
Um, the chef isn't here right now…Photo-illustration: iStockphoto
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Um, the chef isn't here right now…Photo-illustration: iStockphoto

East Village: Correction: The O.G. restaurant on East 6th Street will close on August 2, and the owner plans to reopen the space this fall as the New York School, which, we think, could be another restaurant. [Eater]
Financial District: Downtown office workers are really excited about the new Fresco to Go on Pearl Street: They were lined up around the block today for a free little taste. [Eater]
Greenwich Village: It's Cow Appreciation Day for the Chick-fil-A chain, and anyone who stops by a location in a cow costume will win — wait for it — a free Chick-fil-A meal. Sneaking into NYU dorm Weinstein is the only way to eat at the city's sole location. This could either assure or destroy your chances of a fast-food chicken today. [Ad Age via Gawker]
Related: Sneaking Past Security for the Sandwich of the Week
Harlem: Le Pain Quotidien is looking at the east side of the neighborhood, near where the Ottomanelli Brothers New York Grill will open at 1325 Fifth Avenue. [NYS via Uptown Flavor]
Tribeca: If you're concerned that Benoit's Bastille Day party on Monday won't feel so celebratory after this week's poor reviews, you could try Cercle Rouge, which will have live music, or another spot on this list of French events happening on Sunday and Monday. [Zagat Buzz]
Williamsburg: There's a cookout Saturday afternoon at the Red Shed Community Garden with $2 hot or veggie dogs and $3 burgers. [Brooklyn Life]

Benoit misses the mark on one note after the other, but a few dishes pleased Frank Bruni enough for the place to earn a single star. Bruni suspects that Alain Ducasse's heart just isn't in the place, and he's not the only one. [NYT]
Related: Faux French [NYM]
Steve Cuozzo goes hog wild for the quirky, two-week-old Alloro, which served him five of the best pastas he's had all year. [NYP]
Sarah DiGregoiro paints the East Village's Persimmon as a cheaper, more accessible alternative to Ko. And who wouldn't want that? While admitting the place lacks Ko's “experimental edge,” her review of Persimmon's food verges on rapture. [VV]
Related: Kimchic [NYM]
Astoria: Aegean Cove is up and running on Steinway Street, with the former chef from Gus' Place. [Grub Street]
Midtown West: Frank Bruni's at bat tomorrow on Platt-bageled Benoit. [Diner's Journal/NYT]
Murray Hill: Red Cherry frozen yogurt has opened on Fifth Avenue near 33rd Street, "just a block or two from Pinkberry, Crazy Bananas, and (soon) Red Mango." And first word has it not as good as the veteran fro-yo players. [Eater]
Sag Harbor: Montauk may be so hot right now, but Zagat has still called out the American Hotel for both appeal and service. [Zagat]
Williamsburg: Kellogg's has had its makeover, but will the food be better, since before it "was like the worst small-town Denny's ever with food that was three times as expensive"? [Bottomless Dish/Citysearch]
West Village: One If by Land has submitted a recipe for sautéed gulf shrimp with hearts of palm, so it looks like they haven't had trouble sourcing seafood after dropping purveyor Wild Edibles. [Restaurant Girl]

Platt hated the room at Benoit, and it only got worse from there.Photo: Zach Desart

Despite mostly hating the barbecue parts of the Bar Q menu, Frank Bruni found enough to like at Anita Lo's new restaurant to justify giving it two stars, thanks to dishes “eclipsing my frustrations and lifting Bar Q well above its unevenness.” [NYT]
Ryan Sutton lays a merciless beat-down on Scarpetta, even going as far as to call chef Scott Conant's famous spaghetti overcooked! In fact, Sutton did like a few things — a fish here, a pea soup there — but he's not buying into Scarpetta, and puts down his flag with the first vehemently negative review. [Bloomberg]
Steve Cuozzo drops the hammer on Benoit, and from what we're hearing, he won't be the last. “Boring,” “irredeemably dull,” “unseasoned enough for convalescents…” Welcome back to the critical shit list, Mr. Alain Ducasse! Your brief honeymoon with Adour is now officially over. [NYP]
Note to restaurateurs: It's generally a good policy, when Frank Bruni comes into your place, not to pour wine all over the table, make him wait an hour, stick his friend behind a column, and send him waiters who don't know what's on the menu. Because that's how Ago earned a zero-star review from him. [NYT]
Alan Richman is the first major critic to file on Scarpetta and has only the most glowing things to say about Scott Conant's “refined, clean-cut, extraordinarily poised, modern Italian-American cuisine.” A big win for Scarpetta, even though Richman does call out the restaurant for being noisy. [GQ]
Restaurant Girl hits Benoit and, after paying the requisite tribute to its provenance, gets around to saying that the food there is completely unexceptional in every way. Its two stars seem like a gift. [NYDN]

Midtown West: Alain Ducasse lets septuagenarian chef Jean-Jacques Rachou (who owned La Côte Basque, which once occupied the Benoit space) cook the quenelles de brochet (classic pike dumplings) and cassoulet served at Benoit. He does this for free from 9 a.m. to noon. [Diner's Journal/NYT]
Share Our Strength's Taste of the Nation event still has tickets available; visit the event site to get in on tomorrow's huge tasting. [Grub Street]
Nolita: Small, quality bar the Randolph might be opening up its basement to drinkers. [Down by the Hipster]
Red Hook: The Pioneer Inn, which was shuttered on Van Brunt Street, has changed hands and will reopen as the Brooklyn Ice House. The 360 space isn't so fortunate: Since the owner "cracked," the spot's "for rent. Still looks like 360 inside. But there's a new message, emblazoned on a t-shirt, hanging in the window: 'Stop and Think.' Stop and think about what? About renting the place?...About life?" [Lost City]
West Village: The new "Mr. Skewer (at 43 West 14th Street) has about as much in common with a Brazilian churrascaria as its neighbor Quizno’s does," but the chorizo plate is pretty tasty. [Gothamist]
The Rusty Knot has pros (like the space) and cons (sugary cocktails). [Bottomless Dish/Citysearch]
• Another meat plant is the subject of a federal investigation now, but in this case it's because of the illegal immigrants working there, not the abused animals. [NYT]
• Fancy-pants Gordon Ramsay was seen speaking fluent French when he stopped into Benoit. [NYDN]
• Gordo also thinks that restaurants using out-of-season produce that is not grown locally should be fined. [Reuters]
• Danny Meyer is being courted to open a café in Harlem. [NYT]
• The restaurant world’s royalty showed up at the opening of Alain Ducasse’s Benoit last week; Geoffrey Zakarian said his new West 44th Street restaurant should open in January. [NYP]
• Don’t worry about safety at Studio B’s new rooftop area, since the wire mesh encircling it totally makes it look not at all dangerous. [New York Shitty]

A Picknick in the park.Photo: Emilie Baltz
• Robert De Niro plans to open Nobu Hotel — a Japanese-themed hotel-condo complex housing an outpost of the famous restaurant — in the financial district. [NYP]
• Gordon Ramsay was expected to stop by the launch of Alain Ducasse’s Benoit last night. [Mouthing Off/Food & Wine]
• In case you missed Law and Order: SVU on Tuesday night, Robin Williams played a creep who also happened to be a locavore. What are the writers implying here? [Serious Eats]
The first less-than-stellar Ko review is in and suggests that reality is creeping in. Yes, the food was terrific, but you’ve already heard all about it, and the staff isn’t particularly friendly. Plus, “[s]itting on backless, uncushioned wooden stools for more than two hours can be a challenge for the best of us.” [WSJ]
It’s one-star time for Commerce; Frank Bruni admires chef Harold Moore’s as “ambitious and unpredictable,” but not necessarily in a good way. And the place is LOUD. [NYT]
Related: Commercial Appeal
A surprise two-star review for the mostly unnoticed Korhogo 126 in Brooklyn; Restaurant Girl loves the African spices. But did she really have to say that it had “soul”? [NYDN]
Related: Embattled Bistro Now Serving ‘Nouveau African’ at Korhogo 126
• Alain Ducasse and Eric Ripert dined together at Brasserie Cognac the other night, in spite of the fact that it was the night Ducasse’s Benoit opened. [NYP]
• Stephen Aspirino, the well-attired former Top Chef contestant, may open a second restaurant in Miami. [NYP]
• There’s more to Cinco de Mayo than just drinking margaritas. [Feed/TONY]
• Who should Peter Meehan’s successor at the Times be, according to him? “Somebody fucking hungry, that’s for sure.” [Eater]
• Just like food prices, beer prices are expected to rise due to global warming. [NYP]
• With lying chef Robert Irvine out of the way, Iron Chef Michael Symon will serve as the new star of the popular show Dinner: Impossible.
Related: Surprise, Surprise: Robert Irvine Gets the Boot From the Food Network
• Alain Ducasse’s Benoit opened yesterday in the former La Côte Basque space, and though it’s not as expensive as Adour, it’s still a pricey bistro. [Zagat Buzz]
• Dom DeMarco of Di Fara, the Saint of Avenue J, continues to be worshipped as a godlike figure. [Brooklyn Daily Eagle]

Elegant exterior, cheesy interior.Photos: Courtesy of Cognac
Dumbo: Forager's Market now has a juice bar serving house-made ginger ale and the Aphrodite: ginger, melon, parsley, and pineapple. [Dumbo NYC]
East Village: Frank and Sal are looking for an apartment in Manhattan, and if more consistent hours at Artichoke don't inspire you to help, the cousins are offering "a slice a day for a month." [Eater]
Hell's Kitchen: Kyotofu has a new spring menu that incorporates seasonal Japanese ingredients like the mountain peach, which is used in a dessert of blueberry-blood-orange-tofu cheesecake. [Grub Street]
Midtown West: Alain Ducasse should have the Stateside outpost of his casual Paris bistro Benoit open by April 21 in the space that was formerly La Côte Basque. [Flickr]
Upper West Side: Picholine is serving an Asian- and Hawaiian-inspired three-course prix fixe in honor of the revival of South Pacific at Lincoln Center. Why? Because it's spring and chef Terrance Brennan tells us he's "having fun in the kitchen these days." [Grub Street]
West Village: Good opened its sidewalk seating over the weekend just in time for a sunny Saturday brunch. [Grub Street] Citarella is selling prepared Passover foods like matzo meal and tsimmes. [Grub Street]

Will Escoffier replace Alice Waters as the city's
food guru? Maybe not.Photo: Hulton Archive/Getty Images
The owner of Pearl Oyster Bar sues the owner of Ed’s Lobster Bar for intellectual-property theft, accusing her former sous-chef of having stolen everything from the paint job to the Caesar salad dressing. [NYT]
Alain Ducasse has taken over Brasserie LCB and is looking to convert it into a bistro along the lines of Benoit, his casual place in Paris. [NYT]
It might not be such a good idea to hire a Top Chef. [NYO]
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