Owners: James Weimann & Deming Maclise
Chef: Shannon Galusha
Cuisine: French
The Buzz:
Seattle’s Bastille Café & Bar takes its authenticity seriously. With a molded zinc bar, Parisian flea market decor and a downright unpronounceable menu, this brasserie transports the Pacific Northwest to the City of Lights. Executive chef Shannon Galusha well-known in town for Veil , cranks out late-night boulangerie fare, with a West Coast twist: veggies plucked straight from the rooftop garden.
Owner: Warren Schwartz
Chef: Warren Schwartz
Cuisine: Californian, with traditional American influences
The Buzz: California cuisine is due for an update? Already? Dish deconstruction is key according to one of L.A’s top restaurateurs, Warren Schwartz (Whist, Patina and Saddle Peak Lodge), whose
latest venture takes hints from gourmet pubs and taverns and presents you with menu choices such as a James Ranch lamb French dip sandwich with caramelized onions, horseradish cream and rosemary au jus. The décor is ski lodge chic, with dark leather and walnut tree wood.
Owner: Robert De Niro
Chef: Andrew Camellini
Cuisine: Italian, with French influences
The Buzz: Any restaurant owned by DeNiro automatically gets big attention. Last year, that attention was mostly negative as his opening of Ago flopped miserably—bad, overpriced food with attitude. In that same lofty Tribeca Space, DeNiro came back in early May with Locanda Verde, which has hit the right notes. The key: Carmellini, who turned Manhattan heads previously at A Voce, and serves up peasant’s grub with a master’s touch, and prices that fall somewhere in the middle. The lofty, boisterous room, draws from the Wall Street crowd and a host of A-lister (James Gandolfini) have shown.
Owner: Concentrics Restaurants
Chef: Todd Stein
Cuisine: Modern Italian
The Buzz:
Cibo Matto has the advantage of real estate, located on the second floor of boutique Wit Hotel in Chicago’s Loop, and draws from the rooftop cocktail lounge 25 floors up, where traders and other well-dressed professional cram in. Chef Todd Stein has cooked around the country (David Burke in Las Vegas, MK in Chicago, and Bank in Minneapolis) before returning to a place whose name translates to Crazy Food. How crazy? Not so much: a seafood-heavy collection of pastas and main courses. The scenery’s sleek and mild, too, save for a ceiling fresco by Todd Murphy titled “Crazy Feast.” No, the meaning behind the moniker must lie in the sheer insanity of the concept that a hotel restaurant—granted, a
boutique hotel restaurant—could have this type of flyaway success that's the stuff of traveling salesmen dreams.
Owner: Daniel Boulud
Chef: Jim Leiken
Cuisine: French-meets-American
The Buzz: The high priest of haute French has gone downtown and down-market, and the results are impressive. The room is packed with food-world royalty (Jonathan Waxman here, Mimi Sheraton there), all of whom sit in booths or at the bar to feast on burgers and 13 kinds of sausages. The surprising hit of the restaurant: over 50 beers (including one from Switzerland) and a brilliant wine list spearheaded by Colin Alevras, formerly of the Tasting Room, a cult favorite among New York oenophiles.
Owners: Michael White and Chris Cannon
Chef: Michael White
Cuisine: High-end costal Italian cuisine
The Buzz: With two of Manhattan’s (and the country’s) highest acclaimed Italian restaurants, the Northern Italian focused Alto and the the Southern Italian-focused Convivio, tucked safely under his chef whites, Michelin-star winner Michael White is focusing on the coast to complete his trifecta. The menu at
Marea reads of pasta “fatta in casa,” or made in house, and the likes of swordfish polpetti and red wine braised octopus, giving you a taste of the Mediterranean
marea (tide in Italian). Located off the decidedly non-coastal Central Park South, the interior attempts to offset this with a luxury yacht décor. With White cooking, few gimmicks are needed.
