Zimmi’s has a new, next-door wine bar. It’s great.
Illustration: Naomi Otsu
Welcome to Grub Street’s rundown of restaurant recommendations that aims to answer the endlessly recurring question: Where should we go? These are the spots that our food team thinks everyone should visit, for any reason (a new chef, the arrival of an exciting dish, or maybe there’s an opening that’s flown too far under the radar). This month: Zimmi’s debuts its sidecar, the cooking of Brazil gets a new showcase, we have a tip for getting into the Corner Store’s new sibling spot, and more.
Café Charmant (West Village)
I wasn’t excited about another restaurant from the people behind the impossible-reservation specialists at the Corner Store and the Eighty Six. But once I realized Jake Brodsky — who spent the past seven years cooking at one of my favorite hotels, Palm Heights — was running the kitchen, I was prepared to wait for a table for roughly as long as it takes to fly from JFK to Grand Cayman. Luckily, all of the best things at Café Charmant can be enjoyed at the bar, where seats are available for walk-ins. I loved the “tuna Charmant,” tiny cubes that you can dunk in aioli and olives before scooping everything up with chips, as well as sea-bream crudo with yuzu marmalade and tons of lime juice. Follow both up with curry duck pastels — crisp, three-bite envelopes of slow-braised duck — coconut curry, and house fries, which are a just-right cross between shoestring and wedge. I’ve never seen my husband order the same cocktail back-to-back, but he would have been happy to down a third mezcal Margarita Verte, which tastes shockingly close to a green juice thanks to a combination of pineapples, cucumbers, mint, and celery. —Oset Babür-Winter
Iara (Lower East Side)
Every inch of the small space is filled with either diners or keepsakes from South America. The bar, which winds around the restaurant’s bustling open kitchen, is brimming with first dates, well-dressed 20-somethings, and curious solo diners all craning their necks to get a better look at what’s coming off the line. Chef Vitor Mendes — formerly of Fort Greene’s Theodora, forever of Brazil — is putting the food of his home country on display. Every application of the multifaceted cassava is accounted for, as in crispy farofa (its flour) and chewy tapioca fries (its starch). Grilled picanha pastel, loaded with tender beef and brightened with a generous shower of lime, is running as a special for now but deserves a permanent spot on the menu. And caranguejo na moranga — an artful pile of honeynut squash, Jonah crab, Parmesan, and spiced pumpkin seeds — was one of my favorite bites of the night, as was a brothy stew of dry-aged tilefish. —Shay Cohen
All of Our Picks, Mapped
Brasserie Boulud (Upper West Side)
Yes, one of the city’s best restaurants is on the property at Lincoln Center, but it takes quite a bit of effort to get into Tatiana. Thankfully, we now have Brasserie Boulud, a 7,500-square-foot French behemoth that combines the Daniel Boulud–owned bar and épicerie that once sat across the plaza. The expansive menu has something for people just catching a film (like a $25 Burger Classique with cornichon mayo) and those with box seats at the opera (a $65 New York strip). The $37 duck à l’orange was as sumptuous as Justin Peck’s choreography across the plaza, and — I have to say it — more flavorful than Le Veau d’Or’s version across town. If you’re dining without a time crunch, you can luxuriate in Brasserie Boulud’s not-so-secret speakeasy, which is very convenient when your guests are 45 minutes late to dinner, like mine were. —Zach Schiffman
Bar à Part (West Village)
My great love for Zimmi’s, Maxime Pradié’s French-country dining room on Bedford Street, is well known, but not every occasion calls for pigeon en salmi or a kilo of côte de boeuf. Bar à Part is the more casual ride-along; it puts me more in mind of Parisian holes-in-the-wall than Provençal inns. As in the City of Light, the daily offerings are on a chalkboard menu (on dit “l’ardoise,” the slate), the space between the few tables minimal, and the glow both rosy and tipsy. There’s usually something to make a full meal of — lately, Pradié has been rolling up porchetta — but the space is just as much a spotlight for his homemade charcuterie and pastry chef Clodagh Manning’s tarts and cakes. To accompany, Cory Holt’s wine team sloshes whatever they feel like drinking by the glass, and the full, unapologetically Eurocentric Zimmi’s wine list is available here, with much of it available by the half-bottle (listed as DB: demi-bouteille). Try Anne Boisson’s aligoté — white Burgundy’s “lesser” grape, here coming from 60-year-old vines in the god-tier wine village of Meursault — at a very reasonable $55 for a half. —Matthew Schneier
Mythily (Williamsburg)
At a time when every new restaurant in town is designed to keep people out — tightly drawn curtains, useless Resy pages, literal bouncers — how nice it is to encounter a spot that actually makes customers feel welcome. At Mythily, named for chef Rasika Venkatesa’s grandmother, a sense of genuine warmth blankets the small dining room, which, on a recent weeknight, was filled with couples. Venkatesa’s cooking, handled in the semi-open kitchen, leans similarly comfortable, albeit with cheffed-up touches like the perfect crimps on lamb dumplings swimming in a rich, subtly spicy curry; panakam granita spooned over slices of raw scallop with Concord grapes whose slippery texture was a perfect match for the fish; and the fluff of spiced béarnaise sauce on top of a side of crisp-smashed potatoes. —Alan Sytsma
EAT LIKE THE EXPERTS.
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