Food and Drink Review

On a recent Tuesday night, the bar at Abe & Arthur’s was manic with cougars on the prowl and graying lotharios. We fought our way to the hostess stand, where a lithe trio would decide our seating fate. Would we be relegated upstairs to Siberia—far from the action on the second-floor balcony? Or escorted downstairs to the most deafening dining room in New York?

While plenty of New York restaurants have lately made the environment a priority—sourcing their ingredients locally and crafting dining rooms from salvaged materials—none have done so with quite as much visual and gastronomic panache as chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s new ABC Kitchen.

A juice and smoothie extension to Jean-Georges Vongerichten's market-driven restaurant ABC Kitchen has opened, with a similar focus on organic, seasonal produce, much of it purchased from the nearby Union Square Greenmarket. 

Since making his stateside debut in 1985, Jean-Georges Vongerichten has conquered Gotham's dining scene with cuisines as diverse as the city itself: upscale French at his flagship Jean Georges; New American at downtown charmer Perry St; and clubby Southeast Asian at Spice Market in the Meatpacking District. Now the toque gives Latin America a bump with this highly anticipated sibling to ABC Kitchen, his lauded temple to haute green cuisine, in ABC Carpet & Home. 

When he sends out authentic Greek food at Molyvos, executive chef Jim Botsacos is only telling half the story: his father’s. Now, as chef-partner at Abboccato (“touch of sweetness”), he pays tribute to his Italian mother. Each dish is associated with a region of Italy, such as Umbrian-style quail and octopus with Sicilian oregano. To make his carbonara taste like the real thing, Botsacos uses richer, more flavorful duck eggs. His vaniglia e cioccolato, meanwhile, combines two classic dishes: vanilla-scented veal cheeks and wild boar stewed in red wine, spices and chocolate. It’s dinner and dessert rolled into one.