New York according Paolo Marchi / 2

(see part one)

I now have no doubts on where I need to sit for the best possible hamburger: Shake Shack, the one at Madison Square Park. Not because burgers are better, here, but it’s in part due to the fact the area around that park and a little more to the South towards Gramercy Park and Union Square is the slice of NY I visit the most, and partly because Danny Meyer’s creation was born just here, a dozen years ago or so, as a hot dog stand. I know this place exists, I think about how good this bun with the meatball and a good slice of cheese is and I’m happy.

Besides, the grey Shake Shack hut is halfway between that Mecca of good Italian food that is Eataly, with the Birreria on the roof, the Flatiron, the skyscraper in the shape of an iron, and Eleven Madison Park, Daniel Humm’s super restaurant, the Swiss chef who found, as millions others in every field, his America on this side of the Atlantic.

Eleven, because it is located at number 11 on Madison Park, in rooms with very high ceilings that once used be a bank. For a long time Humm was the chef and then partner of Danny Meyer. A couple of years ago their roads parted. It happened when the chef took over a hotel on Broadway, on the corner with 28th Street West, NoMad (the roast chicken is superb) and began to act as an entrepreneur.

Meyer is a synonym of many happy choices (and if he ever made a mistake he certainly understood it early enough and fixed it) such as Gramercy Tavern. For sure, over there at 20 Street East, you can eat quite well, with one Michelin star they got it right. However, you most of all feel good, because when you get inside it’s as if you put on a comfortable pair of slippers. Michael Anthony is in charge of the kitchen and even the last of the waiters could be an example to most of our own.

A few roads further down, around Union Square, there’s a place where in theory a carnivorous person shouldn’t even get close to because Pure Food & Wine not only is a tribute to organic food, even meat can be organic, but everything is vegan, and as if this were not enough, it is also raw. Fire is banished and one could think of munching grass like a cow in the fields. Nothing like that. This is the incredible world of Sarma Melngailis who opened in Irving Place in 2004 and of the current chef, Nikki King Bennet, who are so talented with fine dining that they make a reality that too often isolates itself as something concrete, tasty and craveable.

For sure, being in New York helps those who have ideas that are out of the ordinary. The public is so heterogeneous that there’s potentially space for everyone. For this reason The Vegan Guide to New York City is now approaching the twentieth edition and you cannot not know even Clean Plates, which is dedicated to Manhattan alone, whose merit is that it looks for physical wellbeing in all kinds of restaurants, so much so it is aimed both at vegetarians and carnivores. Among the editors, there are also doctors, not just food critics.

As for me, having a very big heart I have lost count of the places where I’ve left my heart over the time: at Esca for a superb fish, Marea for the sense of power emanated by the clients, Peter Luger for the steaks, Del Posto for the fully Italian style, Blue Hill for Dan Barber’s profound philosophy, WD-50 for Wylie Dufrense’s brave choices, Empellon and Alex Stupak’s cuisine (of course he’s not Mexican, but indeed he’s a brilliant chef). The next stop? Chef’s Table at Brooklyn Fare by Cesar Ramirez.

2. the end