outdoor seating on an upper terrace and a multilevel garden. Mr. Mendes’s menu is global but lightly strewn with Portuguese touches. Think flor de sal (fleur de sel) and olive oil for the sourdough bread, salt cod croquettes, Goan curry for shrimp, and a piri piri marinade used on grilled chicken. Chicken rice is his take on paella. He also delivers seasonality with all the green stuff you hunger for right now. “I’ve been cooking farm-to-table since I worked at Bouley and in France,” he said. “The bounty is incredible now.” A number of products, including the sourdough bread, are sold to take home. (Opens Friday)

ModernHaus SoHo hotel, 23 Grand Street (Avenue of the Americas), 212-201-9117, verandasoho.com.

The countdown has started for one of the city’s most anticipated new restaurants, Daniel Boulud’s 11,000-square-foot vegetable and seafood palace named for the East 57th Street restaurant that symbolized fine dining in New York from the 1940s to ’60s. The reservation line opens Saturday, and the restaurant, on the second floor of the new One Vanderbilt office tower, is scheduled to open on May 25. Michael Balboni, the executive chef at DB Bistro Moderne, and Will Nacev, the executive sous chef of Daniel, will share the title of executive chef. Overseeing them will be Jean François Bruel, who has been with Mr. Boulud since 1996 and is now the corporate chef for Le Pavillon and Daniel. Mr. Bruel, a French native, started as chef de partie at Daniel, then went on to Cafe Boulud, DB Bistro Moderne, and was the executive chef of the flagship Daniel. Sébastien Rouxel, most recently the pastry chef for John Fraser’s JFR Restaurants, has become the corporate pastry chef for Mr. Boulud’s company. Isay Weinfeld has designed the greenery-filled restaurant.

One Vanderbilt Avenue (42nd Street), 212-662-1000, lepavillonnyc.com.

More than a month ago, this restaurant owned by the luxury automobile company Lexus, and featuring guest chefs, reopened its second-floor dining room at 50 percent capacity. The Grey in Savannah, Ga., was featured, but ended its run. It is being replaced by Manresa, David Kinch’s Michelin three-star restaurant in Los Gatos, Calif., the sixth restaurant to take up residence, always with the help of Nickolas Martinez, the executive chef of Intersect. Among the dishes Mr. Kinch plans to serve are sea bream sashimi, roasted aged duck, and salted butter ice cream. Both à la carte and tasting menus will be offered. The ground-floor lounge area has also been redone and will serve small plates by Mr. Martinez, like Wagyu beef temaki. There is new outdoor seating designed by the Rockwell Group. (Friday)

412 West 14th Street, 212-230-5832, intersect-nyc.com.

Tom Colicchio has turned his original Cratftbar into his first Italian restaurant. He named it for his ancestral town in Southern Italy, and it will be a pop-up running at least until September. The focus of the menu, produced from an open kitchen where Mr. Colicchio intends to be on hand, at least in the beginning, is Roman-style food with dishes like shaved artichokes, cacio e pepe, gnocchi with braised oxtails and cocoa, other pastas featuring seasonal greens and peas, and a simply braised chicken. Cocktails in the small 30-seat space (15 at 50 percent), will focus on amaros, spritzes and negronis. Bryan Hunt, Mr. Colicchio’s second in command, is sharing the kitchen responsibilities. (Wednesday)

47 East 19th Street, 212-461-4300, vallatanyc.com.

Tucked into a compact space on Flatbush Avenue, this newcomer from Mathew Glazier, who owns Morgan’s Barbecue nearby (recovering from a fire at present), features tlayuda, a big tortilla with various toppings. Cenobio Canalizo, the chef, hails from Puebla, Mexico, but he’s making the Oaxacan specialty his own with a tlayuda de mole. There is a daily flatbread; the toppings rotate from day to day. A cemita milanese de pollo, a birria taco and esquites, a corn salad, are also on the menu. Agave-based drinks dominate the cocktail list. The space is decorated with tiles and neon, and it will eventually seat up to 40. (Friday)

229 Flatbush Avenue (Dean Street), Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, 718-970-7007, tinyscantina.com.

Last summer, Jeremy Schaller turned the outdoor space behind the venerable Schaller & Weber store into this Austrian-style wine garden. Then, in the fall, cozily wrapped in blankets and serving mulled wine, it became Hutte. Now, with spring, it will be the garden again. The chef, Chris Norton, who worked at Prospect and the Lobster Place, plans chilled pea soup, a lobster roll, basil and parsley fettuccine with chicken sausage, and the inevitable wiener schnitzel with potato and cucumber salads. The whites, including grüner veltliner, are chilling.

1652 Second Avenue (85th Street), 646-981-0764, blumenyc.com.

With the reopening of this neighborhood spot comes a complete face-lift taking the safety protocols required by the pandemic into consideration. Seating in generous banquettes and on former church pews has been replaced with more intimate arrangements to suit small parties. Tables curbside and expanded in the garden are also new. The menu of seasonal small plates and French fare has been refreshed. The restaurant has also joined Rethink Food and the Greenpoint Community Kitchen, which use its kitchen to prepare food for those in need.

999 Manhattan Avenue (Huron Street), Greenpoint, Brooklyn, 718-383-0999, esmebk.com.

This Parisian tea room and restaurant, known for its hot chocolate and pastries like the Mont-Blanc, opened its first American branch near Bryant Park last summer. Now, it is setting up a 15-seat satellite in the Longchamp handbag and accessory store. There, the Mont-Blanc will come in Longchamp green (pistachio) along with mini-madeleines and other bite-size treats. For summer, the hot chocolate can be had iced. (Saturday)

Longchamp Fifth Avenue, 645 Fifth Avenue (51st Street), 212-223-1500, us.Longchamp.com.

The long-running Momofuku restaurant has relocated from the East Village to the Seaport District, taking over what was David Chang’s Wayo. Eunjo Park, the executive chef at Mr. Chang’s Kawi in Hudson Yards (now closed), is in charge here. Among the ssams are crispy hake, skirt steak and grilled pork belly.

Pier 17, 89 South Street (Fulton Street), 212-254-3500, ssambar.momofuku.com.

This doughnut specialist, which started in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, then moved to 14 West 19th Street, is expanding. It has returned to Brooklyn with a branch in the former Joyce Bakeshop in Prospect Heights. In about two weeks, it will add another outlet in Astoria, Queens. This summer, it will also open in Rockefeller Center, and reopen kiosks in Times Square and Urbanspace Vanderbilt. For the new location, the bakery is adding a Brooklyn Blackout flavor.

646 Vanderbilt Avenue (Park Place), Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, doughdoughnuts.com.

A market on Tuesdays and Thursdays, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., has been added in the garden area in front of the building that houses the Shops at Hudson Yards. Among the vendors are ESO Artisanal Pasta, Jon’s Gourmet Mushrooms, Alecia Bakery and the Montauk Catch Club.

Public Square & Gardens, Hudson Yards, 10th Avenue and 33rd Street, hudsonyardsnewyork.com.

Tarik Fallous has opened a branch of his Middle Eastern restaurant with an emphasis on the food of Lebanon in the original location of Rosa Mexicano in Midtown East. Like the first Au Za’atar, in the East Village since 2014, this outpost features tableside shawarma. There’s a spacious outdoor terrace.

1063 First Avenue (58th Street), 212-625-3982, auzaatar.com.

This chef, who most recently worked at Mercado Little Spain, is now the executive chef for Maracuja in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. His menu is Spanish and features tapas, pintxos and paella. He was hired by new owners, Erik Plambeck and Kelly Winrich, who bought the building and the restaurant, and have just reopened it.

The famous Maccioni family’s New York restaurant moved twice and finally closed its doors for good in 2017. Now, accessories, tableware and other items from the restaurant and Osteria del Circo are up for auction. There are 314 lots, including original artwork by Milton Glaser, Fragonard-style monkey panels, a roast beef carving trolley and a duck press.

blackrockgalleries.com.

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