The Mermaid Inn
Danny Abrams and Jimmy Bradley’s new East Village fish joint, The Mermaid Inn, is really two restaurants in one. The cheery front room, with its whitewashed ceiling, maps of Martha’s Vineyard, and a framed 1939 menu from Boston’s landmark Locke-Ober restaurant, is as true-blue New England as a bowl of quahog chowder, while the funky, candlelit back room is supposed to look like a Ligurian taverna. Both share a menu that seems like the work of a well-traveled Yankee sea captain who took excellent food notes, then came home to open a clam shack of his own—seviche, lobster risotto balls, and Catalonian seafood stew sit alongside fried oysters and fish chowder. Perhaps inspired by that antique menu, which lists a bottle of Lafite for $3.80, every bottle of wine is priced to move at a shocking $15 above cost.
96 Second Avenue
212-674-5870

Ten Sushi
It’s taken Michael (Bao) Huynh two and a half years to open Ten Sushi, but he’s kept himself busy in the meantime. Architect by day, chef by night, he built and opened Bao 111, his East Village nouvelle-Vietnamese restaurant, then set to work on the empty storefront across the street. Although Huynh conceived the Indochinese-by-way-of-Tokyo menu, he recruited two chefs from Nobu London to run the kitchen, so besides the usual raw-fish repertoire, there’s crispy oysters with spicy tomato confit, seven-spice-roasted teriyaki chicken, and succulent baby-lamb-chop yakitori scented with kaffir-lime leaf.
116 Avenue C
212-505-9471

Rice to Riches
Is this an age of comfort-food specialists or what? This hyper-designed Nolita storefront’s specialty is rice pudding, and it’s available in nineteen flavors by the cup or the 40-ounce container. Plain vanilla is for purists; pineapple-basil is for thrill-seekers.
37 Spring Street
212-274-0008

Scopello
Sleek and modern, with a distinct Sicilian accent, this new ristorante is a welcome answer to the perennial outer-borough question: Where to eat near BAM? Comfortable banquettes, a spacious bar, and uncommon offerings like smoked-herring-and-blood-orange salad are already pleasing the neighbors.
63 Lafayette Avenue, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
718-852-1100

Tequila Sunset
From the way the young and the culinarily restless squeeze in to Dos Caminos every night, you’d think they’d never seen made-to-order guacamole and 150 brands of tequila before. The formula is working so well that on April 9, ever-entrepreneurial owner Stephen Hanson duplicates it (and the rest of the menu) 26 blocks south at Dos Caminos Soho. The new location, which won’t take reservations, features sunset murals, pressed tin, and a 60-seat patio. The new smoking section, perhaps?
Dos Caminos Soho
475 West Broadway
212-277-4300

From Z to A
Undoubtedly expecting a different sort of crowd at their new East Village digs, the owners of Chelsea’s Le Zie (Italian for “the aunts”) have named their Avenue A satellite, due to open April 7, Le Zoccole. The name, according to partner Francesco Antonucci, means “easy women,” and also “wooden shoes.” Whatever you call it, Le Zoccole has a menu almost identical to Le Zie’s, and, thanks to a two-level space nearly twice the size of the original, a full bar featuring cicchetti, the Venetian answer to bar snacks.
Le Zoccole
95 Avenue A
212-260-6660