Where Colin Ate: Claud, Lucky Charlie, Demo, Carnitas Ramirez
Plus: splendid steak frites and a large pie with anchovies
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.
This week was a little less action-packed than last. Just a little. I started it off by revisiting a beloved French spot with friends, and ended it with a plate of amazing lengua tacos. In the middle, there was an A+ tasting menu at Blackbird Club from the talented team behind Cypsèle, the eagerly awaited restaurant opening very soon on the Île Saint-Louis in Paris.
Colin
Claud
📍 East Village
🍽️ European
I received a last-minute invite to join my friends Lala (‘Put It In My Mouth’ podcast) and Yara (Hellbender) at Claud last week. While I have been to Penny a few times recently, it had been quite some time since I dined at Claud, so I was happy to be back. I was ecstatic, however, to find the tomato mille-feuille back in season and on the menu. This was one of my favorite dishes of the year when I first tried it back in the day, and I could not have been more excited to eat it again. Roasted in-season tomatoes with soft and gooey cow's milk moses sleeper cheese between light and crispy puff pastry is to me the thing that dreams are made of. Besides that dish, we started with the light tuna and melon, cut into triangles and dressed with hazelnut oil, which I thought was a really nice dish. I always order the shrimp, sizzling in cast iron with some peppers and garlic, topped with a lemon. Simplicity at its best. Chicken liver agnolotti were as delicate and flavorful as ever. For the mains we went with the Dover sole, served as a filet under a sauce of Jimmy Nardello's and olives, which was really solid, but the swordfish, which the chef sent out, covered in summery corn and wax beans, was the real winner. The corn was such a bright and delicious counterpoint to the meaty swordfish. We went with most of the desserts, and while the chocolate cake—rightfully—gets all the love, the pistachio bunt cake is not to be missed.
Sushi Ikumi
📍 Soho
🍽️ Sushi
The first time I went to Sushi Ikumi was right after it initially opened. I went twice pretty early on, and really enjoyed both visits. It feels like a place that I think about going often, but I just haven’t seemed to make it back, until last week. Sushi Ikumi comes from the same group as Hirohisa, which has been a longtime high-end steward of kappo kaiseki cuisine in Soho. Ikumi is a small bar with about 8-9 seats, and I was able to reserve a few days out without much difficulty. The price point is a reasonable (for omakase) $220, and the quality is top-notch. Another thing I really like about Ikumi is that they also share my love for unique fish and hikarimono (silverfish), which they proudly post on their Instagram stories each day. Although they only had ají available on my visit, I did see that I just missed kohada (gizzard shad) by a day. The meal starts with a few small cooked dishes and then gets straight to nigiri. The pace is really well done without feeling rushed, and the chef serves everything to each guest himself. My favorite bites of the night were probably the belt fish, charred and served over uni rice, the previously mentioned ají, and I love the chef’s signature futomaki (large roll) in place of the ubiquitous tuna handroll to finish up.
Lori Jayne
📍 Bushwick
🍽️ Bar Food
Armed with leftover pizzas in hand from Lucky Charlie (see below), my friend and I decided to make the short walk over to see our friends at Lori Jayne and gift them some slices from the neighborhood's newest pizza joint, as well as get a few more snacks while we were in the area. The team is a great and they couldn’t have been more appreciative of the snacks. We ordered some dive bar drinks as well as their famous steak frites au poivre and a bacon cheeseburger. Grabbing one of the booths in the bar room, Chef Sam quickly came over and sent us some of their house wings, offering the 2-in-1 experience of mixing the hot sauce with crumbles of blue cheese for a great wing experience. The burger here, if you haven’t tried it, is a really delicious version, topped with cheese, pickles, house sauce, and in this case, bacon as well. The steak frites, however, still remains the best deal in town, generously served with chopsticks and some of the best food you will ever eat in a bar. These guys have some big things coming, and I can’t wait to follow along.
Quick hits, Pop-ups & New openings
Blackbird Club @ Parcelle Greenwich Village
📍 Greenwich Village
🍽️ Wine Bar
After having the chance to go out with the Cypsèle team last week for our “Chef’s Night Out,” I couldn’t have been more excited to check out their weeklong pop-up residency at the Blackbird Club. The room was buzzing as the first night was “industry” night, so a few really fun heavy hitters were in the space, which always brings a bit more excitement to one of these events. The food was really playful and well executed, especially for a pop-up. It was exciting to see it all happen. The first real highlight of the meal for me was a dish of peas with ibérico ham jelly that was a fun textural experience and tasted great. We followed that up with some more great bites with the burrata that was made in-house and stuffed with caviar, which was perfect with the housemade sourdough. The cep tortilla was another standout pairing the flavorful shrooms with a Spanish tortilla that was still a bit runny. My favorite dish of the night, though, was an incredible rabbit en brioche with the tender rabbit cooked gently in the crust and served as a slice over jus. A really special experience that was even more impressive knowing it was their first night.
Bartolo
📍 West Village
🍽️ Spanish
I was invited to the friends & fam for the opening of Bartolo, the new opening from Chef Ryan Bartlow and the Ernesto’s team in the West Village. The restaurant occupies a storied space on West 4th street, most recently inhabited by The Wesley, The Black Derby, and more famously—as seen in THIS amazing video—The Place. I have been eagerly anticipating this opening for a while now, and it did not disappoint. A few steps down from street level, you enter a small bar room that makes you feel like you stumbled into a spot in Madrid that leads you further into two bustling dining rooms and a small outdoor front terrace. The menu is separated out into four sections, with an additional large-format section of suckling pig or lamb to be ordered a week in advance. As far as “friends and family” experiences go, this was about as good as it gets. Highlights of the starters were the assortment of cured ibérico and Bartolo-branded picos, the stuffed mushrooms, and the Russian salad. For mains, I really dug the oxtail–always–and the Filet Rossini. Desserts were all really delicious, with an amazingly cheesy cheesecake that was unlike any I’ve had previously, and I really dug it. Can’t wait to watch this place grow. It's such a great addition to the neighborhood
Lucky Charlie
📍 Bushwick
🍽️ Pizza
Lucky Charlie is a brand new restaurant and pizza shop located in Bushwick and home to one of the oldest coal ovens in Brooklyn, dating back to 1890. I was lucky enough to be invited by their PR team to come in and check it out. The room is dripping in old school vibes from the brick walls to the soap dispensers. The folding chairs out front were a perfect touch as well to bring that real BK neighborhood feel. My friend and I started with a few cocktails from the menu, and my Negroni was a great version. We decided to taste as much as possible, so we went with a few appetizers and ordered two full pizzas, one white and one red. For starters, don’t skip the first dish titled simply “from the sea” and allocated to just six orders per night. The dish is served in two courses, the first a white fish carpaccio (fluke, maybe?) simply dressed with salt, olive oil, and capers. Following that is oysters Rockefeller, shrimp oreganata, clams casino, and some impressively cooked charred octopus. It’s a really fun dish and is done very well. After that, we received the fennel salad with oranges and some crushed olives that really made all the difference. For pizza, we ordered a classic pie and a white pie with anchovies and garlic. Both were nicely charred and really well-made pizzas that show the skill of the crew behind this place. As we sat, the room went from a sleepy night to really humming as we left with neighborhood people popping their heads in and sidling up to the bar. This place is going to be a great neighborhood spot.
Demo
📍 West Village
🍽️ Wine Bar / European
Chef Dina Fan from Demo took over the whole menu last Sunday night for a Yakitori pop-up, which was really fun. It featured a scaled-down, more Japanese-leaning menu centered around both chicken and vegetable yakitori. Best bites for me were the wagyu tataki, thinly sliced and swimming in a deliciously bright ponzu, as well as the wing liver and thigh yakitori. Extra bonus points for serving the tsukune with soy and cured egg yolk, which is my personal favorite. I washed it all down with a Japanese-style rice lager from Saltfields Brewing that worked really well with all of the dishes. I love it when restaurants take a little break and do something fun like this to either just switch it up or highlight a member of their existing team.
Carnitas Ramirez
📍 East Village
🍽️ Mexican
I try to make it to Carnitas Ramirez as much as possible. I love how many options you have there, and all of their specials are usually right up my alley. Usually, I go on the weekends with a good friend , who loves tacos as much as I do, so we make it our business to try Mexican pop-ups when we can. Carnitas is the place we tend to go back to more often than not, though (it’s close-ish to where we both live), but I rarely get the opportunity to eat their weekday-only torta as it is only available for lunch Mon-Fri. I found myself reasonably close after a meeting during lunch hours and walked with a friend the extra blocks to get it again. The torta is made with a mix of the meats, cheese, beans, onion, and jalapeños, punched up with some of the pickles and salsa from the DIY bar, and it’s everything I wanted for lunch. Also, do yourself a gluttonous favor and treat yourself to a lengua taco as well; you deserve it!
Carnitas Ramirez new spot looks amazing! greenpoint spot is a fave