Where Colin Ate: Foul Witch, Kabawa, F&F Pizzeria
Our columnist pops off about a week of pop-ups, pork chops, and pesto
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.
Because of Bar Convent Brooklyn, where there were pop-ups at basically every bar in town, it was a wild week to be in NYC. There was so much going on, like amazing drinks at Superbueno which featured a whole suckling pig in the back for tacos, Dolph Lundgren—yes that one—at an event for his new vodka at Ploume, and a Phoenix bar called Killer Whale Sex Club taking over Romeo’s where I witnessed my first “baby bird layback” (don’t look it up). Randomly, I also ended up eating almost exclusively at pop-ups for dinner this week, with some fun collabs going all week long.
Colin
F&F Pizzeria
📍Brooklyn
🍽️ Pizza
I could not have been more excited for last week's F&F Pizza Sessions featuring both Chef Chris Bianco (Pizzeria Bianco) and sister chefs Vicky & Carola Santoro. After having dinner with the sisters as well as The Franks last week and having a chance to hear about what they were planning, the excitement had been building. Add Bianco to the mix, whom I have long admired, and it was definitely going to be a great night. All of the hype was totally warranted as these chefs all crushed it. Over 300 people attended, including a few notable celebrity sightings, for the second volume of this event. Some of my favorite bites of the night were the seafood salad, chicken liver skewers w/ balsamic, and lamb pizza from F&F. Ti Amo made both a white pie with onion, ricotta and mascarpone which was fantastic, as well as a red pie with chimichurri that was a flavor profile I didn’t know I needed on pizza. Chef Bianco was serving his incredible lemon pie on a perfectly crispy crust with just a hint of anchovy. All in all it was an awesome night, I can’t wait for the next one in July!
Smithereens
📍East Village
🍽️ Seafood
Nashville has been on my list of great restaurant cities I have wanted to visit for years now. Similarly to Charleston over the last 10-15 years, an influx of talented chefs and restaurateurs have chosen to open up shop, and from everything I have heard, it’s an amazing town. There isn’t really any good reason why I haven’t been there yet, but here we are. One of the most talked-about restaurants in Nashville is Locust, which debuted at Smithereens last week, offering a fun à la carte menu featuring some of their dishes, as well as a few from Smithereens. We started with the sweet razor clams, served in the shell, cut into three bite-sized pieces per clam, seasoned with a delicate sauce that, like the name would imply, brought out the sweetness of the clams. It was a really simple, clean dish to get the ball rolling. Then came the Smithereens instant classic buckwheat pancake laid over smoked bluefish, which is a staple order for any visit here. The rest of the meal was all from Locust, starting with delicious pork dumplings, served in their bamboo steamer basket. After that were my two favorite dishes of the night, the first was simply titled abalone rice with xo crumpet. What arrived was creamy rice loaded with umami and thinly sliced bits of abalone, skewers of grilled abalone, and a fluffy XO crumpet that I ate with the rice — also useful for cleaning the bowl. The last savory dish was a perfectly cooked mackerel butterflied into filets and topped with a really delicious warm red cabbage slaw. The meal concluded with a raspberry kakigori-type dessert featuring shaved ice over a layer of cream and raspberry, with small bites of what tasted like mochi hidden underneath. It was a truly great meal, which makes Locust an absolute must when I eventually visit Nashville.
Foul Witch X Danny Bowien
📍East Village
🍽️ Italian
Another really fun pop-up that literally seemed to appear out of nowhere was Danny Bowien's one-night-only stint, collaborating with Chef Carlo Mirarchi. The format was pretty close to the normal Foul Witch fare, but with a bunch of random fun dishes that they collaborated on. Highlights for me were the lumache with “Danny’s famous award-winning pesto” which was a perfectly cooked bowl of pasta with the bright herbal and salty notes you love from pesto. I am a sucker for any pesto and this one was really solid and hit the spot. We followed that with fried sweetbreads cut to the size of nuggets and dusted with white pepper, served with a wedge of lime. Next up, a properly fried Iberico pork collar Milanese with spicy mustard and pickled ramps, both of which effectively cut the fat and rounded out the dish. The best bite of the night, though, was the newly crowned (by me) best new undercover burger, the “Szechuan Whopper.” The patty is made from a mix of beef and lamb, giving it a really great, slightly gamey flavor, and it was complemented by a sweet charcoal chili sauce, mayonnaise, iceberg lettuce, and a thickly sliced tomato. It was a truly fantastic burger that I believe they offer on a limited basis most nights. Dessert was equally as good, featuring an absolutely killer buttermilk waffle paired with raw milk vanilla ice cream and pineapple butter. I've been thinking about the waffle all weekend and hope it's on their regular menu, as I would love to eat it again soon. We also had the carrot torta, which came off more like a spice cake—not a bad thing—and was served atop torched marshmallow and a bit of passionfruit compote.
Kabawa
📍East Village
🍽️ Caribbean
After dining at Foul Witch, I ended up having an accidental second dinner at the bar of Kabawa (not Bar Kabawa). My friend and I popped in to get a drink, and an old work colleague of mine had just started working the bar there (having previously worked with me at Fatty Cue WV and then a stint at Pegu Club, among others). It was great to see him and catch up a bit over a cocktail. Chef Paul popped out of the kitchen to greet my friend, with whom he had worked years earlier, and we jokingly asked about the pork chop, which has quickly become the viral dish of the moment, served as a supplement on the prix fixe menu. Within moments of that conversation, flatware was set and we realized we were in it. Another drink order later, and we were staring down at their chuletas can can, a dry-aged pork chop with crackling, crispy skin attached, served over an insanely delicious rice and beans that I could eat every day. Although already fairly full my friend and I could not stop eating and eventually I had the bone in hand, making sure no morsel of pork went to waste. Quote of the night for me was my friend responding to my “I could eat an entire bowl of these rice and beans” with “you have an entire bowl of rice and beans, it’s just covered in a pork chop”. When I thought I couldn’t eat anything else, the kitchen sent us out their dessert supplement, named the coconut turnover. This flaky and delicious log of pastry is topped with cream cheese frosting, and when cut open, reveals a filling of Caribbean spices with caramelized coconut, allspice, cinnamon, and sugar that was addictively good. All washed down with their Golden Glove daiquiri from next door, it was a great way to end second dinner.
Una Pizza Napoletana
📍Lower East Side
🍽️ Pizza
I was again randomly invited by some friends to join them at the monthly pizza series from Una Pizza Napoletana “Una Night Only”, this time featuring another one of my favorite chefs Victoria Blamey. Along with the other “holy fuck that’s good” pies on the regular menu, they offer a chef collab pie, which on this night was based on one of my favorite bites from Chef Blamey, her tortilla al rescoldo. Al rescoldo is a cooking method where the food is cooked in the embers of a fire. Over the years at a few different spots, beginning with Stone Barns, Chef served the dense and satisfying tortilla al rescoldo as her bread course, bursting with flavor from bits of fatty chicharron. It’s really incredible, and I was lucky enough to have her sneak me some as a gift after several of my recent meals. The pizza was a great way to translate those flavors using a completely different vehicle. Served as a white pie with crispy chicharron, garlic scapes, sea salt, and an unbelievable fermented cacho de cabra chili oil that took it all up another level. The gelato and sorbet here are also not to be missed; the yellow watermelon sorbet was particularly fantastic.
Té Company
📍West Village
🍽️ Tearoom
When the original Té Company location opened in the West Village, it happened to be one floor below my apartment at the time. After shortly mourning the loss of Bonnie Slotnick Cookbooks, which moved a few blocks away, I decided to go check it out. Té is a Taiwanese tea shop owned and operated by the husband-and-wife team of Elena and Frederico. Elena is in charge of the tea while Fred—a classically trained chef—does all the food. Early on he was leaning into his Portuguese background with a daily changing menu of salads, small plates, and the most incredible tortilla espanola I have ever had but eventually they scrapped most of the savory food—to my dismay—to lean more into their core concept of being a place for delicious tea and the Taiwanese snacks that go with it. All of the snacks punch way above their weight class for a small shop with no kitchen onsite, particularly their famous pineapple linzer, which is a real showstopper. While walking home from the East Village last weekend, I ran into Elena on the street and walked back to their new shop to check it out. We caught up over a cup of tea as well as their seasonal strawberry rhubarb linzer that was mindblowingly good. Check out the new shop if you’re in the area, it’s just as special a place as the original.
Ficuzza
📍West Village
🍽️ Pizza
A new Italian restaurant called Ficuzza has recently opened in the former Gourmet Garage space, located at 7th Ave and W 10th St, from the team behind L’Arte del Gelato. With a bunch of outdoor seating right along the avenue, I see this as another outdoor West Village spritz option when you’re not feeling queuing up a few blocks south. Had a few bites, including a housemade sausage with tomato and onion salad, and some predictably delicious desserts.
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Everything here sounds so yum