Club steak
Lucky's Soho, Massara, Bourbon Steak, Crown Shy, adaptive furniture, best beach daytrips, Blue Box Café, Catskills, Hamden General Store, Eighty Main, MORE
RESTAURANTS • First Person
Lucky's strike
Lucky’s Soho is the third branch of the burgeoning steakhouse microchain that launched in Montecito, CA, in 2000. Here’s how a friend of FOUND LA explains the west coast operation:
It’s good, but it benefits from being good in two highly affluent places notorious for not having great food despite the affluence factor. So you go to Lucky’s, and because it’s good — and because there is such a dearth of good restaurants in either Montecito or Malibu — it seems better than it is. The one in Montecito has a great clubby vibe. The one in Malibu doesn’t.
The Soho outpost, which opened on Lafayette just south of Spring two weeks ago, was all promise when we arrived early last Wednesday. Over a leisurely cocktail and excellent bread service, we contemplated where, exactly, this would fall on the New York restaurant continuum.
The space is small (only 50 seats) with a bar running along the left and a handful of tables tucked aside a long banquette on the right. There’s a 42-foot mural covering two of the walls and (as in its California locations) Rat Pack photography. The colors are black and white and dark-wood browns. It’s definitely a great, clubby room that also answers the question, can you fit a steakhouse inside a former Luke’s Lobster?
The menu, a condensed version of Montecito’s, is aggressively steakhouse with just a handful of non-steak mains, most of which aren’t made for a keep-it-light night out on the town. The day’s specials — matzoh ball soup and a beef pot pie — were comically mismatched for this hot, late July evening, as the waiter sheepishly and endearingly acknowledged.
After a grilled artichoke (with a lemon beurre blanc too thin to stick) and a Lucky’s salad (shrimp, avocado, bacon, Roquefort), we rolled up our sleeves for a Lucky burger (mushrooms, raclette, lettuce, tomato, and onion on a challah bun) and a Gene’s filet, a 10-ounce cut served atop a shallow pool of red wine sauce with a horseradish cream on the side. The preparation is named after Lucky’s proprietor, Gene Montesano, who also co-founded Lucky Brand Jeans and reportedly likes his steak this way. It’s a good way.
While we picked at the last of the thinly sliced onion rings, the room was filling up and the energy was rising. As we paid the (expensive, but not offensive) check, it was easy to fast forward a few months and imagine how that burger might taste just a little bit better under the din of a bustling crowd on a cool October night. Maybe we’d even stroll in for a cup of soup and a pot pie at the bar. –Josh Albertson
→ Lucky’s Soho (Soho) • 244 Lafayette St • Wed-Sun 5-11p • Reserve.
RESTAURANTS • Fine Dining Report
Our fine dining correspondent Lee Pitofsky dines at Per Se as often as most civilians order delivery. Here, now, his latest New York City report:
PASTA PROGRESS: Checking back on (FOUND’s Restaurant of the Summer) Massara (Flatiron), the star of the show remains (expectedly) the pastas. On a recent visit, highlights included the cheesemakers raviolini with Bufala DOP mozzarella, datterini tomato, and basil, and pasta fredda, handmade chitarra pasta served cold, with sea urchin and raw gambero rosso (i.e. scarlet prawns, a Sicilian delicacy). The two-story restaurant is bigger than its immensely popular sister, Rezdôra, but still a tough table. Reserve.
FLAMBÉED: Chef Michael Mina had sights set on New York City several years ago, but it never came to fruition. Now, it finally has, with Bourbon Steak at the JW Marriott Essex House (Central Park South, above), and the NYC steakhouse scene is the better for it. The restaurant comes with a modern touch, both in its design elements and menu offerings. There’s tableside service from a fresh seafood trolly, whole roasted foie gras, lobster pot pie, and a bourbon-flambéed chocolate fondue with all the fixings. The beverage program, from Mina Group corporate director Jeremy Shanker, is equally impressive. Reserve.
THE NEXT CHAPTER: The summer menu is in full swing at Crown Shy (Wall Street), a restaurant now under the umbrella of the newly rebranded Kent Hospitality Group. On the new summer menu, pillows of gnocchi have a new look, dressed in chanterelles and corn cream. Quail a la plancha, its breast and leg accompanied by summer beans and charred quail sausages, nearly required a double order. The pork katsu, a holdover dish, remains untouchable, crispy on the outside, impossibly tender on the inside, and always the favorite item on the table. Reserve. –Lee Pitofsky
NYC RESTAURANT LINKS: Mattos alum Sam Lawrence prepping Bridges, to open this fall in Chinatown • More updates on the fate of legendary East Village dive Lucy’s • New owners plot comeback for Alice’s Teacup on Upper East Side • Help, there’s a hot dog in my drink!
WORK • Tuesday Routine
Catskills grind
ANTONIO MORA • chef • Tiny’s, Hamden General Store, Hamden Inn
Neighborhood you work in: Hamden, NY (Catskills)
It’s Tuesday morning. What’s the scene at your workplace?
Tuesdays are a day off for me at both of my workplaces: Tiny’s — the Thursday to Sunday sandwich shop that I run out of the Hamden General Store — and the Hamden Inn, across the road, where I’m the co-chef in the evenings.
At Tiny’s, I’m known for my bacon, egg, and cheese. I grew up in Manhattan, and I respect tradition; I’m just trying to make the best version of something you know and love. I do a chopped cheese sandwich, a tuna melt, a turkey club, a cheeseburger, and it’s just the details that make them good. Like for the club: I toast the bread, use good bacon, season the tomato, season the mayo, use real roast turkey breast. Every once in a while I’ll do a pernil sandwich, Puerto Rican-style roast pork, and I put kimchi on it.
The Hamden Inn is a tavern. It might feel unremarkable when you walk in, but the service is incredible and I think the food is great, too. It’s a real community place, and everyone is welcome. We do fresh salmon and halibut, steak frites, falafel, and I make dips that are inspired by Kiki’s on the Lower East Side.
I’ll do an occasional pop-up at the store: oysters, crudo, and ceviche with local beer in the summer, and pizza pop-ups with Inez Valk, who owned Table on Ten, which is now Alison Roman’s store First Bloom. I’ve done dinners at Bovina Farm and Fermentory and collaborations with Sohail Zandi at Brushland Eating House.
What’s on the agenda for today?
I live in Delhi, NY, so I’ll probably get breakfast at Bagels n Cream, which is a straightforward deli with great bagels and sandwiches. If the weather is nice enough, I’ll go fishing in the Pepacton Reservoir with a few other cooks who have Tuesday off, or kayaking on the East Branch of the Delaware. I’ve been renting kayaks, rowboats, and canoes at Al’s Sport Shop in Downsville. In the late winter, I spend Tuesdays working with my friends at Yankee Acres, tapping sap, boiling and bottling maple syrup.
What’s for lunch?
The Hamden General Store does a $9 per plate farm lunch on Mondays and Tuesdays, using stuff from the local farmers market, so I’ll probably swing by for that.
Any plans tonight?
On Tuesdays, all the restaurants I love are closed, so I cook at home, or go to a friend’s place to cook and eat together. On Monday nights, if I’m off early enough, I have dinner at Eighty Main in Delhi. The chef, Will Johnson, is a friend of mine and his menu is Italian and Argentinian, and he’s executing at a really high level, but it’s fun and comfortable. His tasting menu is called “I Don’t Give a Fuck,” which is a question for the diner: “Do you not give a fuck what I send out, because you trust me and it’s gonna be delicious?” Will really gives a fuck.
What’s a recent big-ticket purchase you love?
I just bought a rowboat with a friend, for fishing on the reservoir. Since moving up here from New York, I've really come to appreciate the “third space” that nature affords me, and was ready to invest in outdoor life in a semi-permanent way.
WORK • Offices
Pod life
Fifteen years ago, when we leased 3K square feet of space off Cooper Square in the East Village for a team of 20-30 people, we kept the room open. Since it was a digital media company, everyone was very much online and mostly library quiet, banging away on their laptops and chatting on AIM (pre-Slack!). We also had desk phones, which were mostly for the sales people, who had to cut through the silence to perform their pitches. It was incredibly awkward, even for the extroverts in the group.
Eventually, we commissioned a couple of “private” spaces, a corner boxed in by a glass wall — a semi-soundproof terrarium of sorts — and a carved out “conference room” with an opaque pleated wall that didn’t make it to the ceiling (and wasn’t at all soundproof). All meetings were unintentional all-hands.
We were resisting the office culture of our parents’ generation, breaking down walls or some such, and even though the office was generally full of good vibes, it was all very clumsy, and definitely not for everyone.
If we were blocking out that space today, we’d have considerably more options. Boosted first by a tech-led shift to flexible working environments and then the pandemic — when employees got used to the privacy upgrades their home setups provided — makers of pods and other adaptive furniture have flourished over the last decade. Companies like Framery, Nook, and OmniRoom are pushing the form with space-age single-user phone booths and modular rooms that fit together like Legos.
The result can be awkward in its own way: employees posted up in a series of isolation chambers, in offices where attendance is required to foster teamwork. But the modern workplace is an evolutionary process, and we’ll support whatever it takes to keep the cubicles at bay. –Josh Albertson
WORK LINKS: Ad firm PubMatic leases 60K SF at 498 Seventh Ave • Blackrock to expand Hudson Yards headquarters • W 50th St office building sells for 97.5% discount off 2006 price • 18 months after opening, Grand Central Madison is still a work in progress • Trending: PowerPoint parties.
GOODS & SERVICES • FOUND Cafe
Boxed in
A year after its opening, Daniel Boulud’s Blue Box Café still feels like a private club, safe from prying eyes on the sixth floor of Tiffany & Co. on Fifth Ave. in Midtown. Hostesses scan the daily guest list with diligence before opening the blue rope guarding the entrance. Walking into the dining room, that famous Pantone (1837) is front and center, with hundreds of iconic blue boxes dangling from the ceiling by thin transparent threads. It’s as if they’re ready to drop onto your table, in the event you’re inspired to pop a fateful question.
First comers usually gravitate toward the breakfast and tea menus, which are available all day, and made of classic indulgences and French pastries displayed on gorgeous trays. One such entry, the egg in a shell, hides soft scrambled egg under a wave of caviar. But the summer menu isn’t to be missed. Boulud’s executive chef, Raphaëlle Bergeon, infuses French elegance and finesse in a loup de mer, flawlessly flaky under the fork, sitting on the creamiest but lightest beurre blanc sauce. The tuna carpaccio is perfectly thinly sliced and served with a show-stealing Provence seasoning. To finish, a fabulous praline mousseline, a fittingly luxurious dessert, as far as these things go. –Marine White
→ Blue Box Café (Midtown) • 727 5th Ave, 6th Fl • Mon-Sat 10a-8p, Sun 11a-7p • Reserve.
GOODS & SERVICES LINKS: Heytea taking over Swarovski’s Times Square space • Considering The Flender and other new space- and labor-saving kitchen appliances • Tracking Tribeca’s dispensary chaos • ‘America’s most interesting car dealership’ is in Astoria.
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GETAWAYS • The Nines
Beaches, NYC and surrounds
The Nines are FOUND's distilled lists of NYC's best. Additions or subtractions? Hit reply or found@foundny.com.
Rockaway Beach (Queens), getaway at The Rockaway Hotel and Spa