When Bowery Road opens in the Hyatt Union Square, head chef Ron Rosselli won’t have to range far for ingredients. The Greenmarket is just a few steps away from the “global American” restaurant, and a rooftop garden is also in the works.
“I love big flavors,” says the former executive chef at The Standard, High Line (before that, Rosselli was chef de cuisine at beloved Tribeca restaurant Locanda Verde). That’ll be reflected in a menu offering traditional American food with an international twist. The Blooming Mushroom, a play on the blooming onion, features tempura-battered maitake mushroom with kepi aioli, togarashi and yuzu-koshu salt.
Those extravagant ingredients aren’t just an excuse to hike up the price. “We wanted to be approachable to guests, so there is nothing over $26 on the menu right now, which is insane,” says Rosselli. “There are so many places where you go out to eat and you feel like you are paying an arm and a leg for it, and you shouldn’t.”
The restaurant has a decent beverage program and even features some draft cocktails like a Moscow mule, a mojito, and a paloma. But the highlight, across the hall, is the Library of Distilled Spirits, built under the direction of Employees Only founder Dushan Zaric and overseen by Kyle Tran, previously a bartender at Grant Achatz’s cutting-edge cocktail laboratory The Aviary, in Chicago. There, a 16-foot-by-20-foot wall will soon house not just cocktail-related books but also 1,000– count ’em, one thousand– unique spirits. Which is the kind of ammunition you need when there are 150 cocktails on the menu.
The restaurant and Library, designed with the history of the Bowery in mind and a 30-foot-tall chandelier as their showpiece, will feature outdoor seating on Fourth Avenue and 13th Street.
Bowery Road and The Library of Distilled Spirits are on the corner of 13th st. and 4th Ave. and will be open from 10:30 am to 10:00 pm.