Here are four “love Letter” dining destinations in New York City where you will always find “passion on the plate”.
Author of children’s classics including Stuart Little (1945) and Charlotte’s Web (1952), E.B. White is also celebrated for capturing the quintessence of Gotham in Here is New York (1949). Describing the “roughly three New Yorks” of “natives, commuters, and settlers,” White, born in the NYC suburb of Mount Vernon, deemed settlers, those persons who were “born somewhere else and came to New York in quest of something,” to be the “greatest” of the trio for giving the city its “passion.” As the world’s greatest meeting place continues to summon doers and dreamers from around the globe, few con- versations can fire fervor like the universal language of food.
At the NYC Hospitality Alliance’s last count in 2019, NYC’s restaurant industry comprised 23,650 establishments representing the cuisines of 150-plus different countries. Other Alliance surveys found that more than 60% of NYC resident restaurant workers are immigrants, and 67% of locals named restaurants as what they love most about the city.
From the countless culinary stories around the city, here are four “love letter” dining destinations where that settler spirit produces passion on the plate.
WOLF AT NORDSTROM NYC (Manhattan)
From mainstays Barbetta and Joe Allen to international draws Sushi Seki and Jasmine’s Caribbean Cuisine, dining along Restaurant Row (West 46th Street between 8th and 9th Avenues) is a time-honored pre- and post-theater tradition. For a more leisurely and expansive culinary pairing with your Broadway or Carnegie Hall ticket, lose yourself in the luxury of the Nordstorm NYC flagship campus, where Wolf commands the store’s restaurant collection.
Leave it to an outsider, in this case Seattle’s award-winning self-taught serial chef-restaurateur Ethan Stowell, to fashion an exceptional Italian-driven experience in one of the world’s top Italian dining cities.
Launched in 2003, Stowell’s eponymous restaurant group currently comprises a dozen-plus neighborhood eateries in Seattle. Along the way, Stowell was named Best New Chef in 2008 by Food & Wine and has earned seven total Best Chef: Northwest and Best Restaurateur James Beard nominations to date.
His early successes include enduring home- town favorite How to Eat a Wolf. There’s no wolf on the menu (the appellation honors legendary cookbook author and food critic Mary Frances Kennedy (MFK) Fisher’s book of the same name) and Stowell brings the same winning formula of inventive Italian-meets-Pacific Northwest sharing dishes to his enticing den on Level 2 of Nordstrom NYC’s women’s tower.
Wolf at Nordstrom NYC (Manhattan) Photo by Connie Zhou
Overlooking West 57th Street and Broadway through floor-to-ceiling glass windows, the L- shaped room, featuring an attractive Scandinavian-inspired natural design, combines table seating with a lengthy bar, counter- seating facing the open kitchen, lounge area, and private dining room.
Emceeing my mid-afternoon lunch, Danny Michimani, a seasoned mixologist and hospitality pro originally from Mexico, added style and sparkle to the experience, starting with the Spritz 57 cocktail of bittersweet Faccia Brutto aperitivo, pample-mousse (grapefruit) and prosecco.
Stowell’s craft is based on ingredients at the peak of freshness and was immediately apparent with the aromatic arrival of each small plate selection, starting with the artisanal baguette served with fennel honey butter, roasted garlic, and aged balsamic. The grilled octopus with blistered pepper relish was cooked to perfection. Don’t miss the salmon crudo with smoked trout roe or the burrata, a revelatory departure from custom served with English pea smash, blistered sugar snap peas, pinenut breadcrumbs, and mint.
Stowell knows his Cacio e Pepe, using lesser-known but classic Tonnarelli pasta. Thicker than spaghetti, this rectangular egg-based long pasta captured all the goodness of the cracked pepper and pecorino. Seafood also plays a role in his creative pastas, including the bucatini with anchovies and king crab spaghetti. Stowell also has fun with the desserts, including his zeppole (lemon doughnuts dusted in powdered sugar with chocolate sauce) and the cheesecake of seasonal compote and Italian meringue in a Graham cracker crust.
You can walk the store floor with your cock- tail, and Wolf is the only restaurant within the Nordstrom collection that stays open after store hours. According to Michimani, Wolf is a hopping happy hour spot, drawing locals, tourists, and the pre- and post-theater crowd. Hidden from view, it’s also ideal for romantic encounters and lovers’ liaisons. Across Broadway at the men’s store, The Clubhouse offers another intimate hideaway for cocktails and small bites, with partial views of Columbus Circle and Central Park. 225 West 57th Street. Tel: 212-295-2184. nordstrom.com/browse/ about/new-york/restaurants/wolf
CLOVER HILL (Brooklyn)
In 1999, drug-infested, crime-ridden Smith Street in Brooklyn’s Cobble Hill neighborhood saw dramatic transformation into the borough’s Restaurant Row. Pioneering restaurants from that year, all gone now, included Saul, which landed Brooklyn’s first-ever Michelin star in 2005 and retained the award for seven consecutive years.
In 2022, another Brooklyn first happened when Charlie Mitchell became the first Black chef to receive a Michelin star in NYC, and only the second in the country, for his culinary artistry at Clover Hill in Brooklyn Heights. Mitchell also earned the 2022 Michelin Guide’s NY Best Young Chef award.
Charlie Mitchell, Executive Chef
and Partner, Clover Hill (Photo by Clay Williams)
Originally from Detroit, where he began his career, Mitchell dropped out of culinary school in favor of developing his craft on the job at Michelin-starred kitchens including Eleven Madison Park (NYC), Betony (NYC), Benu (San Francisco), Per Se (NYC), and Blue Hill (NYC).
In December 2019, Clover Hill’s founders, Clay Castillo and Gabriel Marino, hired Mitchell as a cook. Four months later, he was laid off when the pandemic shut down the restaurant. After a brief layover in Detroit, he headed to Washington, DC where he connected with Ryan Ratino, the mastermind chef behind two Michelin-star Jônt and Michelin-starred Bresca.
After helping Ratino open the former and serving as executive sous chef at the latter, Mitchell rejoined Clover Hill, which reopened in March 2022, as partner and executive chef. Guided by his instinct and experience, he garnered his first Michelin star in under a year. Earlier this year, Ratino, the 2023 Michelin DC Young Chef award winner, and his former protégé reunited for a one-night collaboration dinner at Clover Hill organized by Destination DC. It was a dream invite.
Hidden away on historic cobblestoned Columbia Place, the intimate matchbox of dark woods, plants, and vintage décor envelopes you in candlelit romance. Located at the back, the kitchen and prep kitchen below are tiny. Yet supernatural calm prevailed as the chefs meticulously constructed the eight-course seafood- focused tasting menu, reminding how often tight confines produce culinary magic.
Paired with curated pours from sommelier Debbie Jones, the evening began with a quartet of house-made, baked rye tart shells filled English peas and egg yolk, beets and caviar, kamasu and caviar, and nori seaweed. Next, spot prawns and sea urchins, followed by Hokkaido scallops lightly poached in smoked butter over turnips topped with Beluga caviar, and scallop crudo over a hazelnut cookie and truffles. Both dry-aged, prized Japanese madai snapper in vadouvan curry with Hokkaido uni, and the lamb saddle saw us through to the finale of Japanese strawberry and grilled chocolate and quartet of exquisite dessert treats.
Brooklyn currently has seven of NYC’s 71 Michelin-starred restaurants, Clover Hill included. Retaining his star in 2023, Mitchell, who won Best Chef: New York State at the 2024 James Beard Awards, is Michelin-nominated again this year—his continuing journey is one to follow. 20 Columbia Place, Brooklyn. Tel: 347-457-6850. cloverhillbk.com
ENOTECA MARIA (Staten Island)
Born and raised in an Italian-American family in Brooklyn, Jody Scaravella found love, comfort and “tranquility” in learning about food and cooking with his grandmother, or nonna, Dominica, and his mother, Maria.
With both his parents working, Scaravella remembers Dominica as “the glue” that held the family together. She often took him to the Italian food markets in their Brooklyn neighborhood, teaching him how to identify fresh produce, fish, and other ingredients. Every Sunday, she cooked for the family at her home.
Nonna Ploumitsa from Greece and Jody Scaravella at Enoteca Maria (Photo by Enoteca Maria)
In his grief after Dominica and then Maria passed away, Scaravella found solace in an inspired plan for recreating what he had lost. Opened in 2007 next to the historic St. George Theater in Staten Island, his Michelin Bib Gourmand-rated Enoteca Maria, after his late mother, was “more of a project than a restaurant.” Seeking to uphold and celebrate his family’s cultural and culinary heritage, he placed ads in an Italian-American newspaper inviting nonnas to cook their home recipes at the restaurant.
They responded in droves, bringing their families, neighbors, and regional recipes from across Italy that were passed down through generations. “It was like a Fellini movie,” recounted Scaravella in a short film on the NYC hospitality industry’s recovery from the pan- demic. Later, he expanded the concept to include grandmothers from all cultures. I’ll never forget my first visit to this 30-seat, cash- only treasure, dining on delicious lasagna from the regular kitchen while eyeing the sheep’s head dish at the adjoining table, prepared in the second dedicated nonnas kitchen.
E.B. White would have loved Enoteca Maria. At three seatings on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, guest nonnas bring their lifetime of culi- nary wisdom and passion for cooking and feeding their families to the table. Expanding programming includes “Nonnas in Training”, free one-on-one cooking classes for aspiring chefs offered by that day’s guest nonna. The online user-generated “Nonnas of the World” book currently features recipes submitted by 21 inter- national nonnas, from Algeria to Venezuela.
Whoever is cooking when you go (the recent roster included nonnas from Argentina, Greece, Japan, Mexico, Peru, Sri Lanka, and Turkey) it’s a trip down memory lane to grandma’s house for authentic food cooked with love. 27 Hyatt Street, Staten Island. Tel: 718-447-2777. www.enotecamaria.com
MANHATTA (Manhattan)
Since opening his first restaurant, Union Square Cafe, in 1985, Danny Meyer has been one of the chief architects and arbiters of the NYC dining scene.
In 1994, he opened Gramercy Tavern with founding chef Tom Colicchio. Celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, his beloved Michelin-starred restaurant, also earning nine James Beard Awards along the way, continues to wow diners.
In 2001, as part of an initiative to revitalize Madison Square Park, he introduced a hot dog cart to the historic park that became the national sensation Shake Shack. By 2006, when he wrote his ground- breaking business book Setting The Table, Meyer had opened 11 restaurants.
With his flagship also still going strong, Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group portfolio also includes two-Michelin starred The Modern at the Museum of Modern Art, BBQ-driven Blue Smoke, and Roman trattoria-style Maialino.
Having made such a mark on the city’s culinary landscape, Meyer might appear as the archetypal New York-born scene-making mogul. Only this soft-spoken serial Nonna Ploumitsa from Greece and Jody Scaravella at Enoteca Maria restaurateur hails not from NYC, but St. Louis. As he shared at a tasting event a few years back, Meyer stays true to his roots, looking to his hometown as a continuing reference point for culinary ideas.
Raised to embrace food and hospitality, his elevated approach finds peak expression on the top 60th floor of the former One Chase Manhattan Plaza tower in the Financial District, an International-style landmark from 1961. Named after Walt Whitman’s poem “Mannahatta,” the restaurant is presented as “embodying the spirit of a tried-and-true New Yorker…rooted in and inspired by the people that gravitate here.”
Relaunched after the pandemic with fresh vitality under the direction of Philadelphia-born executive chef Justin Bogle, the youngest American chef to earn two Michelin stars, for his circa-2008 turn at Gilt in the fabled New York Palace Hotel, Manhatta’s inventive contemporary culinary stylings match the spectacular 360-degree city panoramas.
Prime perches include the 12-seat Chef’s Counter, the kitchen-facing stage for Bogle’s ten-course tasting menu. There is also lunch and dinner service in the main restaurant, with à la carte and three- or four- course offerings, and a lively bar. With cur- rent menu highlights including Hudson Valley Trout with gold ball turnip, shiitake and nori hollandaise, and Dry Aged Duck with pistachio, fava bean, candied black olive, and strawberry, Manhatta is its own well-written love letter to New York City. 28 Liberty Street. 60th Floor. Tel: 212-230-5788. manhattarestaurant.com.
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