The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
A street food named desire
As New York’s restaurant scene has faltered in the pandemic, a fun, grass roots movement has been born, says Laura Chubb
‘Boring”, “safe”, “meh”: all words used to describe New York’s restaurant scene in recent years – and by the city’s top food editors at that. Adam Platt, New York Magazine’s longtime restaurant critic, even likened the latest openings to an Ed Sheeran ballad: “Focus-grouped [and] middlebrow.” Ouch.
Today, though, a revolution is brewing. Because, while the Covid-19 pandemic has devastated New York’s restaurant industry – forcing more than 1,000 establishments to permanently close in the first six months alone – there is another side to the story. One where the mass exodus of mega-wealthy diners and restaurant groups run by celebrity chefs has made space for a more fun, creative and grassroots movement to flourish.
Sadie Mae Burns and her partner Anthony Ha were cooking in high-profile kitchens when lockdown struck. Suddenly out of work, they started hawking Vietnamese street eats, inspired by past trips to Ha’s ancestral home, from a paleta cart outfitted with a single, tiny grill (sample snack: perfectly singed oysters with spring onions and peanuts). Word got around and, next thing, they were operating a takeaway-only bistro: Ha’s Dac Biet. The pair plan to bring back the paleta cart in summer. “We’re going to get a bigger grill and do fresh seafood, the sort of stuff you get in Vietnamese beach towns,” Ha says. Would they return to their old jobs? Not a chance.
In Manhattan’s chic Nolita neighbourhood, there is a new weekend ritual: lining up for Camari Mick’s weekly-changing, Instagram-famous doughnuts. Served from a vintage van, Mick’s avant-garde creations (think a gooey guava cream-cheese filling) sell
out before noon. An alumnus of threeMichelin-starred NYC icons Eleven Madison Park and Le Bernardin, she started selling her inspired sweet treats after being furloughed from Thomas Keller’s TAK Room. “I’ve worked at restaurants where the regulars are all old, rich white people, and there is only so much experimenting you can do there,” Mick says. Her creations are now served from the window of Nolita eatery Musket Room (musketroom.com).
Across the East River, two new breakfast pop-ups have bewitched Brooklynites in trendy Greenpoint. Waits for the “Jewish diaspora” food served by Edith (edithsbk.com) can last two-anda-half hours, while the sandwich stylings of novice Andy Chetakian – initially sold surreptitiously from her apartment – sent local food blogs into meltdown. Her favourite? “Green eggs and jam”, with pesto scrambled eggs, goat’s cheese and blackberry preserve. Chetakian moved her operation to a coffee shop (thebluelightspeakcheesy.com) after a neighbour filed a complaint. Now, punters reserve time slots on Fridays to pick up sandwiches on Sunday.
The roaring renaissance of New York’s food scene begs the question: can it last? “Truthfully, the pop-up model is exhausting,” Burns admits. “It is unpredictable, it is hard. But when we open a permanent space, it will be a new kind of restaurant.” Amen to that.