Founded and headquartered in NYC, Barneys is a New York luxury institution, selling everything from jewelry to handbags to home décor. Check out the newly opened Chelsea location, which, while smaller, provides a calmer shopper experience versus its Midtown counterpart.
Despite the luxe reworking- matched with a pleasant though militantly stiff waitstaff and those fussy trappings left over from the space’s days as the oligarchic Brasserie Pushkin – chef Bryce Shuman thankfully hasn’t lost his sense of fun.
Although there’s a beautiful pricey steak – Creekstone Farms rib eye in a tenderizing marinade of fresh papaya and soy, the real draw for the neighborhood is the stuff that’s most recognizably Chinese, given the dearth of good Sino restaurants nearby.
The expansive, opulent restaurant is dramatically outfitted in black banquettes, pink-clothed tables and illuminated, golden dragons that wrap around the perimeter of the dining room.
That Chinatown passage bore witness to the grisly havoc of the Tong gang wars, but the bakery and tea shop had a sweeter reputation: Its almond cookies and moon cakes were legendary.
The old-world charm of well-worn communal tables, dangling copper cookware and flickering lamps may help explain why a 23-year-old restaurant is still tough to get into on a Saturday night.
The Italian-American supper clubs immortalized in mob movies and sepia-toned photos were never as dreamy as they seemed. The young guns behind Carbone, though, have moved beyond sentimentality in their homage to these restaurants by flipping the whole genre onto its head.
With four-star ambitions and prices to match, Mario Batali’s cavernous restaurant has become nothing less than the city’s top destination for refined, upscale Italian cuisine.
This East Harlem hole-in-the-wall may serve the city’s best al pastor tacos, sliced to order from a rotating spit crowned with a hunk of grilled pineapple. The tortilla-to-meat ratio is perfectly balanced.
Denisse Lina Chavez, known around these parts at the Queen of Carnitas, moved her cramped bodega–cum–taqueria from the south Bronx to central Brooklyn with this 32-seat Prospect Heights successor.
Mexican eateries are ubiquitous in Corona, but unlike most, this sunny family-run tortilleria painstakingly grinds corn into fresh masa for many of its dishes.
