How to Eat Old School

The folks at Eater, who like to map everything edible in the City, ask my to pick out of selection of old guard dishes from New York City's most venerable restaurants. Mutton Chops at Keen's, Pastrami on Rye at Katz's, that sort of thing. Such a task is a pleasure for me, so I was happy to do it. Thanks to Zachary Feldman for putting the post together. Here's the intro. You'll have to jump to Eater to read the rest, because the layout is too complex for me to copy here.

What are the makings of an iconic dish? While the critics and blogs dole out "least favorite food trend" memes annually, these stalwarts—provided, with commentary, by the erudite Brooks of Sheffield of our Who Goes There? column and the erstwhile Lost City—have stood the test of time to help define and inspire the city's ever-changing culinary landscape. Noteworthy dishes that offer something beyond the pizza, cupcakes, burgers, and fried chicken that seem to have strong-armed the market, you won't find this food on a truck anytime soon.- Zachary Feldman

Lost City Asks "Who Goes Barbetta?"

Despite the poverty of my checking account, I had actually been to Barbetta a number of times before I decided to make it the subject of a "Who Goes There?" column. Once, I interview actress Mary Steenburgen there, and another time I interviewed owner Laura Maioglio, who is genuinely cuckoo in that way that you associate with the progeny of aristocracy and the very rich. She wears custom made, one-of-a-kind clothes of which there are no duplicates and owns a palace in Piedmonte. I dearly love the place, its beautiful sign and ridiculous chandelier, the fact that it has Brachetto by the glass and a white truffle festival every year, that it boasts of having served the first espresso in New York, that it's named after the founder's brother's moustache.

Who Goes There? Barbetta

 The front part of Barbetta, the 104-year-old, grand Italian restaurant on W. 46th street, looks something like a old hotel lobby, what with its plush seating area, stately bar, wood-paneled walls and the presence of both a piano and a harpsichord(something not even the Waldorf Astoria can boast). Further on in the main dining room, which also seems to belong to a hotel: High ceilings, overstuffed furnishings and a huge, glass chandelier that once belonged to the Savoys. 

Laura Maioglio, the flamboyant daughter of Barbetta's founder, decorated the place with European antiques back in the early '60s and hasn't changed it since. It seems to live in an interesting place between louche and elegant—much like the raven-haired hostess, who had a Continental graciousness, but wrapped it up in Long Island high heels and a mini-skirt. Still, gauche though it may be in parts, Barbetta sure as hell casts the rest of Restaurant Row as a shabby affair.

On a late summer day, that faux-19th-century dining room is deserted. Everyone is out in the garden, which has some of the most celebrated al fresco seating in the city. It's situated behind two neighboring buildings. (Maioglio owns both the Barbetta house and the two townhouses immediately to the left. Her father bought them from the Astor family.) There are trees and a central fountain framed by four stone cherubs. The atmosphere is genteel, subdued. Leaves gently fall on your table.

A borderline supercilious head waiter rolls an old-fashioned dessert cart carefully over the stones, past the French-speaking couple with the bottle of red; the couple from England who want their photo taken; the Asian couple; the group of three old lady friends; the husband and wife whose little girl is dressed in a pink tutu. Barbetta gets a lot of international tourists in the summer, my waiter told me. In the fall, it switches over to regular New Yorkers, mainly older ones who remember when going to the theatre was a dignified affair. Occasionally you'll see a theatre bigwig, usually a producer or an English actor slumming it on Broadway.

You need money to go here. The pre-theatre prix fixe is $58, and it goes up from there. The daunting wine list has pages upon pages of Barolos and Barbarescos (some of them rare) that will rob you of half your rent. The cellar is enormous and runs under all three buildings. Maioglio is fond of proclaiming Barbetta's many firsts in the areas of Italian food and wine. It was the first New York restaurant to serve espresso, she claims. Also Grignolino, Gattinara, Ghemme, Tiramisu, risotto, polenta, white truffles. It goes on and on. Hard to prove all this. But if Barbetta, a lone haute Italian place at a time when New York was blanketed with red-and-white-checkered tablecloths, didn't blaze the trail, who would it have been?

—Brooks of Sheffield

Williamsburg's Cono & Sons O'Pescatore Restaurant Closes

Another potential "Who Goes There?" subject gone.

The wonderfully named Cono and Sons O'Pescatore Restaurant in Williamsburg has closed its doors after 26 years.

It's funny. A couple months back, I was choosing my next "Who Goes There?" destination and was torn between Cono and Frost Restaurant. I chose Frost. Wrong decision. Frost is still there. Cono is gone for good, and so is my chance to record a dinner there. 

The place shuttered after its owner Cono Natale decided to retire. It was a favorite of Democratic pols. Even Hilary Clinton ate there. All to chow down with local leader, Assemblyman Vito Lopez. According to the Brooklyn Paper, the place was known for calamari, veal and fresh fish dishes.

Lost City Asks "Who Goes Marco Polo?"

I'm getting quite lazy about re-posting these "Who Goes There?" column on the site. This one appeared on Eater a week ago. Old Marco Polo. Not that old, really. 27 years. But seems old. Certainly takes its cues from every other red sauce joint that used to line the streets of South Brooklyn. 

Strange, and sad, timing on this one. The first time I ever went to Marco Polo, in 1994, was with my mother-in-law. It was her kind of place. She passed away earlier this month at the age of 85. In subconscious memory of her, I took my son to eat at Marco Polo a few days later.

Who Goes There? Marco Polo

Marco Polo Ristorante was founded in 1983, at which point most of the residents of Carroll Gardens had probably never seen a Yuppie. Today, long after the hipster horde has descended on the Brooklyn neighborhood, the eatery stands as a stolid reminder of the area's still-strong Italian-American roots. A block west from Smith Street's restaurant row—and wholly unconcerned with that high-falutin' noise—it is housed in a boxy brick building with a formal green awning. Though only two stories tall, it seems to dwarf everything in sight, and is certainly big enough to house all the ghosts of Carroll Gardens Red Sauce Joints Past.

Read more »

Lost City Asks "Who Goes Tio Pepe?"

The commenters on Eater didn't have much good to say about this stubborn Village joint. Guess I've been spoiling them with joints like Sardi's and Frost and Wo Hop. Never said these places are all good. Only said they are survivors, mysterious survivors.

Who Goes There? Tio Pepe

The thick-haired manager of Tio Pepe, the Spanish-Mexican place on W. 4th Street in Greenwich Village, all but drags customers into his restaurant, leaping to the sidewalk whenever he sees a couple showing interest in the menu posted outside. But he doesn't really need to do much cajoling. A great many are more than happy to enter the small, but deep, restaurant, with its cheesy Iberian-flavored decor (barrels half-buried in the wall, cast-iron chandeliers). Some are tourists wandering the Village. Some are locals who have gotten used to Tio Pepe always being there. Many, however, are Spanish and Mexican visitors who somehow know about the place and begin an all-Spanish dialogue with the manager and waiters the moment they walk in. "This is Greenwich Village," said one waiter about the surprisingly international crowd. "Everyone comes by here."

Read more »

Lost City Asks "Who Goes to Sardi's?"

I personally think the way the theatre community ignores Sardi's—it's only culinary connection to Broadway's golden past—is unconscionable and criminal. Why hang out at the sub-par joints-of-the-moment when your cultural legacy awaits smack dab on W. 44th? Because you want better food? Actors don't care about good food. They just want something they can stuff in their mouth. And, moreover, there IS no good food in the Theatre District. No, showfolk just have to follow the bouncing spotlight to the place that will underline the idea that they're still hot, still sought-after, still on top of their game. And Sardi's isn't that anymore.

But it's a grand place, anyhow. Few restaurants can boast such a beautiful space, such a colorful atmosphere. While I was there, however, I learned of a sad development. The old wooden booths on the second floor—some of the best of their kind in the city—no longer have phones in them. They were taken out six months ago. The villainous phone company is to blame. They charge businesses extra for keeping phone booths in working order. Such a shame.

Who Goes There? Sardi's

Sardi's may well be the most undervalued restaurant in town. A time capsule from another era, as well-preserved and redolent of New York history as "21" or Peter Luger, it is nonetheless regularly dismissed as corny, uninspired, even embarrassing. By locals, I mean. Out-of-towners, of course, love it, and make a visit within its warm red walls a requirement of their regular Broadway sallies. In in the dog days of August, you'll see plenty of them most any evening between 6 and 8 PM, alerting waiters they have a show to go to (No! Really?), and craning their necks to identify at least one or two of the hundreds of largely unrecognizable caricatures of theatre greats that line the walls.

Read more »

Lost City Asks "Who Goes to Frost?"

For my third post-blog "Who Goes There?" I went to a Williamsburg Italian mainstay, Frost. Most old Italian restaurants have Italian-sounding names like Gino and Bamonte's. Frost, on the face of it, sounds like the name of a cool, modern joint. Until you realized they just named the place after the street it's on, Frost Street.

On another note, I've added former "Who Goes There?" subject Fedora to the "Recently Lost Landmarks" tally. It closed on July 25. I tried to make it, but couldn't. Some friends were leaving town that night and it was my duty (and pleasure) to wish them well and say goodbye.

Who Goes There? Frost

Eating at Frost, the 59-year-old Italian survivor on a residential intersection of eastern Williamsburg, is sort of like eating at someone's house, the kind of home where the father won't turn off the television during the meal. The single dining room is boxy and open; there's no hiding from anybody. And, as if you were in a bar, there's a TV set perched near the ceiling by the kitchen. The soundtracks of sitcoms and commercial jingles fill in for the missing muzak. The large parties settle into their seats and hash over talk about family, friends and the neighborhood. One foursome grilled an embarrassed young lady about her college choices. Another teenager ate his entire meal with his Yankees cap on. The only suit jackets or ties in sight were on the waiters.

Read more »

Greenwich Village Classic Fedora to Close

The deaths of giants will not let me rest. Last week, I felt compelled to report on the demise of 107-year-old Carmine's. This week, it's Fedora, the ineffable living museum of mid-century Village life.

This is not surprising. Not because fancy restaurateurs have been circling the place like vultures for months. But because proprietress Fedora Donato is 90 years old and it's always been clear she had no successor to take over. The lucky inheritor of the cozy basement space—so redolent of memories of cheap, bohemian, Italian feasts of the post-War period—is Gabe Stulman of Joseph Leonard. (We can thank our lucky stars it wasn't Graydon Carter, I suppose.) He has signed the lease, and Fedora will serve her last lasagna on July 25. Then the place will under a renovation, no doubt scrubbing from the walls every bit of raffish charm. 

Stulman says he means to retain many of the interior's design aspects and the name of the place. And, like McNally's conversion of the Minetta Tavern, the result may be very nice indeed, even if Stulman intends it to be a "casual elegant supper club." (Uh! Was Fedora every any of those things, besides casual?) But it won't be Fedora. How could it? Fedora won't be there. And the lady was always the heart of the eatery. 

But I guess we can be thankful the old bar will remain. And maybe the telephone booth. And the great neon sign.

One weird note: the new Fedora will stay open until 4 AM, every night. Interesting.

Fedora was my second "Who Goes There?" column. I may pay one last visit before it goes.

Lost City Asks "Who Goes to Wo Hop?"

As stated before, I'm still doing the "Who Goes There?" columns for Eater. Here's the latest:

Who Goes There? Wo Hop

The first time I ever went to Wo Hop, the 72-year-old Chinatown restaurant, I was chastised by readers as having gone to the "wrong" Wo Hop. There are two spaces on Mott Street, you see, a roomy ground-level restaurant at 15 Mott, visible from the street, and a harder-to-spot basement place down a long flight of stairs at 17 Mott. (Chinatown must have more mysterious subterranean eateries and businesses than any other neighborhood in New York.) The upstairs joint is for tourists and suckers, and the food stinks, I was told. Go downstairs for the real experience.

Read more »

Seaport Restaurant Carmine's Closes After 107 Years

I said when I discontinued Lost City a couple weeks ago that I might occasionally post when a significant New York landmark fell. The closing of Carmine's, the oldest restaurant in the South Street Seaport district, seems to merit a mention.

It closed on June 30, after 107 years in business. The landlord wanted more money. Same old story.

Carmine's at the Seaport, located on Beekman Street, was one of the few remnants left of the old, rough, Fulton Fish Market seaport, the streets that Joseph Mitchell walked in his day. I ate there a couple times. The food was standard red-sauce stuff. The decor was priceless, a dusty nautical theme, wooden bar, wooden booths, falling apart. It had its regulars and its lifer waitresses. I remember reading an article about the gruff, big-hearted owner, who would lend money to his employees when they needed it and drive them home. It had a soul and a life. I had planned to make it a "Who Goes There?" subject this summer. No more.