off the menu
Sawa brings Lebanese dishes to Park Slope, Brooklyn; Zaab Burger combines smash burgers and Thai flavors at Essex Market and more restaurant news.
Opening
Beut
Korean Royal Court cuisine from the Joseon Dynasty (1392 to about 1900) inspired this tasting-menu restaurant owned by Sarah Kang, the pastry chef here and formerly of Joomak Banjum, the now-closed, Michelin-starred restaurant. An eight-course menu ($125) reflects the opulence of the bygone era through a modern lens by the executive chef, Sang Hoon Jeong. Lobster and Wagyu, not necessarily palace fare in the past, share the menu with more typical abalone with rice porridge, and a royal hot pot with scallops. Lobster three ways using meat, shells and offal demonstrates a tradition of letting nothing go to waste. The dining room is done in muted grays with several seating areas. (Opens Wednesday)
312 Fifth Avenue (31st Street), 212-268-7888, beutnyc.com.
ABCV at the Mark, ABC kitchens
It’s spring, so the Alpine chalet at the Mark Hotel has gone into storage and the sidewalk dining area on Madison Avenue has become a white, pink and green outpost of Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s vegetarian restaurant, ABCV. Expect seasonal vegetable and vegan dishes and fruit-filled drinks. In the fall, for his first Brooklyn venture, Mr. Vongerichten will open a flagship ABC kitchens in the Empire Stores in Dumbo. The chef has also recently exported to London the three components of his ABC restaurants near Union Square — ABC kitchen, ABC and ABC cocina — with the title of ABC kitchens and planted them in the Emory Hotel in Knightsbridge. (Monday)
Madison Avenue at 77th Street, 212-606-3030, themarkhotel.com, the-emory.co.uk.
Maison Barnes
The mezzanine above the new Café Boulud is where this bar and restaurant with private event rooms has been installed. Daniel Boulud is running the complex for the owner, Barnes International, a Parisian real estate company. The dining room, an exercise in intimate elegance done with green trellis work, offers a concise high-end French menu served with panache. Grilled sea scallops with mâche and black truffles, herb-crusted lamb chops with root vegetables, and a spectacular sea bass in puff pastry for two give you some idea. The Café Boulud menu is also available.
100 East 63rd Street, 212-772-2600.
Sawa
Lebanon, a country that’s generous with its hospitality, takes that approach to Park Slope, Brooklyn, in the hands of Samaya Boueri Ziade, the chef; her brother, George Boueri; and Soroosh Golbabae, the chef de cuisine. Menu highlights include mezze like fried cauliflower, grilled squid, and tabbouleh; and entrees like lamb chops with charred scallions, and chargrilled whole dorade. There’s a small retail area for crafts like pottery, spices and other items in the neutral-toned setting with distressed brick and black accents. (Wednesday)
75 Fifth Avenue (Prospect Place), Park Slope, Brooklyn, 347-457-6761, sawa.nyc.
SaiTong
The food of southern Thailand, not the Isan north that’s been whetting appetites in New York for some time, is the focus at this gilded, shimmering theater district spot. Seafood, as in a fiery fish curry salad, and songkhla with rice noodles, pickled squid, curry shrimp and water spinach, shares the menu with pad Thai and pineapple curry.
244 West 48th Street, 646-998-4089, saitongthai.com.
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