Opaque is Headed to GothamThough it wont be the city’s first dining in the dark experience, the restaurant pulled a major coup by getting April Bloomfield to design the menu.
Boston Globe Still Alive, StrugglingThe Boston ‘Globe’ continues to wrestle with employee unions and the ‘Times,’ and an alt-weekly outsources its content to India, in our daily media roundup.
Tables Available at Lure Fishbar and Gotham; Stanton Social Mostly BookedIt’s 4 p.m., and that means it’s time to play Two for Eight. We just asked nine restaurants the best time they can squeeze a couple in for dinner; you need only make your chosen reservation. (As always, we make the calls but don’t guarantee the results.) Today: New American cuisine.
The Roasted Lobster at Gotham Is Still Standing TallAlfred Portale of Gotham Bar and Grill is one of the pioneers of what used to be called the New American cooking. His style, a combination of dramatic vertical presentations, French technique, and urban pizzazz, perfectly encapsulated the energy of the movement in the eighties and nineties. All these years later, Portale is still at Gotham, and still turning out some of the city’s best food, minus the towering drama of old. “As for all that verticality, once it became very trendy and talked about, that’s when I began to back away from it,” Portale says. “My style has changed and evolved.” At least one dish still reaches for the stars: Portale’s roasted lobster, a constant on Gotham’s menu. Scroll over the different parts of the dish to see it described in the chef’s own words.
kudos
Last Night’s Gotham Awards Deemed Just Indie EnoughLast night’s Gotham Awards ceremony, held for the first time in Brooklyn, at Steiner Studios’ massive Stage 3, provided an entertainingly schizophrenic picture of the indie film world.
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‘Top Chef”s Howie Tastes the Big Time, Briefly, at Gotham Bar andWhen Howie Kleinberg, after twice coming to the brink of elimination, returned last week to win a Quickfire Challenge on Top Chef, he was rewarded with a one-week internship at Gotham Bar and Grill, courtesy of the guest judge, Alfred Portale. Kleinberg, whose unremitting hostility originally endeared him to us, has gotten on swimmingly with the chef, we hear. “He’s a very likable guy,” Portale tells us. “He’s a big guy, kinda cuts a pretty wide path through the kitchen, but he shows a lot of respect and poise.”
Two for Eight
Tables Available at Gotham Bar and Grill and Prune; Mas Mostly BookedIt’s 4 p.m., and that means it’s time to play Two for Eight. We just asked ten restaurants the best time they can squeeze a couple in for dinner; you need only make your chosen reservation. (As always, we make the calls but don’t guarantee the results.) Today: Destinations for New American cuisine.
in other news
Grand Theft, Gotham Style
If you thought Spiderman 3 would be the most realistic rendering of New York to hit the gaming market this year, think again: Rockstar Games broke its silence yesterday about Grand Theft Auto IV, on sale in October, and dropped the first trailer. Set in “Liberty City,” it depicts shots of Times Square (complete with billboard for America’s Next Top Hooker), the MetLife building (now the “GetaLife” building), the Cyclone, the Chrysler and Flatiron buildings, and other landmarks, while a seemingly Eastern European man narrates over Philip Glass’s Koyaanisqatsi score. “I killed people,” he says. “Smuggled people. Sold people. Perhaps here, things will be different.” This is clearly the most minutely detailed Grand Theft Auto yet — who knows, we may even be able to see rats crawling up restaurant chairs. —Daniel Maurer
party town
Exhaustion Sets In at ‘Gotham’ Gala• Gotham Magazine Gala. Capitale, 130 Broadway, nr. Grand St., 7 p.m. Truly an overflowing cornucopia of party fruits and sponsorship vegetables, this event is billed as Gotham’s “Seventh Annual Gala” and a retirement party for Tiki Barber; it’s sponsored by Cadillac, the luxury Swiss watchmaker Audemars Piguet, and a London hotel called the Rushmore; entertainment will be provided by D.J. Cassidy, the “Chez-Zam Entertainment Group,” and the “Fifty-Person Rhythm & Rhyme Marching Band.” Scheduled to be exhausted by all of the above are Spike Lee, Ice T, Jon Bon Jovi, Nina Sky, and Elisabeth Hasselbeck.
Two for Eight
Table Available at Alto; davidburke & donatella and Gotham Bar and GrillIt’s 4 p.m., and that means it’s time to play Two for Eight. We just asked ten restaurants the best time they can squeeze a couple in for dinner; you need only make your chosen reservation. (As always, we make the calls but don’t guarantee the results.) Today’s Restaurant Week theme: Cream of the Crop.
Two for Eight
Tables Open at Odeon and Periyali; Blue Water and Gotham Mostly BookedIt’s 4 p.m., and that means it’s time to play Two for Eight. We just asked ten restaurants the best time they can squeeze a couple in for dinner; you need only make your chosen reservation. (As always, we make the calls but don’t guarantee the results.) Today: Clinton-era favorites.
