En plein air
Plein Air, Rolo's, Greywind, Gjelina NY, Dayglow Coffee, best coffee bean delivery, Miami condos, BondST, MORE
RESTAURANTS • First Person
Queens gambit
The bartender at Ridgewood’s low-key great cocktail bar, Sundown, leaned over as he sized us up on a recent Saturday night: “Rolo’s?”
A reasonable guess. Opened during the pandemic, Rolo’s has blossomed into one of the most exuberant places to dine anywhere in the city. The menu, by three Gramercy Tavern alums, is built around a wood-fired oven; what emerges from it ranges from great to unforgettable. The room always crackles with contagious energy. But Rolo’s also remains stubbornly impassable: A drop-by just after 5p on a recent weekend night found the entire walk-in-only front room completely claimed, and the maitre’d discouraging us from having hope going forward. (Weekends are often bookable a few weeks out on Resy.)
No, on this Saturday night we were headed to a tiny spot around the corner from Rolo’s, the latest reason to consider a trek to this corner of Queens. It’s called Plein Air (above), a restaurant so petite, onions are stored beneath the coat rack, and staff move a ladder around to grab bottles of wine racked precariously above the kitchen. It brings to mind a Montreal wine bar, a rarefied vibe I’m perpetually in search of (and always extremely pleased to find anywhere beyond Québec).
First to hit our table: a half dozen pristine Sand Dune oysters from Prince Edward Island, served with a dreamy mignonette. Then, chicken liver paté a FOUND tipster claimed “rivals Ryan Hardy’s at Charlie Bird” (confirmed) and a simple plate of thinly sliced Serrano ham served with sliced baguette. For mains, pork shoulder with white beans and salsa verde, and coq au vin, all washed down with a bottle of Marsannay pinot noir (Domaine Coillot 2020 for $97, the upper end of the list). C'est délicieux.
Plein Air is the sort of place where everyone ends up talking to everyone, whether you mean to or not. It turns out one server used to work at York Cellars, our favorite Dumbo wine store; the Ridgewood local at the table next to us comes here all the time (breakfast and lunch are also on offer) and observed, with no small amount of authority: “Everyone comes to Ridgewood for Rolo’s, but this place is better.”
I wouldn’t say better, but I would say “delightful” and “very much its own thing,” right down to the on-the-house Amaro shots that closed out our night. –Lockhart Steele
→ Plein Air (Ridgewood) • 6838 Forest Ave • Reserve.
→ Rolo’s (Ridgewood) • 853 Onderdonk Ave • Reserve.
RESTAURANTS • Intel
GREY WINDS BLOW: A trusted FOUND correspondent emails:
On select evenings, Greywind (Hudson Yards) is transforming its small bakery into a classy yet cozy chef’s counter. Only 8 diners per seating. Two seatings a night. I dined at it last night. I’m a huge Loring Place fan but the food was different. Elevated and more adventurous while still being accessible. It was probably the best tasting menu experience I’ve ever had. Why? It was phenomenal haute cuisine but without the food being stuffy or straining to be different.
[Chef Dan] Kluger was engaged and charming with the diners. He was NOT phoning this in… there was a lot of thought and effort. I felt like I was taken behind the curtain on his recipe development journey in a totally disarming, egoless way. It was a special elevated experience but without the awkwardness that sometimes comes with these types of things. He said he plans to do this once a month and rotate the menu every two months.
This month’s bookings: Mar 20-22, 6p and 830p seatings, $185 per. Reserve.
PUT IT ON MY TAB: As work continues to bring back LA import Gjelina NY (Noho) — which shuttered after a fire one month after opening last winter — the team announced a special offering with restaurant loyalty platform Blackbird: For $5,000 or $10,000, secure your own house account holding that sum at the restaurant, with perks like a private reservation line. Purchase. Meantime, word on the street is that the restaurant will make its grand return before summer.
SIX PACK: Is a six-person booth worthy of its own name? It is at Una Pizza Napoletana (Lower East Side), where the lone such booth, dubbed The Tavola, can be booked Thurs.-Sat. for a family-style feast. The night includes two pizzas per guest and on- and off-menu starters, plus desserts, all by chef Anthony Mangieri, all via a reservation you didn’t have to murder someone for. Inquires via this form.
NYC RESTAURANT LINKS: Babs closes in Greenwich Village, will be replaced by a new Parcelle wine bar • Charlie Palmer is closing his Midtown steakhouse to open something new • Village edition of mind-blowing uptown pizzeria Mama’s Too opens this Saturday • Books in bars, and where to find them • On the (many) vintages of the century.
WORK • Tuesday Routine
Under construction
JONATHAN LANDAU • founder and CEO • Landau Properties
Neighborhood you work in: Nomad
It’s Tuesday morning, where are you working?
Definitely in an office or at a job site. This morning, I started off at our Landau Properties office in Nomad. From there, my team and I will head down to Wall Street for a hands-on meeting with the architects and engineers for one of our current New York development sites.
I founded Landau Properties at the end of 2022 with my daughter, Yaeli, and son-in-law, DC. It’s always been a dream of mine to work closely with my children, so this has been an incredible chapter for us so far. We’ve built a great team that’s driven, creative, and focused, and we’re currently developing properties in New York and Miami, with more in the works.
What’s the Tuesday morning scene at your workplace?
Very hands-on. We have meetings with our architects, designers and consultants for a large development project we’re currently working on in New York. Those meetings take place at the architect’s office or via Zoom, and we all collaborate. We’re incredibly ambitious and everyone’s expected to deliver, but we also have fun and support one another.
What’s on the agenda for today?
The designer for our New York and Miami projects is flying in from Boston to review design plans, and our sales and marketing team is meeting with a buyer of a full-floor residence at our new condo project in Miami, Indian Creek Residences & Yacht Club (above).
What’s for lunch?
Lunch is usually on the lighter side for me. If I’m going out, sushi at Zuma, near our office in Nomad, is a great option. If we’re ordering in for lunch meetings, I love to get sandwiches from Mendy’s, 2nd Avenue Deli, or Patis for our guests, and a soup or salad for me.
Any plans tonight?
Visiting my two-and-a-half-year-old grandson at 6:30pm and then off to an investor dinner at BondST.
WORK • Offices
Long-distance relationships
The distance between employers and their respective employees’ homes blew up between 2019 and 2023 — from 10 miles to 27 miles, on average — per a survey released this week by payroll company Gusto and Stanford economists.
The graphs are striking, particularly those detailing these cohorts:
Millennials: Employees 30-39 years old live the farthest from work, 31 miles on average.
High earners: $250K+ earners live 42 miles from work, compared to 18 for those earning less than $50k.
Tech and finance professionals: New hires in both sectors are living over 100 miles from their employers.
The Times ran the numbers through a handful of long-distance-worker anecdotes (the biweekly commute from Cincinnati to NYC!) and urban scholar analyses (blame it on the suburbs), hitting a flurry of buzzwords along the way: Is it a “doom loop?” Where are the new “Zoom towns?” Who are the “super commuters?”
But while workers hired pre-pandemic have moved farther from work — from 10 to 16 miles, on average — it’s far-flung new hires driving most of the change in the data set, which is made up of Gusto’s universe of mostly small and medium-sized businesses. Which means that in the new world of hybrid and remote work, more than anything, the talent pool has broadened. –Josh Albertson
WORK LINKS: Development-friendly Jersey City is outbuilding NYC • Disney HQ nears completion in Hudson Square • Google HQ has the only NYC location of Philly’s Goldie Falafel • If food halls have peaked, what’s next? • Connecticut’s banker set is driving a Darien office boom • What it’s like to staff the home of a billionaire • Remote work killed the vibes.
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GOODS & SERVICES • FOUND Shop
’Glowed up
It pains me (deeply) when Los Angeles comes up with something (anything) better than that which can be found here in New York City. For example, year-round great weather. Or fantastic mid-range sushi.
Chief among them: Dayglow Coffee, whose whole bean selection and spectacular coffee cocktails are utterly unrivaled by anything anywhere, nevermind the city. Every time I'm in LA, I'll drop in and haul home a few bags of beans, which they import from the best roasters around the world — Copenhagen (Coffee Collective), Oslo (Fuglen), Seoul (Fritz Coffee), Rotterdam (Manhattan Coffee), Berlin (The Barn) and so on. Needless to say, Dayglow's own roasting program, based out of Ipswich, MA, is also fantastic.
Thankfully, my long-lived nightmare is over, or dream's come true: Dayglow has landed in New York City, opening late last year in Bushwick, more or less around the corner from Roberta's. A recent trip there landed me fantastic bags from DAK Roasters (Amsterdam), Nomad (Barcelona), and an absolutely stunning box of Dayglow's E02 (the 'E' for 'exotic'), which comes in a rad, shiny iridescent box, and comes out of the bag smelling like a ripe pile of tropical fruits. Yes, you'll be charged an arm and a leg — around $30 a bag, if you’re lucky — but you get what you pay for: a legendary collection of coffees.
While you're there, get a handbrew par excellence, or better yet, don't sleep on the coffee cocktails, reason to visit in their own right — and this comes from an otherwise dedicated drinker of black coffee. Beginners would do well to start with the iced Military, a matcha-espresso number with cocoa and vanilla cream. Untested: their beer program, which they've started in Bushwick under the name Niteglow, and given their execution on the coffee obsessive front, will surely be a winner, too. –Foster Kamer
→ Shop: Dayglow (Bushwick) • 8 Wilson St • Daily 7a-11p.
GOODS & SERVICES LINKS: New women’s boutique, Willow & Zoey, opens in Tribeca • Annie Leibovitz joins up with Ikea for ‘dream project’ • There’s a flight simulator in 7 World Trade • How wearable should clothes in a fashion show be? • Why are pants so big again?
GOODS & SERVICES • The Nines
Coffee beans, delivered
