Where Colin Ate: Bridges, Demo, Passerine, Noreetuh
Plus: kicking the tires at Printemps
Colin Camac (aka @resyguynyc) is officially Blackbird’s “Strategic Sales Lead,” and unofficially is our resident insider’s insider. He is out, on the town seven nights a week, sniffing out the city’s best joints, skateboard in one hand, martini in the other.
As you juggle the New York restaurant scene, one full of buzzy new openings, hot tables, and old standbys (yes, this city is lousy with great joints), it’s important to remind yourself not to forget to hit those slightly under the radar spots that have stood the test of time. I hit one such last week for my first dinner there ever (even though it’s been around for a decade), and it did not disappoint. Just goes to show that there are great restaurants everywhere, you just have to look …
Colin
Noreetuh
📍East Village
🍽️ American
Noreetuh is a restaurant that has seemed to be on my list forever. Opened by former Per Se alums nearly ten years ago, it’s a modern Hawaiian restaurant that’s quietly become a neighborhood staple. The first time I tried their food was very early in the pandemic. I ordered spam musubi for delivery and it was exactly the type of comforting food I needed at that moment. I noted that if we ever got back to “normal” I would definitely want to check the place out for real. Well, early last week I decided to give it a try and I couldn’t be happier that I did. The menu focuses on Hawaiian favorites starting with a large selection of musubi both traditional (spam) and elevated (caviar, uni etc.). My friend and I started with the spicy spam musubi as well as the scallop. The spam was the perfect salty-spicy bite with the slightly chewy texture, leveled up with spicy mayo. The scallop was a much more nuanced bite with the sweetness of the fresh scallop coming through brightened up with a little lemon and the umami of a nori mayo. We followed that up with a pink snapper crudo, swimming in a coconut vinaigrette with candied shrimp and papaya. It was a light and refreshing dish and one that I’d definitely order again. The pork potstickers were as good as they should be, brightened up with a ponzu soy for dipping, and we paired them with the super traditional and really tasty Hawaiian macaroni salad. For the mains there were a ton of fun options, including one plate dishes like loco moco and teriyaki bowls, as well as a really interesting looking mochi fried chicken served as a half or a whole. My friend and I chose to go with the smaller of the two steak options, the 30-day aged NY strip which came with sautéed veggies (cabbage, mushrooms, onions) and a red miso sauce that pulled it all together. The steak was cooked perfectly and rounded out a really solid meal. This is a place that doesn’t get as much credit as it deserves. Ten years is a huge accomplishment in NYC, and I can’t wait to come back.
Bridges
📍Chinatown
🍽️ French
After the opening party at Maison Passerelle (see below), my friend and I needed dinner. Since it was early in the week we decided to give Bridges a go as walk-ins and hope for the best. Bridges was opened by a pair of industry vets: Chef Sam Lawrence, who was previously the culinary director at Mattos Hospitality, and Nicolas Mouchel, who came from Make It Nice Hospitality, running the front. The bar room was bumping when we got there, and I immediately saw friends seated in the restaurant. Bridges is the kind of industry spot where you almost always know other people in the room — some places are just like that. We ended up drinking a few martinis and had seats at the bar in about 30 minutes. This was my third or fourth visit and each time it feels like the food gets even more dialed in. The menu already has its staples, but the menu changes enough and the dishes get their seasonal tweaks to keep everything fresh and interesting. We started with the sardines served two to an order atop pickled rhubarb on tiny slivers of toast. It’s a great little bite. After sardines we went to another menu staple of cured tuna with black trumpet mushrooms and dates. The tuna is draped over each date with the mushrooms in between and they really are a perfect bite. The flavor profile of the dish is date-forward, but it all works together so well with the mushrooms adding an earthy note and the tuna adding some bright saltiness to round out the natural sweetness of the dates. The most “Instagrammed” dish on the menu (and for good reason) has to be the comté tart seasonally dressed with morels and peas — what a solid plate. During my first visit a few months back, the kitchen sent us out the king crab and it was probably my favorite dish of the night. This time the set had changed a bit, but it was still a winner coming cracked and lightly dressed with ramps wrapped in broccoli leaves on the side. We finished with the uniquely delicious vin jaune gelato and chocolate hazelnut tart. Just over half a year in and Bridges continues to be one of my favorite new restaurants to have recently opened.
Passerine
📍Flatiron
🍽️ Indian
I was invited to come in and try the new Indian restaurant Passerine that opened up around the new year in Gramercy. I am always excited to try new spots and a new Indian place that offers a tasting menu sounded like a great way to check it out. The restaurant begins as a lounge space with lower seating and continues into a bar area where you enter the comfortable dining room. Passerine is led by husband and wife team Chef Chetan Shetty and April Busch, both veterans of the industry and most recently running Indian Accent in Midtown. The tasting menu is seven courses and takes you on a real journey. The first bite, which was one of my favorites of the night, was a tuna tartare tartlette with lime, avocado, and caviar. It was a really great blend of flavor and texture that got the meal going on a great note. Other highlights included a crab dish surrounded by a potato string shell with a pepper foam and pickled ginger, which was such a texturally fun dish rounded out by the sweetness of the crab. My absolute favorite dish of the evening though was beef short rib in a sweet corn curry, topped with corn kernels and what appeared to be onion flowers. It was served with what I believe was a garlic naan, which was absolutely a lights out combination when dipped in the sweet corn sauce, all of which made it my bite of the night. Following a palate-cleanser, dessert was a chai ice cream studded with pistachios and covered in a rose ice that was a great way to finish a meal. I would love to come back and check out the a la carte menu as it also looked great.
Demo
📍West Village
🍽️ European
Demo is another one of the new-agey wine bars that have been popping up all over the place in recent years and it has been a bonafide hit since it opened just over a year back. Located in the West Village, it is exactly what the neighborhood needed bringing a bit of Brooklyn style and swagger to the regular Village scene. Coming from FOH partner Jacob Nass and Chef Quang “Q” Thái Nguyen, the restaurant is warm and comfortable with great food, wine, and vibe. Emily Wilson, my friend and frequent dining companion while she is in town (check out her excellent LA-focused Substack The Angel) put it perfectly when she said that the food is best summed up as “cheffy comfort food” — I couldn’t agree more. I truly mean that in the best way possible. The flavors are all familiar but presented really beautifully and executed at a really high level. The highlights from this meal were a skate rillette whipped with ricotta and served with toasted bread. It tasted like something that wouldn’t be out of place on a bagel from the shop next door (which would honestly be a killer bite). We followed that with another amazing radicchio salad topped with tahini and za’atar. Then onto the tongue tonnato, which is a play on the normal vitello prep and has been a welcome staple on the menu since they opened. It’s served fairly traditionally with large caper berries to add some briny tartness. Another menu staple that I always really enjoy is the Arroz a la Plancha, which is almost like a crispy rice crepe, folded over itself with fontina cheese and topped with mushrooms. It is crispy, chewy, and gooey at the same time with the earthiness of the mushrooms playing really well with the rice and cheese. For large plates we went with the wonderfully roasted chicken, always a favorite of mine, served simply with jus and Tokyo turnips. Desserts are a must order here and the banana pudding is always my choice, although the strawberry shortcake semifreddo was a welcome new addition and is worth an order as well.
Quick Hits, Pop-ups, and New Openings
Maison Passerelle @ Printemps
📍FiDi
🍽️ French
I was invited to the opening party of Maison Passerelle, which is the new opening located in the first U.S. location of the Printemps store in FiDi. The restaurant is a collaboration between Kent Hospitality and Gregory Gourdet (Top Chef). The party started in the store with a bar and passed drinks, but eventually made its way into the main room overlooking the open kitchen. Both rooms were pretty incredible looking with soaring ceilings and red textiles throughout. Since this was a party there wasn’t too much food to talk about, but any party that has a caviar table can always count me in.
Time & Tide
📍Rose Hill
🍽️ Seafood
I met up with a friend who had recently moved to D.C. but was back in town for a spell, choosing Time & Tide for a quick drink and a snack. Time & Tide is one of the newer openings from Kent Hospitality, which is led by Chef Danny Garcia of Top Chef fame. Like the name suggests, the menu is seafood-focused, and the restaurant is located in the former Park Avenue “Seasons” space. The room is sprawling, broken up down the middle into two sides vertically with a raw bar all the way at one end and the bar at the other. I started with a 50/50 martini, which besides being one of my drinks of choice, is always a really great pairing for seafood. We started with the tuna tostada — it came really well seasoned and seemed to have a furikake-like topping that made the dish much more interesting than I expected. We also split the bar-only special of a filet of fish sandwich done up perfectly fast food-style with pickles, American cheese, and tartar sauce on a sesame seeded bun. The fish itself was panko coated and fried really well. It was definitely a standout sandwich for me and worth going out of your way for.
M.Wells Sugar Shack @ NY Distilling
📍Bushwick
🍽️ Quebecois
After an amazing ten-year run in their final form in LIC (diner, dinette, steakhouse), the M.Wells team made a triumphant comeback in the form of a Sugar Shack pop-up at NY Distilling Co. The four week consecutive Sunday pop-up wrapped up on Easter this past weekend and was an incredible time. Last year a few friends and I made the trip up to Montreal for the OG Sugar Shack experience from Au Pied Du Cochon and decided to run it back with some of the group on 4/20 for the pop-up. A sugar shack for those who don’t know is a traditional Quebecois experience in the spring where you drive out to the country during maple syrup season and enjoy a meal that incorporates it into the food in both a sweet and savory way. The tradition has been around forever, but PDC turned it into a real event adding their over the top style to the normal experience. Hugue, the chef/owner of M.Wells with his wife Sarah, was part of the original PDC team and brought that fun to NYC for a few weekends. Complete with live music and kids running around, it was an amazing way to spend a long Sunday, with delicious food and maple drinks flowing. I can’t wait to check out whatever they do next.