Lost City Asks "Who Goes to Il Tinello?"

Over the years of doing the "Who Goes There?" column, I've learned there are two kinds of long-standing, unsung New York eateries. There are the kind have a faithful, stealth foodie fan base (Sarge's Deli, Villa Berulia, Liebman's Deli). When those restaurants are profiled, devotees crawl out of the woodwork and sing the joint's praises, or scold me for spoiled the anonymity of their city secret. And then there are those restaurants (El Viejo Yayo, Toledo, Tap & Grill) that have a faithful base made up of regular people, the kind of businesses considered too uncool or unremarkable to be taken up by any fanatical foodie contingent.

Writing up Il Tinello, I knew it would fall into the later category. (I'll be surprised if the column garners two Eater comments by the end of the day.) It's the sort of dull, but dependable haven of fine dining that culls favor with conservative diners but doesn't provoke the curiosity of the hip and trendy. I can understand that. Il Tinello is not exactly exciting or distinctive. That said, my curiosity is raised by any joint that sticks around for 25 years.

Who Goes There? Il Tinello

Among the disparate array of dining choices that shiver along the shadowy block of W. 56th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, Il Tinello, though only 26 years in business, is very likely the grand old man. Conservative in its cooking (traditional Italian dishes and very good homemade pasta), decor (white tablecloths) and service (white jackets), it draws a conservative, moneyed crowd. Judging by the large number of well-filled, expensive suits that filed in—including a line of ten Japanese businessmen that made a beeline for a large table in the back—its quiet dining room is a preferred sanctum for business meetings. Many orders for vodka on the rocks and single malt Scotches filled the air. (Il Tinello serves the former in a water glass, the latter in a Brandy snifter. Go figure.)

Older marrieds and old friends catching up—as well as a smattering of celebrities seeking solitude and solicitousness—add to the clientele. Owner Mario Fabris, who hovers around the small bar area, greets everyone as an old friend as their come through the door.

It's all about tableside service at Il Tinello. You expect a place like this to have a dessert trolley. But an antipasto trolley? And there was not one, but two, fish specials that were filleted at table. Old school. Fabris eyed these delicate operations from the bar, sometimes swanning over to the action with a nervous, judging eye.

What Il Tinello looked like for its first quarter century, I can not tell you. It recently underwent a four-month renovation. There are mirrors, there are oil paintings, there are wine cabinets. Nothing so visually interesting that it would distract you from your meal and conversation for long.

The loyalty of a few regulars was not shaken by the brief interruption of service. Regis Philbin, one of the faithful, is still honored on the menu with a pasta dish. Would you want to eat something called Agnolotti All " Regis"? Well, you can if you want, and if you have $25. (Prices run high here.) Less celebrated is the Pasta All "Icahn." I asked my waiter if it was named after the corporate raider Carl Icahn. He said it was. Icahn is a habitué. In fact, according to one article I read, the moneyman once tried to make a $10 million deal over a meal at Il Tinello.

"He's coming tonight," the waiter added. Should I order Pasta All "Icahn," I asked. He scrunched up his face. "It's a simple dish. The special is much better." 

—Brooks of Sheffield

Lost City: New London Edition: Dutch Tavern

I've been lucky enough to visit New London, a down-on-it-luck maritime Connecticut city, a few times. Every time I walk the streets of its wonderfully preserved, 19th-century downtown, I make a point of darting down tiny Green Street and paying a call on Dutch Tavern.

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The Algonquin's Oak Room Is Dead

For my money, the Oak Room in the Algonquin Hotel was one of the most sophisticated spaces in all of New York. I felt like an absolute New Yorker there wherever I slipped behind a white-tableclothed table, my back to the paneled wall, tucked into my Martini and waited for the show to begin. No one every misbehaved in that room, and everyone dressed to the nines. Grace, politeness and ebullience reigned effortlessly. 

I saw many great artists there. Diana Krall, long before she became famous and musically uninteresting and Mrs. Elvis Costello. The late, lamented chanteuse Mary Cleere Haran. Married jazz cats Jessica Molaskey and John Pizzarelli. Once saw Skitch Henderson in the audience.

My chances of catching further legends are gone. The New York Times reports that "After a 32-year run the Oak Room, the fabled supper club and cabaret at the Algonquin Hotel on West 44th Street in Manhattan, will no longer operate when the hotel reopens in May after an extensive renovation, the Algonquin’s general manager, Gary J. Budge, announced on Thursday. He cited declining audiences in spite of 'top-notch performers.'" Gary J. Budge. What a name. Sounds like the husband of the New Yorker's famed Old Lady from Dubuque (a creation of New Yorker Harold Ross, who used to hang at the Algonquin).

Even though it was renovated just four years ago, the Algonquin has been undergoing another  extensive renovation since the start of 2012. A year or so ago, the hotel joined the Marriott network's "Autograph Collection." We're to expect "some exciting changes to our guest rooms and lobby." If the closing of the Oak Room is one of those exciting changes, I dread to discover what they're doing with the rest of the lobby.  

The Oak Room began as the Oak Room Supper Club in the 1930s. It closed down when WWII broke out. It didn't reopen until 1980.

International Foods of Hell's Kitchen

Whenever I'm on the Hell's Kitchen stretch of Ninth Avenue that runs below 42nd Street—a strip that still features a good number of culinary treasures, such as the Esposito Pork Store and the Manganaro Groceria—I try to find an excuse to stop into International Foods, a small spice and dry goods shop with a very grand name.

In the current foodie wonderland that New York has become, the store's wide array of imported spices, grains, beans, coffee, olives, nuts and whatnot may not be as unusual as it was, say, ten or 15 years ago. Still, it's pretty damn impressive. Sacks of wonderful-smelling, exotic goods sit it rows on the floor, and the walls are lined with jars and plastic bins of still more marvelous foodstuffs.

The store is owned by the two Karamouzis brothers. The family opened the store in 1970, but it looks like its been in business since 1900. You may indeed by served by one of the brothers, dressed in a white jacket and somewhat impatiently awaiting your request. (Don't serve yourself; let them do the scooping.) Prices are amazingly cheap and everything is fresh. I got a pound each of black peppercorns, basmati rice and dried cannellini beans, all for about $5.

Coney Island Rathskeller Uncovered

For whatever reason, rathskellers—the breed of German, subterranean beer cellars—have always been a source of fascination to me. Perhaps it's because they're a bygone form of watering hole, once common in cities across America, now scarce. Perhaps because they speak to the German part of me (my mother was partly of German heritage). Perhaps because I like old bars of all sorts. Perhaps because I love saying the word "rathskeller." Probably a combination of all these things.

I have visited ancient, and beautiful, rathskellers in Germany, Chapel Hill and Louisville. But I didn't think any still existed in New York. Today's news from the Coney Island-focused blog Amusing the Zillion doesn't prove they do. But it does show that remnants of one rathskeller are still around.

ATZ reports that the menu from a long-closed rathskeller, which once existed under the boardwalk in the 1940s and '50s, has been found on a basement wall of the Brooklyn Beach Shop. The menu lists prices for food, soda and beer. Ten cents would get you a brewski back then. Apparently, rathskellers were common enough in Coney back then that there were such things as "rathskeller acts."

If you'd like to see the picture, you can go check out the blog. Or this one. Or just enjoy this photo of the old rathskeller in the basement of the Seelbach Hotel in Louisville. (above) Or this one, of the Dakota Inn Rathskeller in Detroit.

Chances are, you've seen signs like this, attached to lampposts in your neighborhood, or some other neighborhood. Usually they are civic banners that say something like "Welcome to Ridgewood" or "Shop Sunnyside" or some such boosterish message.

This sign, along with four others, recently appears on Columbia Street in Brooklyn on the blocks between Carroll and Summit. But they don't say "Columbia Shopping District" or "Up with Columbia Heights Waterfront District." No, they appear to be advertisements for Preferred Health Partners, a collection of Brooklyn-based doctors' collectives.

So what's happened here, it seems, is the City has sold the rights to Columbia's lampposts to the highest bidder, marring the area by turning the street into an ad canyon not much different from a billboard-strewn highway. We already have ads on the sides of the ugly Cemusa bus non-shelters. But I find these much more oppressive. Walking down Columbia, it's impossible not to notice them. I know lamppost banners are nothing new. But that doesn't mean I have to like them.

A Parking Lot With a View

The Congregation Beth Israel, or Westside Jewish Center, is an impressive presence on W. 34th Street. The congregation was formed back in the 1880s, and the grand white synagogue was very much in keeping with the area, which at the time boasted the old Pennsylvania Station nearby and the Post Office nearby.

The current parking lot next to it is mighty impressive, too. Because it is surely the only parking lot in the City which can boast a stained-glass window. It's not the lot's window, per se; it's Beth Israel's. But it looks onto the parking lot, and only people who park their cars in the parking lot can really see it up close. Such are the peculiarities of the changing real estate landscape in Manhattan.

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A Last Look at the Holiday Cocktail Lounge

A few images by which to remember the great dive, which shuttered on Saturday, Jan. 28, after 47 years of capably serving drunkards, film mavens, hipsters, visiting Ukrainians, journalists, bartenders, Beatniks and W.H. Auden.

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Wooden Phone Booth Sighting: Holiday Cocktail Lounge

As the Holiday Cocktail Lounge sails off into the East Village sunset tonight, it's high time I acknowledged that it is home to one of the city's diminishing number of wooden phone booths. Last time I checked (a few days ago), it was also one of the few that still had its phone—and a phone that was in working order! That will end today, when the 47-year old bar closes its doors forever.

Last H & H Bagel Location Closes

Thus ends the New York reign of H&H Bagels.

The troubled Manhattan institution, which lost its flagship location on the Upper West Side after its owner was indicted for tax fraud and the business filed for bankrupcy, has now seen its final location, on W. 46th Street, close. A city marshal seized the building and turned it over to the landlord.  remaining location of H & H Bagels.

The owner is talking about reopening at a new location. Doubtful, given his money and legal troubles.