FOUND friends & family elevates the experience
Clover Hill, titan-class grinder, wine stores, Moynihan Connector, more
RESTAURANTS • Annals of Tock
Clover Hill is peak Brooklyn Heights
It’s hard to win a Michelin star and yet still feel somewhat off the radar, but such is the situation at Clover Hill, which opened in southeast Brooklyn Heights right before the pandemic. These days, the restaurant is open for breakfast and lunch, but it’s at night when former Eleven Madison Park and One White Street chef Charlie Mitchell — who joined the restaurant for its early 2022 reopening — gets serious.
On an early spring visit, the seven-course, seafood-heavy tasting menu was a revelation, with several dishes ascending to the ethereal. The setting (refined) and vibe (unpretentious) clinch it — this one’s a keeper. After dinner, step out onto the gorgeous block, stroll up Hicks Street past Ingas Bar, and try to remember a time when there wasn’t a decent meal to be found in all of Brooklyn Heights. Mitchell is up for the James Beard Emerging Chef award, to be awarded June 5. Book with haste.
→ Clover Hill • 20 Columbia Place (Brooklyn Heights) • tasting menu $225, wine pairing $95 • weeknight availability on Tock in May and June ($75 deposit per).
→ Speaking of tasting menus, FOUND’s fine dining correspondent reports: “Originality shines in the new spring menu at Eleven Madison Park (Flatiron), especially one new menu standout: Wollfia, the world’s smallest aquatic plant grown in fresh waters in Israel, sits atop of a shiso and yuzu dip accompanied by cucumber crudité with toasted rice and herb powder. The most perfect ‘vegetables and dip’ you’ll ever have.”
→ NYC bars named to this year’s edition of World’s 50 Best Bars, in ranked order starting with the new number 1 bar in the world: Double Chicken Please (LES), Katan Kitten (West Village), Dante (Village), Attaboy (LES), Overstory (Fidi), Employees Only (West Village), Mace (Village), Martiny’s (Union Square), Maison Premiere (Williamsburg), The Dead Rabbit (Fidi), Clover Club (Cobble Hill), Milady’s (Soho). Martiny’s and the reborn Milady’s are newcomers to the list this year.
NYC RESTAURANT LINKS: Drew Nieporent’s Bâtard will close permanently after service on May 20 • Ilyssa Satter and Joe Campanale open snazzy Bar Vinazo in Park Slope • Rooftop bar Lillistar opens at Williamsburg Moxy Hotel • The end of glou-glou?
GOODS & SERVICES • FOUND Object
Back to the grind
What it is: A titan-class (the best) coffee grinder smaller than all others, with a rich taste profile. Outperforms grinders 2-3x in cost. My favorite after trying four different multi-thousand-dollar competitors.
What was found: In the right hands, a world-class coffee grinder makes coffee sweeter and deeper and can eliminate all traces of bitterness. This grinder does that for everything from French press to espresso, and even automatically stirs ground beans to eliminate clumps, furthering even extraction.
Extras: Espresso nerds will want to check out the accompanying Unibasket portafilter, Moonraker puck preparation tool, and bean dosing test tubes for the best coffee and workflow possible. –Brian Lam
→ Shop: The Key, Weber Workshops, $1999.
GOODS & SERVICES LINKS: When a program (Bilt) wants to reward you too much, you let them • Standouts from Milan Design Week • First look at Sophie Donelson’s new kitchen design playbook Uncommon Kitchens (pre-order) • LVMH’s Bernard Arnault has a secret NFT collection.
GOODS & SERVICES • The Nines
Wine stores, Manhattan
Parcelle (LES and Hudson Yards), ships across NYC, plus IRL winebar/shops
Astor Wine & Spirits (Noho/East Village), the center of the universe
Crush Wine & Spirits (Midtown East), hip vibe, big notable selections
People’s Wine Shop (LES), Essex Market natural wine specialist
Harlem Wine Gallery (Harlem), Black winemaker spotlight, great tastings
Terry’s Wines & Spirits (Greenwich Village), tight selection, friendly staff
Pasanella & Son (Seaport, above), outfitter to New York harbor and beyond
Chambers Street Wine (Tribeca), natural and rare wines from small producers
MCF Rare Wine (West Village), small shop with very tight selection
Le Dû's Wines (West Village), enduring pick for rare bottles
WORK • Tuesday Routine
Phoenix Rising in Union Square
Who you are: Felix Salmon, chief financial correspondent, Axios
Neighborhood you work in: Union Square
It’s Tuesday morning, where are you working?
At the Axios offices on University & 11th. We're in a co-working space that's either called Techspace or Industrious, depending on how old you are.
What’s the Tuesday morning scene at your workplace?
Pretty barren, tbh. Wednesday seems to be the main day that people come in. I do look forward to seeing my editor Kate Marino, though. Fewer people in the office does have the advantage of making it more likely there will still be grapefruit Spindrift in the fridge.
What’s on the agenda for today?
If it's a Tuesday, I must be publishing a book! Actually, I think that's just today. It's called The Phoenix Economy: Life, Work, and Money in the New Not Normal, and one of the things it covers is how "working on a Tuesday" has gone from being a standard routine thing that no one needs to think much about, to being a highly variable event that's full of unexpected contingencies. Today, that probably included a trip up to Rockefeller Center for a Morning Joe hit.
What’s for lunch?
Union Square Cafe, if I can swing it. Failing that, probably Sweetgreen.
Any plans tonight?
Book party! But one of my favorite things about this office is how many awesome restaurants are right here, perhaps after drinks at the National Arts Club (above). I feel people have forgotten how great Craft is.
WORK • Commuter Report
Heaven is a walkway near Penn Station
Not long ago, to emerge from Penn Station onto the streets of Midtown, slump-shouldered commuters had to navigate a maze of cramped, poorly lit, Annie’s Pretzel-scented walkways — “the depths of hell,” as Governor Kathy Hochul once called it. Partial salvation arrived in the form of the Moynihan Train Hall extension and a rehaul of the main building.
Now comes the Moynihan Connector, a pair of 600-foot-long bridges designed to link the commuting hub to the High Line to the west. The second of the two pieces, the Timber Bridge (rendering above), was installed last week at Dyer Ave. and 31st St. The walkways are at once imposing and airy and everything that wasn’t at the Penn Station of yore. They’ll open to the public in June. Full renderings here. Installation pics here and here and here.
NYC WORK LINKS: “New York’s cheaper than it’s been in a really, really, really long time,” say commercial real estate dealmakers • Yes, that’s a climbing wall in the office: Seagram Tower debuts amenities • Two Trees’ DUMBO office buildings 90% leased, lobbies get upgrades • What’s really luring New York City’s art galleries to Tribeca? • Grocer Lidl signs 23k SF lease in Chelsea • Sam Altman leads $29m series A for community college startup Campus.
ASK FOUND
Essential UWS
Q: Where can I take my parents for a dinner uptown, somewhere with white tablecloths and relative peace and quiet?
A: Have you considered Essential by Christophe on West 77th Street? Here’s the rundown from FOUND’s fine dining correspondent:
THE SKINNY: Lives up to its Joël Robuchon lineage at a much lower price point.
THE BACKSTORY: Chef Christophe Belanca is the former head chef of the now-closed, two-Michelin-stars L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon. Robuchon lovers of the world will recognize chef’s LJR touch.
THE ROOM: Christophe opened on the UWS in December 2022 in the old Dovetail and Leonti space, two restaurants where the size of the crowd never quite matched the excellence of the cooking. Bellanca aims to break that curse.
THE MENU: Sit in the bar for cocktails and a separate bar menu (even a burger) or in the dining room which allows for the choice of a la carte or a seven-course tasting menu for $145. That’s a far cry from the $300+ menu at L’Atelier for nearly the same amount of food. And Bellanca’s cooking is just as good as his days in LJR red and black.
→ Essential by Christophe • 103 W 77th St, Manhattan (Upper West Side) • tasting menu $145, wine pairing $95 per • book on Resy.
Alternative suggestion across town via a FOUND subscriber: “The answer to this question might be JoJo, Jean-Georges’ first restaurant on 64th and Lex.”
PROMPTS, two new, one for which we continue to seek intel:
What are the good shops to buy men’s clothing now that Barney’s is gone?
I am always looking for decent restaurants that don't have an annoying reservation policy or that I can call to get a reservation. Can you help?
I need a new statement work bag. Where can I shop for one IRL?
Got an answer (or question)? Hit reply or email found@foundny.com.