Café Largo Comes Back to Harlem, With Two Sisters In Tow

When Harlem’s Café Largo disappeared in 2003, a good restaurant closed in a neighborhood with too few of them. Three years later, it’s back — with two new places next door: Vinegar Hill, a gourmet store and brick-oven bakery, and Tres Pasos, a Mexican takeout place. All three storefronts are joined in the back by a common kitchen, and a fourth adjacent store, Bella Jo Jane’s Sandwich Box, is slated to open in two to three months. Why the long delay? “We closed for an expansion and renovation that took two years longer than we expected,” says co-owner Stacy Schoenfeld-Calcano. Let's hope Largo’s new menu, among other things, will make the wait worthwhile.

Posted 04/18/07 in Grub Street : Back of the House

Tags: Back of the House, bella jo jane's sandwich box, cafe largo, harlem, mexican, tapas, tres pasos, vinegar hill

Buy Steaks Out of a Van Near Flatbush Avenue

Brooklyn Heights: Jack the Horse Tavern now serves brunch. [Brooklyn Heights Blog] Chelsea: Checking in on Balducci’s: “If Marilyn Monroe were to come back as a cupcake, this is probably what she would look like.” [Blog Chelsea] Also, Cain bails on clubland for downtown, near GoldBar. [NYP] East Village: Seder storytelling happening at Mo Pitkin’s tonight and tomorrow at 7 p.m.; a ticket also gets you gefilte fish and hard-boiled eggs. [Mo Pitkin’s] Fort Greene: Sordid tale of greed may have forced Christian Dennery to sell Liquor’s restaurant, but whatever: Where will we get our Bloody Marys? [Clinton Hill Blog] Harlem: Café Largo has reopened after an exhausting four-year renovation; the space is sexier, and new brick oven? Could serve three restaurants. [Uptown Flavor] Meanwhile, could a former Associated supermarket become a W Hotel? [Harlem Fur] Lower East Side: Chef Shane Coffey will leave his head post at Alias Restaurant by the end of April and move to … Aspen. [Eat for Victory/VV] Prospect-Lefferts-Gardens: “You like meat?”: Omaha steaks now available from unmarked vans near the Associated! [My Life in Brooklyn via Gowanus Lounge]

Posted 04/02/07 in Grub Street : Neighborhood Watch

Tags: balducci's, cafe largo, cain, goldbar, jack the horse tavern, liquor's, mo pitkin's, neighborhood watch, omaha steak, w hotel