Restaurant Outlook

Welcome back to Restaurant Outlook, the quasi-weekly highly subjective listing of restaurants we’re paying attention to.

Fairly New

• Bar Milano — Early reviews are mixed, but the Lupa/’Inoteca guys have a strong track record. Reservation: tonight.
• Elizabeth — Former Country chef de cuisine Doug Psaltis is designing the menu here. It’s only a consulting gig, which makes us skeptical, and Psaltis seldom remains anywhere for long, which makes us doubly skeptical. But at a low price point we’re willing to roll the dice. Reservation: May 30.
  
• Savarona — The rare serious Turkish restaurant in New York is surely worth a try. Reservation: May 31.
  
• Hundred Acres — This Marc Meyer/Vicki Freeman follow-up to Provence opened last week. It will be in the Five Points–Cookshop haute barnyard vein. A hit is no sure thing, but I wouldn’t bet against them. Reservation: June 6.
  
• Scarpetta — Italian restaurant by Scott Conant, formerly of Alto and L’Impero. Early reports are promising, but it’s in the Meatpacking District, which hasn’t seen a serious restaurant in years. Reservation: June 7.
• The Redhead — There’s a twenty-page Mouthfuls thread about the Thursdays-only family-style meal, but it didn’t get my attention till the Times review this week. No plans to visit yet.
• Duane Park — This sequel to Duane Park Café looks interesting, though there aren’t many reviews to go on. No plans to visit yet.
  
• Merkato 55 — Reviews have been mediocre. We’ve had several reservations, all cancelled for various reasons. My girlfriend no longer wants to go, so I’ll have to drop in one night after work. No plans to visit yet.
• Greenwich Grill — Of interest mainly because it’s near the office. No plans to visit yet.

Forthcoming

All of these restaurants have been announced or mentioned in the press, but some of them may be a long way off.

• Lever House — Bradford Thompson is taking over the kitchen next month. We’ll wait for the early reports before we decide whether to pay a visit.
  
• Bouley v 3.0 — David Bouley’s move to the Mohawk Atelier Building at 161 Duane Street. Expected “by the fall.”
  
• Susur Lee’s first New York restaurant at 200 Allen Street on the Lower East Side, also expected “come fall.”
  
• Brushstroke, another Bouley restaurant, at 111 West Broadway. Given the well chronicled problems getting this restaurant off the ground, I would be surprised to see it before 2009.
  
• Restaurant Liebrandt, with Paul Liebrandt (formerly of Gilt) at the helm. This week, Eater reported that it’s “set to go into the old Montrachet space.” We walk by there regularly, and haven’t seen the slightest whiff of activity.