The Monday Room is no ordinary restaurant. In fact, it doesn’t feel like a restaurant at all. The room is an annex hidden behind the hostess desk at Public Restaurant in Nolita. Stepping through its door—which is unmarked—you feel as though you’ve entered a gentlemen’s club in the 19th century. There’s a faded Oriental carpet Read More
In the past few months, Manhattan has been the giddy beneficiary of two major spectacles in the world of art: first, the recondite Gates installation in Central Park, and second, the unveiling of the Museum of Modern Art after a long renovation. While the former held my interest for as long as it took to Read More
Like a gentleman who cannot decide which suit to wear to dinner, Compass, the protean, three-year-old establishment near Lincoln Center, continues to seek an identity. Since opening three years ago, it has bid adieu to three chefs and in the process has seen more twists and turns than a slalom course. The latest culinary theme Read More
A Slice of Old Paris,
At Home in Old New York Twelve years ago, I went for lunch at the original branch of Les Halles, the French brasserie on Park Avenue South. My son was 3. Having a child this age, my mother once said, was like living with a permanently drunk house guest. While my Read MoreSouth Meets West:
Provence Lights Up Broadway The zaniest dessert on the menu at Aix is the licorice panna cotta, served with tangerines and bergamot sauce. "It tastes of cigarette butts," said my husband. "But it's actually very good." This strange comment came at the end of a meal that had included foie gras in a Read MoreOlica sounds more like a brand of margarine than a French restaurant. The name, which is part of the makeover of the midtown brasserie formerly known as L'Actuel, is a combination of the names of the two daughters of co-owner Christophe Lhopitault. Earlier this year, Mr. Lhopitault and chef Jean-Yves Schillinger decided to redo the Read More
At the door of the dining room stands a scraggly metal bird perched on one leg. As we waited for our table, my husband, who had left his Peterson field guide at home, stared at the bird, then at its flock of silver cousins above the monumental fireplace and at the restaurant's name on the Read More
A few weeks ago,
one of those crime stories broke-landlord kills tenant in rent-controlled building on Upper East Side-that, after the initial shock, makes you wonder why it doesn't happen more often. As it turns out, however, this little piece of urban mayhem had nothing to do with a scorched-earth solution to raising the rent, but Read MoreIt was pouring, and two pretty young Brazilian women in furs stepped forward eagerly as we alighted from our cab under the awning of L'Actuel. They jumped in, unaware that the driver, an Indian on his first night on the job, knew Manhattan even less than they did. Only a minute or two earlier, in Read More
I did a terrible thing this morning," said M. as she sat down at the table near the front of the dining room at Destinée. "I took some of Oscar's medicine."
"Who's Oscar?" I asked. "Don't you remember?" she said, pulling out a small bottle of pills and placing them on the table in front of Read More