The Americano is so delightful you may not want to leave

The words West Chelsea and Beautiful People are enough to strike fear into the hearts of most of us mere mortals—not just those of average self-esteem, but also the pretension averse, the perfume allergic and the food lovers.

These are not places you go to eat. They are for cold marble edges and low black leather banquettes on which to perch while nibbling on tiny empanadas that taste enough of sawdust to discourage second helpings. They are for an overlong champagne list and vodka cocktails. They are for reflective surfaces and spotting Jon Bon Jovi. They are the places for which the term “scene” was coined.

This could be used to describe the Americano (518 W. 27th St., betw. 10th & 11th Aves.), and in fact the place does fit the description—to a point. The break comes when you realize it is a place that is not just beautiful, it is one you actively want to spend time in. In fact, a first visit will likely find you planning your next before the meal’s end.

If it’s raining and you eat indoors, you’ll want to come back to have a drink at the rooftop bar. If you’re at the rooftop bar for drinks, you’ll want to come downstairs for a full meal once you pass the plates on your way out. You can do a full, multicourse dinner or a proliferation of small plates—both are a good idea.

One might be inclined to call the Americano’s multiple personalities an identity crisis, and it would be hard to disagree. That rooftop bar is called La Piscine (and there is, indeed, a tiny pool up there, though it should be foregone for the seats at the other end, which have a view of the High Line and the Hudson River), but the grill up there serves Greek hummus and babaganoush, branzino and kasseri cheese.

The dining room menu proffers “French food with a Latin flair,” which means there is a segregated section for things like carnitas with plantains, while the “Salades” include one of “Pulpo y Calamares” and the entrecôte comes with chimichurri. There is plenty of marble and black leather inside, but the entire rear wall of the dining room is a window looking out on the ivy-covered wall that supports the rear outdoor garden, a beautifully chaotic natural counterpoint to all the shiny edges indoors.

However, this all-things-to-all-people striving is more and more a common pitfall for the kind of hotel that wants to lure in local business while giving overnight guests whatever they might need. And in this regard, the Americano does much better than its counterparts.

Navigating the NoMad Hotel, whose restaurant, the much-anticipated second home of the team from 11 Madison Park, is its over-hyped crown jewel, is a logistical nightmare. Eating there, you pity the poor souls who paid money to wander at blank lobby in search of their room; eating at the Americano, you wonder whether it wouldn’t be a better idea to get a room for the night rather than go home.

Yes, your neighbors might be impossibly tall, vodka-drinking Beautiful People, but chances are you’ll both have just eaten the same tuna tostadas, tiny rounds of hard-fried tortilla topped with rare tuna, chipotle mayonnaise and a shower of slivered hearts of palm, and will want to commiserate about how good they were. If you’re lucky, they might even share a sip of their cocktail, a grapefruit-and-blood-orange concoction so refreshing you’ll kick yourself for overlooking it the first time.

They probably won’t have ordered the lamb saddle, but you should recommend it to them; it’s a delicate, perfectly cooked portion with a bracingly sharp mustard jus and sweetly salted pistachios and the hard-to-find panisse, a French Mediterranean cake of chickpea flour that’s somewhere between polenta and bread but twice as tasty.

And when they rave about the crudités, don’t roll your eyes and dismiss it. An assortment of the world’s most precious spring vegetables come, tops attached, in shallow bowl of “dirt,” olive crumbs over a layer of crème fraiche. It’s amusing and pretty to look at, but there’s more to it than simple appearances and it’s ultimately a deeply satisfying, inarguably enjoyable experience—a perfect synecdoche for the Americano itself.

So who decided to put lobster in macaroni and cheese? I get that at some point, the bandwagon committee had exhausted the list of ways to tart up the now-ubiquitous dish (three cheeses! FIVE cheeses! truffles shaved grotesquely overtop, like the fallout from an explosion at the manure factory), but what sick bastard came up with lobster?

Sure, the King of Shellfish ™ goes well with butter, but that’s a cheap cop-out. A sofa cushion goes well with butter. That’s butter’s job. Lobster is best served with an acidic counterpoint, something to temper its richness and let your palate breathe. Without that foil, it’s just a one-note sledgehammer of fat, bashing you into gluttonous submission.

I’ll make you an offer, bar owners, restaurateurs and those considering all-mac-and-cheese food trucks: if you promise to cut it out with the bullshit luxury ingredients, I’ll promise not to grouse about paying $20 for a dish that came straight off the kids’ menu. Deal?

The only thing you should add to Regan Hofmann’s mac and cheese is sliced hot dogs. She is on Twitter @Regan_Hofmann.

Now for the inaugural post, “Five Ways to Spot a Seriously Good Chinese Restaurant.” Enjoy!

Right, right, we’ve all heard that the fewer white faces, the more authentic—and therefore tastier—a place is. But with so many white people stepping up their game these days, that doesn’t always work. Here are some sure-fire clues you’re in the right place.

• Handwritten signs listing specials you can’t read. Also one of the most aggravating things, because you know all the native speakers are getting the thing the kitchen is most excited about while you twiddle your thumbs. Dive in and start pointing, and get ready to smile politely if they bring you duck tongues.
• Servers who are visibly happy when you ask questions or show pleasure. This is a place where the staff is invested in what they’re doing, and are most likely related to the owner in some way. Personal commitment=great food. You can also get some awesome off-menu perks if you’re respectful and complimentary, two things no one expects Anglos to be.
• Kids working the room. See above. Their parents are more dedicated to working the restaurant than spending quality time at home? Delicious. Nobody’s advocating a repeal of the laws that keep 6-year-olds out of coal mines, but if you’re old enough to answer a phone, you can help out and let dad stay in the kitchen. Bonus: You can feel good knowing the next generation of chefs is being trained before your eyes.  
• A barely passing Health Department grade. Most health inspection demerits are about goofy shit like no dedicated sink for persimmons or food that inches a quarter of a degree above freezing when it goes from fridge to plate. Or, most horrifically, touching the food you’re preparing with your hands! Even three-New-York-Times-star chefs think this is bullshit. Don’t let them boss you around.

• Enforced table-sharing. They’ve got a limited amount of space and there are a lot of hungry people who want in. Are they going to respect your precious personal space and seat your party of three at that four-top by yourselves? Hell no. Pro tip: Nod politely to your neighbor when they’re seated, and again when they leave. Otherwise, keep your eyes down and spend the meal resisting the urge to reach out and snag some of whatever that is they just ordered, unless they want to strike up a conversation – in which case, try to steer them toward translating some of those specials for you.

Regan Hofmann is not Chinese. She is on Twitter @regan_hofmann.

TAP-NY’s first annual Night Market is Friday, April 13 from 6-10 p.m. at the Openhouse Gallery (87 Lafayette St., betw. Walker & White Sts.). Tickets are $35, $50 for VIP early entrance, and all proceeds go to benefit the nonprofit Taiwanese American Citizens League, of which TAP-NY is a chapter. For tickets, go to tapnightmarket.eventbrite.com.

The speakeasy trend hit New York City hard some six years ago, with bars like Employees Only, Pegu Club and Death & Co. springing up in every alleyway. Discerning drinkers were lured in with unlisted phone numbers, unmarked doors and strict codes of conduct that promised to keep unaccompanied ladies unmolested.

But for some reason, the bars all managed to stay below the 49th (Street) parallel, leaving uptown high and dry. It’s not as if uptowners don’t like to bend the elbow, as the continued existence of establishments like Bill’s Gay Nineties, P.J. Clarke’s and Bemelmans can attest, but for some reason, intrepid cocktailiers felt no urge to move on up—until recently.

Jbird’s first location opened in Midtown (241 w. 48th St., betw. Broadway & 8th Ave.), tucked away behind the mob scene of your standard high-gloss Times Square club. This is equal parts genius and misguided: Those susceptible to the allure of the comfortably underpopulated secret den may be too repulsed by the rubicon they have to cross to brave it—or they may run straight into its open arms.

Perhaps in recognition of this double-edged sword, or perhaps because there are fewer big scary clubs to hide behind, the Upper East Side Jbird (339 E. 75th St., betw. 1st & 2nd Aves., jbirdny.com) has its own storefront, albeit a very small one. They’ve figured out that in this neighborhood, cocktails this good don’t need the gimmick—locals are so desperate for an interesting drink they stop at the awning and rub their eyes, convinced it’s an alcoholic’s mirage.

But its looks are still deceiving. Entering the narrow room, bottles stacked claustrophobically to the ceiling, it seems as if you’re in a century-old haunt, where waxed mustaches were prevalent the first time around. Keep going, though, and the room opens up to 21st-century scale, all white tile and mirrors, leather booths and communal tables.

Back there you have a panoply of service staff and the option of a full dinner, as modern bars feel they must supply. Here’s the secret: they don’t have to. There are plenty of places to get dinner. There are very few places to get serious cocktails. You do the math.

Interesting bar snacks like savory popcorn with avocado and Cholula hot sauce or lardo on bread with “good salts” are a pleasant diverson, but a smoked chicken panini just ruins the illusion that you are in a more sophisticated time and place.

The truly remarkable drink menu that divides cocktails by type (old-fashioneds, swizzles, sours), then runs wild with combinations of spirits and flavors that put other bars to shame. This almost mathematical approach makes trying something new a reliable proposition, not a crapshoot—if you know you like old-fashioneds, a KSBW (bourbon, lemongrass acacia honey and bitters) is an easy jump.

Aromatized cocktails are similarly familiar yet fascinating, and the Maddow, which added elderflower liqueur and whiskey barrel-aged bitters to Old Tom gin, was spirit-forward with layers of sweetness and smoke that transcended its martini predecessor.

Jbird thoughtfully presents the different styles in the glasses that serve them best; a julep came in a proper silver cup with a steel straw to reach through the coarse crushed ice, while aromatized drinks are served in smaller-than-the-norm martini glasses with half the cocktail resting in a small decanter on ice, keeping the whole thing frosty as you sip.

At Jbird, it seems even the pioneers who have brought the first speakeasy to the Upper East Side got cold feet and given the neighborhood what they think it wants. But if you ignore this and demand what they’re actually capable of, it’s a cocktail to to rival the best in the rest of the city.

Clearly, Zengo saw this problem and figured they couldn’t help but do better. In one of those haunted spaces that has seen a hundred restaurants try and fail, a temple of happy hour and date night has emerged triumphant, like a mid-priced, dimly lit phoenix from the ashes.

There are Zengos in Denver, Washington, D.C., and Santa Monica, Calif. In each of those towns, it’s the sort of restaurant that is immediately recommended to visiting New Yorkers—interesting and multiethnic in a cosmopolitan way but shinier and larger than you know you’d ever find in the city.

That is, until you stumble into the New York Zengo and it feels just as mystifyingly glossy, 8-foot tables for two set 20 feet apart, carefully gnarled beams suspended from the three-storey ceilings. A mezzanine overlooks the main dining room, accessed by a spotlit, glass-floored walkway. The basement tequila bar is draped with velvet curtains and wrought iron choir gates on the windows add a gothic element.

The restaurant’s concept is Hispanic-Asian fusion, though you would be forgiven for not catching on to this from the decor.

Thankfully, the menu makes it very clear, with dishes like charred tuna wonton tacos and carnitas rice noodles with hot and sour sauce. Every item has at least one element that leaps out to hit you over the head with its cross-cultural audacity—chorizo in the gyoza! Nori in the ceviche!—when they’re not lost in a muddle of intentions, like the yellowfin tuna flatbread with gouda and sambal aioli. If your head hurts from trying to parse that one, welcome to the club.

Zengo’s chef, Richard Sandoval, is a well-regarded Mexican chef who established himself years ago with Maya on the Upper West Side, expanded his brand of highly executed traditional flavors across the country and then, presumably, got bored. Zengo began, like so many Broadway experiments, out of town, and after a successful run Sandoval decided to come back to the big town.

At 9:30 on a Tuesday evening, he seemed to have a hit. It’s pathologically impossible for that space to feel busy, but the majority of the tables were full: large, mixed groups drinking more than they were eating, smaller, Sex-and-the-City-esque groups drinking more than they were eating, pomaded and tanned couples trying to look like they weren’t drinking more than they were eating.

They all had the right idea. The cocktail menu is where this improbable fusion works well, togarashi subbing in for the spice in a margarita with no raised eyebrows, anejo tequila and hibiscus slipping almost seamlessly into a Manhattan. Some of the food is, in fact, quite good, and made to accompany a night of drinking, but it all suffers from the high expectations set by its own description.

If you didn’t know you were supposed to be tasting acai and Sichuan pepper in that spring roll dipping sauce, you’d think it was pleasantly sweet, rather than disappointingly spice-free and cloying. If you weren’t scanning the plate for the phantom jalapeno in your soup dumplings, you might notice they were pretty tasty bundles of mildly spiced pork.

A meal at Zengo can be a baffling experience, starting the moment you walk in the door and think you’ve ended up in Omaha’s up-and-coming arts district. But don’t dismiss it out of hand, dooming yourself to wander the canyons again. Just remember to do as the Romans do and, when in Zengo, drink more than you eat.

He does care a great deal about gumbo—“After Katrina, I spent six months working on a good, dark roux; cooking it every day for six months to get it right. That’s when we had our first gumbo event,” he said—and he cares about helping farmers, food producers and other advocates for local, sustainable food systems.

That’s why his restaurant, Jimmy’s No. 43 (43 E. 7th St., at 2nd Ave., jimmysno43.com), is hosting their N’Orleans Style Gumbo Cook-Off to benefit Chefs for the Marcellus this Sunday, Feb. 19, from 1-3 p.m.

By night, Carbone is a beer aficionado. He founded the Good Beer Seal to help identify other bars in New York City that take the same care in sourcing and serving craft brews as he does at Jimmy’s No. 43; to qualify, bars must be independently owned, serve 80 percent craft beers and be active members of the community.

By day, he runs Food Karma Projects, the umbrella under which he organizes food-centric fundraisers, bringing together other likeminded chefs, restaurateurs and passionate amateurs to support a variety of causes, from the New Amsterdam Market to Slow Food NYC, Food Systems Network NYC and New Orleans reconstruction efforts.

“We’ve had a chowder cook-off, we do cassoulet, we have a duck-off coming up next month,” Carbone listed. “It’s a unique way to support groups we believe in.”

From using his restaurant’s empty back room—“it’s such a clean way to fundraise,” he explained, “since it’s essentially wasted space during the day, we just turn over the entire place and the entry fee can go directly to the organization”—his charity efforts have spread around the city all the way down to Governors Island.

The environmental concern on the tip of most New Yorkers’ tongues right now is fracking, the gas extraction process that decimates ecosystems by polluting groundwater with a potent chemical cocktail. Chefs for the Marcellus, the beneficiary of this Sunday’s event, is an organization of New York food professionals actively advocating against fracking in the Marcellus Shale, a region that encompasses the southern tier of New York State.

Not surprisingly, Carbone is an active member. “It’s an issue that affects a number of the farms we buy from,” he said. “And Ommegang [Brewery]—their neighbor has a large farm that she just sold to an energy company. If the state allows fracking up there, they told me they’re going to have to leave New York.”

The cook-off will bring together a number of gumbo connoisseurs, including chefs from The Green Table and Goat Town other food professionals and cook-off circuit regulars. For $20, attendees can eat as much as they can manage, comparing classic renditions and innovations on the Cajun staple to crown the gumbo king (or queen) of New York City.

And to round out the spicy weekend, Jimmy’s No. 43 will also be hosting a hot sauce tasting on Saturday. Ten small-batch, locally produced hot sauces will be available to try, with GuS sodas and some of the restaurant’s brunch favorites to soothe the burn. That event benefits Rootstown Ohio Farm, whose livelihood was threatened when its crops were decimated in a freak hailstorm.

As for Mardi Gras itself? Jimmy’s No. 43 will hold its regular Tuesday night event, a guided tasting of session beers. But if you ask real nice, you might be able to wrangle yourself a bowl of Carbone’s gumbo—if you just didn’t get enough on Sunday.

Hot Sauce for Ohio Farm Relief, Feb. 18, 1-3 p.m; $10. N’Orleans Style Gumbo Cook-Off, Feb. 19, 1-3 p.m; $20. For more information, visit jimmysno43.com/events.

By Regan Hofmann

It’s as reliable as the tides: Come Valentine’s Day, creativity goes out the window. Husbands feel they have to bring home long-stemmed red roses, the gift that is dying before it even gets to the recipient. Girlfriends feel they have to buy out the nearest Victoria’s Secret, even if their boyfriends have never found ruffles sexy and can’t stand the color pink. And restaurants have it twice as bad. Not only do they have to cater to the thousands of couples who feel they’re legally bound to going out for a “special dinner” on Feb. 14, they have their own clichés to contend with.

Champagne and oysters to start, filet mignon or lobster as a main and chocolate to finish. Somehow, the Valentine’s Day prix fixe menu turns otherwise creative, relevant chefs into hacks.

But does anyone actually want them to? Much like those roses and angel wings, people have been told this is what they’re supposed to like so often they’ve stopped trying to figure out what they actually want. To really prove your love, ditch the truffles and Barefoot Bubbly and give your sweetheart a meal that means something—one they’ll actually enjoy.

Most of the standard V-Day foods have some allegedly aphrodisiac properties, be they chemical, cultural or physical. Chocolate gives you a serotonin high, making you feel good about the person sitting across the table. Champagne flutes signal luxury, making you feel like a movie star while getting drunk enough to act like one. And oysters are slurped out of their shells, held in the hand—a sensual exercise tailor-made for a Cinemax late-night original.

Now consider ramen. Japanese noodle-eating tradition demands slurping—anything less is an insult to the chef—and manipulating chopsticks and spoon around the rich broth and tangle of supple, resilient strands found in any reputable ramen-ya is enough to leave any lover feeling handsy. At Ippudo (65 4th Ave., betw. 9th & 10th Sts., ippudony.com), the dimly lit dark-wood and mirrored interior elevates this homey, sometimes rough-hewn tradition to an elegant evening out. Yes, the wait here is legendary, but you can blow your date’s mind by making a same-day, in-person reservation (the only way they’ll accept them) and breezing past the crowds later that night.

For a chemical lift, skip over the same molten chocolate cake chefs have been peddling since Jean-Georges Vongerichten ruled the ’80s and take the spice road instead. Capsaicin, the compound that gives chile peppers their kick, increases blood circulation, provides an endorphin rush and makes nerve endings extra-sensitive—uncannily mimicking the effects of, as the old Newlywed Game so delicately put it, making whoopee.

Café Asean (117 W. 10th St., betw. Greenwich & 6th Aves., cafeasean.com) is the rarest of rare: a pan-Asian restaurant whose eclecticism doesn’t feel contrived or tacked-on, like the many really-thai-but-we-offer-sushi joints in this town. Asean takes you on a deftly orchestrated tour of the part of the world most intimately familiar with the chile and its many guises, from Singaporean slow-braised short ribs to Vietnamese lemongrass shrimp and nasi goreng, Indonesian fried rice. All are guaranteed to raise your temperature in a candle-lit den of weatherbeaten wood and colonial artifacts.

Or, indulge your shared misanthropy—it’s what brought you together in the first place!—and stay home. Swing through the Essex Street Market (120 Essex St., betw. Rivington & Delancey Sts., essexstreetmarket.com) for a couple of deliciously dirty, funky cheeses from Saxelby Cheesemongers and a rough French loaf from Pain d’Avignon, stop at Russ & Daughters (179 E. Houston St., betw. Allen & Orchard Sts., russanddaughters.com) to pick up some caviar and pre-made blini for that touch of class and ask the staff of September Wines & Spirits (100 Stanton St. #4, at Ludlow St., septemberwines.com) to recommend a bottle to pull it all together (don’t worry, they can).

Set it all out in the living room and snack to your heart’s content, safe from the rhinestones-and-roses crowd with the only person you really want to spend time with. Besides, you’ll be closer to the bedroom when the mood strikes—a Valentine’s Day cliché we can all endorse.

| By Regan Hofmann

It’s as reliable as the tides: Come Valentine’s Day, creativity goes out the window. Husbands feel they have to bring home long-stemmed red roses, the gift that is dying before it even gets to the recipient. Girlfriends feel they have to buy out the nearest Victoria’s Secret, even if their boyfriends have never found ruffles sexy and can’t stand the color pink. And restaurants have it twice as bad. Not only do they have to cater to the thousands of couples who feel they’re legally bound to going out for a “special dinner” on Feb. 14, they have their own clichés to contend with.

Champagne and oysters to start, filet mignon or lobster as a main and chocolate to finish. Somehow, the Valentine’s Day prix fixe menu turns otherwise creative, relevant chefs into hacks.

But does anyone actually want them to? Much like those roses and angel wings, people have been told this is what they’re supposed to like so often they’ve stopped trying to figure out what they actually want. To really prove your love, ditch the truffles and Barefoot Bubbly and give your sweetheart a meal that means something—one they’ll actually enjoy.

Most of the standard V-Day foods have some allegedly aphrodisiac properties, be they chemical, cultural or physical. Chocolate gives you a serotonin high, making you feel good about the person sitting across the table. Champagne flutes signal luxury, making you feel like a movie star while getting drunk enough to act like one. And oysters are slurped out of their shells, held in the hand—a sensual exercise tailor-made for a Cinemax late-night original.

Now consider ramen. Japanese noodle-eating tradition demands slurping—anything less is an insult to the chef—and manipulating chopsticks and spoon around the rich broth and tangle of supple, resilient strands found in any reputable ramen-ya is enough to leave any lover feeling handsy. At Ippudo (65 4th Ave., betw. 9th & 10th Sts., ippudony.com), the dimly lit dark-wood and mirrored interior elevates this homey, sometimes rough-hewn tradition to an elegant evening out. Yes, the wait here is legendary, but you can blow your date’s mind by making a same-day, in-person reservation (the only way they’ll accept them) and breezing past the crowds later that night.

For a chemical lift, skip over the same molten chocolate cake chefs have been peddling since Jean-Georges Vongerichten ruled the ’80s and take the spice road instead. Capsaicin, the compound that gives chile peppers their kick, increases blood circulation, provides an endorphin rush and makes nerve endings extra-sensitive—uncannily mimicking the effects of, as the old Newlywed Game so delicately put it, making whoopee.

Café Asean (117 W. 10th St., betw. Greenwich & 6th Aves., cafeasean.com) is the rarest of rare: a pan-Asian restaurant whose eclecticism doesn’t feel contrived or tacked-on, like the many really-thai-but-we-offer-sushi joints in this town. Asean takes you on a deftly orchestrated tour of the part of the world most intimately familiar with the chile and its many guises, from Singaporean slow-braised short ribs to Vietnamese lemongrass shrimp and nasi goreng, Indonesian fried rice. All are guaranteed to raise your temperature in a candle-lit den of weatherbeaten wood and colonial artifacts.
Or, indulge your shared misanthropy—it’s what brought you together in the first place!—and stay home. Swing through the Essex Street Market (120 Essex St., betw. Rivington & Delancey Sts., essexstreetmarket.com) for a couple of deliciously dirty, funky cheeses from Saxelby Cheesemongers and a rough French loaf from Pain d’Avignon, stop at Russ & Daughters (179 E. Houston St., betw. Allen & Orchard Sts., russanddaughters.com) to pick up some caviar and pre-made blini for that touch of class and ask the staff of September Wines & Spirits (100 Stanton St. #4, at Ludlow St., septemberwines.com) to recommend a bottle to pull it all together (don’t worry, they can).

Set it all out in the living room and snack to your heart’s content, safe from the rhinestones-and-roses crowd with the only person you really want to spend time with. Besides, you’ll be closer to the bedroom when the mood strikes—a Valentine’s Day cliché we can all endorse.

By Regan Hofmann

For a neighborhood with more ferry stops than subway stations, Battery Park City has long lacked a proper seafood restaurant to call its own. To be fair, it’s lacked pretty much any proper restaurants—residents of the planned community have had to make do with glorified food court fare for the 9-to-5 World Financial Center crowd, pan-Asian for their after-hours expense account revelry and pizza for the kids. For innovative, vital cooking, they’ve had to look longingly east to Tribeca and beyond.

Now they long no longer. After the post-9/11 desertion and years of serious boosterism by the Battery Park City Authority, the quiet riverfront community is officially up-and-coming. In their most recent coup, the new Goldman Sachs headquarters and its accompanying Conrad Hilton hotel have brought not one but three Danny Meyer restaurants to the same square block: a branch of his burger chain Shake Shack, which can be found as far afield as Dubai; the second location of his Murray Hill BBQ joint Blue Smoke; and North End Grill, a brand-new restaurant from Floyd Cardoz, former executive chef of Tabla and winner of Top Chef Masters season 3.

“Danny Meyer was approached by the people who own the hotel; they were trying to upgrade and update their restaurant and the entire area and we thought it was a great opportunity,” said Cardoz. “Battery Park is a neighborhood that has tremendous potential.”

The restaurant is a new concept for Cardoz, who built a name for himself with his seasonal, Western-inflected approach to traditional Indian food at Tabla, which shuttered in 2010 after 12 years in the Flatiron District. North End Grill is, as might be inferred, an American seafood restaurant, all clean lines and dark wood, with an emphasis on the grill and an extensive scotch selection.

Though it may seem like a departure, the new cuisine makes perfect sense for Cardoz, who trained in Europe and is an avid fisherman. “I don’t cook Indian food at home every day; I cook like I’m cooking now because my kids were born here,” he explained. In fact, the concept was developed by Meyer and Cardoz together after Meyer was approached to move into the space on North End Avenue. “We chose seafood because of the [restaurant’s] proximity to the water and my propensity to cook seafood.”

With plans to open a rooftop garden to grow produce for the kitchen and an affinity for the East Coast waters that lap at the esplanade just a block away, North End Grill intends to be as locally sourced as possible. “Right now it’s a little hard, just because of the winter, but once we’re up and running and a little more in control of what we’re doing, my hope and my wish is to get back to that, like I did at Tabla,” said Cardoz.

Even in the dead of winter, the menu proudly proclaims which ingredients are homegrown; scallops from Nantucket Bay in the shellfish cocktail and the ubiquitous Berkshires providing pork chops for the land-faring fare.

But it’s not just expense account-baiting surf and turf. The burger here is a blend of shrimp and bacon, served with cumin-dusted fries. The soup is pumpkin-crab, and the traditional meunière preparation, famously cited by Julia Child as the dish that sparked her love of French cooking, is applied to cod throats, an oft-discarded, overlooked portion that shares the same rich, tender qualities as beef cheeks.

“Every menu everywhere has something that people may think is risky, but, whatever it is, is eaten by some culture somewhere in the world,” said Cardoz. “It’s important to me that anything I put on the menu makes me feel good. We’re proud of what we have on the menu, and we truly think that people will enjoy it.”

Since patrons who enter the restaurant have to pass by the open kitchen, in which Cardoz can almost always be found, he knows when they’ve hit their mark. “We’ve had people from the Upper East Side, people from the neighborhood, people who work here, people from New Jersey—we have people from all over the place,” he said. “Most people stop by to say, ‘Hey, it was a great menu, it was a great restaurant.’”

A restaurant that draws crowds from around the five boroughs and beyond? Looks like Battery Park City has made it after all.