We heard you: more reviews of New York City restaurants! In today’s newsletter you’ll find the first of our new brief reviews, bite-size rundowns on restaurants across the city from our contributing critics Ryan Sutton and Mahira Rivers. Here’s what else you can expect:
WHERE TO EAT WITH … City Councilman Chi Ossé hates a ‘surprise egg’Chi Ossé may be New York City’s most terminally online City Council member, posting man-on-the-street style political videos on social media long before the style helped propel Zohran Mamdani to the Mayor’s office. But the Bed-Stuy and Crown Heights representative’s true claim to fame — besides being one of the youngest people ever elected to the Council — is introducing and passing the FARE Act, which in June shifted the responsibility for paying broker fees from tenants to whoever actually hired the broker. (On Monday, The Times reported that Mr. Ossé is mulling over a plan to challenge House Minority Speaker Hakeem Jeffries in next year’s primary.) A native New Yorker, Mr. Ossé grew up in Park Slope and Crown Heights, where his family would regularly go out for Haitian food and Chinese food. The 27-year-old said that since he joined the City Council, going out to restaurants has become his preferred form of partying, usually with his partner, Sean, a food stylist. Read all about his dining icks (cherry tomatoes), favorite spots for Caesar salads and why no one should turn their nose up at C-grade restaurants. What was the first restaurant you remember eating at in New York City? Sing Kee, which was a Cantonese restaurant in Chinatown that closed many years ago, and I always went with my family. My mom is half Chinese, and that part of the family is from right outside of Hong Kong. That used to be a restaurant that we would go to for everything: birthdays, celebrations. It had quintessential Cantonese food, like pan-fried flounder and noodles and gai lan. I just remember it being such a warm, delicious restaurant that we frequented often when I was younger, and it closed. And I kind of mourned that part of my life that doesn’t exist anymore alongside that restaurant. Read the rest of the questionnaire →
THE BRIEF REVIEW Chateau Royale★
“In the Beginning Henri Soulé begat Le Pavillon and La Côte Basque,” The Times’s restaurant critic Craig Claiborne wrote in 1969, channeling the Old Testament to trace the evolution of our city’s fine-dining scene. More than 50 years later, his sentiments still feel relevant, especially since the old Le’s and La’s laid the foundations for a buzzy newcomer: Cody Pruitt’s Chateau Royale. The Libertine sequel is an enjoyable, if rather rich ode to a bygone era of New York French dining. Get your high-acid small plates elsewhere. An edgy neo-bistro, this is not. At this Greenwich Village carriage house, replete with red banquettes and white tablecloths, a dressy crowd knocks back martinis as strong as lighter fluid. And the chef Brian Young channels the ancien régime with cream, foie gras and Dover sole à la Grenouille. He digs up a recipe for lobster thermidor, and the delicate shellfish suffocates in melted Gruyère. He makes a chicken cordon blue that, when cut, spills out Comté like a lava cake. A gumball-size beggar’s purse (at $39) hails from Mr. Young’s old stomping grounds, the Quilted Giraffe. Though it tastes more of crème fraîche than caviar. Better are silky coins of raw Hokkaido scallop, a blank canvas for miso brown butter. And chilled blue prawns pack a creaminess that’s closer to sashimi than shrimp cocktail. Mr. Young ages his duck a l’orange until it takes on a deep earthiness; a bergamot-laced sauce tames the funk. And sablefish recalls the sweetness of Nobu’s black cod and the lushness of Wagyu, though a caviar beurre blanc doubles down on fatty opulence. Finish off with molten chocolate cake, that old Jean-Georges Vongerichten staple, and feel the cocktail cart trundle by like the subway — the eternal soundtrack of the city. Address: 205 Thompson Street (Bleecker Street), Greenwich Village; no phone; chateauroyalenyc.com Recommended Dishes: Hokkaido scallop grenobloise, blue prawns with Espelette aioli, foie gras au torchon, sable with caviar beurre blanc, koshihikari rice pilaf, and lemon tart. Price: $$$ Wheelchair Access: The entrance is on the ground floor, but the formal dining room is up a steep set of stairs. There is no elevator, but the upstairs menu can be ordered downstairs.
FROM OUR CHIEF CRITICS A Vietnamese newcomer with street-food fireworksThis week our co-chief critic Ligaya Mishan went deep on the “expansive and ambitious” menu of Vietnamese street food at Bánh Anh Em in the East Village, where the Vietnam-born chef Nhu Ton seeks to broaden New Yorkers’ understanding of Vietnamese food one bánh variation at a time. Almost everything is made in-house (except the noodles) and there’s sure to be a line — they don’t take reservations. Read the review → OPENING OF THE WEEK ReiStep aside omakase: The age of kaiseki is here. Rei in SoHo is the latest in a string of new restaurants serving the Japanese meal, a refined multicourse offering with a focus on seasonality, balanced portions and varied Japanese cooking techniques. Their kaiseki is priced at $100 for a vegetarian meal or $120 if you’d like some meaty bites along the way. Come for the tomato ramen, stay for the grilled miso rice ball ochazuke. More restaurant openings →
THE OTHER SECTIONS See the world through pastryThe theme of T Magazine’s Winter Travel Issue is, delightfully, all things pastry: bánh in Vietnam, conchas in Mexico, egg tarts in Hong Kong, wienerbrød in Denmark, trompe l’oeil entremets in France, kaab el ghazal in Morocco, convent sweets in Spain, baklava in Turkey and Frankenpastries in New York. What a beautiful, sweet world it is. Read the story → Have New York City restaurant questions? Send us a note here. Follow NYT Food on TikTok and NYT Cooking on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Pinterest.
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