Mcnally East: Schiller's Liquor Bar.   (Photo: Kenneth Chen)

Lower East Side Chic

What began, not so long ago, with a few adventurous prospectors staking claims up and down Clinton Street has blossomed into a full-scale, helter-skelter restaurant gold rush. At least that’s the impression you get when you take a stroll down Rivington Street, where the greatest prospector of them all, Keith McNally, recently opened SCHILLER’S LIQUOR BAR. The room looks like the dining annex of an aged, not very commodious Russian bathhouse, but brunch is generally superior (try the lethal old–New Orleans dish eggs Hussard), and if you’re willing to brave the feverish late-night crowd, you might just catch a glimpse of Moby himself pondering a plate of McNally’s authentic (it’s made, among other things, with Stilton, melted Cheddar, and a dash of beer) Welsh rarebit.

There are all sorts of otherworldly delicacies newly available on the Lower East Side, including an exemplary, after-hours version of beef Wellington served at SALT BAR, on Clinton Street. Across the street, at the snug, brick-lined room at CHUBO, $28 is all it takes to purchase an urbane prix fixe dinner of seared foie gras, miso-glazed monkfish, and a slice of sweet-potato cheesecake for dessert. And whenever my carnivore friends and I are marooned below East Houston Street, we repair to the appropriately smoky Argentine grill AZUL BISTRO for the impressively varied parrillada (marinated skirt steak, sweetbreads, baby lamb chops, and a fat blood sausage).

For most things Italian, try ’INOTECA—dainty servings of tramezzini (a kind of tea sandwich), numerous varieties of panini, and little bruschetta, hollowed in the middle like a toad-in-the-hole and filled with egg, truffles, and melted fontina cheese. There’s a fine eggplant lasagne on the menu, too, and plates of giant prawns interspersed with crinkly strips of pancetta, and if you’re somehow still hungry after all this grub, sprint a few blocks south down to Orchard Street for a scoop or two of the highly digestible, supremely distinguished prune-and-Armagnac gelato, available until 6 p.m. at the best little ice-cream store in the city, IL LABORATORIO DEL GELATO.