The Meat Hook (Photo: M.P. Foss for NY Mag)
This really is going to be the biggest thing since sliced bread: the Meat Hook is opening a sandwich shop.
Tom Mylan just dropped the news, via email, that his Williamsburg butcher shop is opening a spot on Lorimer Street, near Powers Street, right next to Gimme! Coffee. Watch out, Campbell Cheese & Grocery!
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That coffee-and-crepes spot isn’t the only newcomer on First Avenue. On the other side of St. Marks Place, around the corner from where Cafe Rakka recently closed for renovations, Parmys Persian Fusion just opened, serving what it says is the “first and only Persian food in the East Village.”
(Photo: Daniel Maurer)
Despite a memorable play on its name, Iconic Hand Rolls didn’t end up being all that iconic — it closed after less than a year.
But prepare yourselves, dwellers of the East Village — the sushi joint’s replacement, Rustico, has unveiled its signage and is set to open “hopefully by next week,” owner Alexey Mokropulo told B+B today.
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Nublu’s current location. (Photo: Suzanne Rozdeba)
With a State Liquor Authority committee meeting slated for Nov. 18, Community Board 3 has now posted the latest batch of liquor license questionnaires to its site. Always an exciting time! Let’s take a look at what’s coming up in the East Village and Lower East Side restaurant world, shall we? (And don’t forget: in addition to all this, John McDonald is turning the former Veselka Bowery space into a steakhouse and oyster bar).
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As we tweeted over the weekend, The Standard East Village’s cafe — called Café Standard, natch — has opened for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and late-night bites till 2 a.m.
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(Photo courtesy Otto’s Tacos)
The East Village got Empire Biscuit last week (at closing time Sunday there was a biscuit bouncer at the door shooing folks off) and today it’ll get yet another stylized specialty spot. As we told you back in August, Otto’s Tacos gets its name from owner Otto Cedeno, a Southern Californian who was frustrated with the city’s Mexican grub. At his takeout joint, he’s preaching simple tacos containing boldly seasoned meats that aren’t massed under a ton of ingredients, with tortillas that are made from a house masa blend and pressed to a crisp. The tortillas are also cut into thick strips and fried to create what Cedeno hopes will be a signature item: doughy-on-the-inside, crispy-on-the-outside masa fries that you can dip into chipotle sauce.
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(Photo courtesy Randolph Brooklyn)
Oh hey, the folks behind Nolita spot The Randolph at Broome opened their new Williamsburg outpost earlier this week. Randolph Brooklyn’s design was “loosely inspired by ’70s punk,” according to the release, and indeed there’s a wall of televisions that reminds us of the Video Lounge that Pat Ivers and Emily Armstrong installed at Danceteria. Scour the collage-style wallpaper that recalls a Sex Pistols or Clash album cover and you’ll even find the banana from the cover of The Velvet Underground & Nico. And (fun fact) the mural in the front of the place quotes Adam and the Ants guitarist Marco Pirroni talking about punk rock (“it was anti-drug pro-amphetemine anti-sex shag-fest”).
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Tsuna and Price as they prepare for their reopening.
Earlier this week, Empire Biscuit opened at 198 Avenue A, near East 12th Street, and began peddling biscuits in every imaginable form (as a sandwich, slathered in gravy, or topped with an impossibly eclectic selection of spreads and jams); the demand was so great that owners Jonathan Price and Yonadav Tsuna ran out of major menu items and had to close early. They’re taking the weekend to regroup, but come this Tuesday, with an expanded staff and a bolstered inventory, they’ll officially be open 24 hours a day.
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(Photo: Erica Martin)
A Fight Club-themed bar called Durden opened last night in Nightingale Lounge’s former space on 13th and Second Ave (right near the forthcoming Westside Market), but don’t stop by expecting any soap outside of the bathroom or jeans stolen from a laundromat on display. The bar is movie paraphernalia-free, and the Master of Mayhem himself only appears once, as part of a mural that owner Eddie Sherman commissioned Masterpiece NYC to paint along the room’s right-hand wall.
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