Welcome to Where to Eat, the restaurant newsletter with a hyper-seasonal menu. Here’s what we’ve got for you today:
A LITTLE TREAT Masa Madre in Sunnyside, Queens, makes an unforgettable conchaEverybody loves a little treat, especially me. Last year, I tasked our Food team with highlighting some of the best little treats in New York City and gave them three rules: No reservations should be required; it had to cost $20 or less; and whether it was liquid or solid, cold or warm, it had to bring them joy. We came up with 46 examples, though we could have easily doubled or tripled that number. New York is teeming with options — so many, in fact, that we’ve now made a show out of it. In the first episode of “A Little Treat With Nikita Richardson,” we visit Masa Madre in Sunnyside, Queens. There, the chef José Luis Flores, a veteran of the restaurant industry for decades, applies his pastry-making discipline to Mexican food. More specifically, he makes a killer sourdough concha with a starter he’s nurtured for six years. These conchas — with their sweet, crackly cookie tops — are tangy and masterfully baked, springing back with every bite. (If you’d like to try your hand at making conchas at home, I promise it’s doable. Here’s a recipe from Pati Jinich to get you started.) Learn all about what makes Flores’s baked goods stand out in the YouTube video linked below, and stay tuned for more odes to little treats and New York City. Watch the video →
THE BRIEF REVIEW Arthur★ | Critic’s Pick Critics often talk about a restaurant’s point of view, which boils down to the question: What is this chef trying to say? Arthur, the Greenpoint restaurant from the married couple Kevin and Lex Finch, is betting that New Yorkers don’t want pandering, mindless bistro food. They want sophistication, but they don’t want to make a big fuss about it. Nowhere does this pay off more than the kitchen’s excellent roast poussin. A hidden layer of farce (a seasoned thigh meat mousseline) beneath the lacquered skin keeps the meat juicy while adding a pleasant sausage-like buoyancy. It’s served over crispy rice mixed with chicken bits, troves of rich, gamy flavor. Then there’s the plush beef tartare swathed in pungent black garlic oil with a dusting of toasted nori powder that somehow conjures the lovable flavors of sour cream and onion. The delicate tilefish arrived in a light-as-air briny fish bone sauce, an unsuspecting powerhouse of crisp, deep-ocean flavor. Amid these standout dishes, where ambition and execution were evenly matched, others exposed a less steady footing. The levers of seasoning — salt, fat, acid — sometimes seemed to be pulled at random. The cumbersome-to-eat maitake skewer and rather plain tuna crudo lacked the elegance and vibrancy seen elsewhere. Hakurei turnips arrived atop a tonnato sauce that had the questionable consistency of mashed potato. Nevertheless, informed by Mr. Finch’s experiences in rigorous kitchens from San Francisco to Shenzhen, the cooking bears familiar signs of fine dining — precise knifework, complex sauces and, visible from the chef’s counter, where I do recommend getting a seat, a satisfying Tetris arrangement of mise en place. (You’ll also get a glimpse of just how much butter is necessary to make that chicken taste so good.) The long and slender dining room bustles with energy borrowed from the open kitchen, while exposed-brick walls and small tables topped with drippy candles have a softer, more rustic charm. By the way, who is Arthur? It’s the pseudonym Mr. Finch’s father playfully used to make restaurant reservations. From one lover of good food to another, I can relate. Address: 132 Franklin Street (Milton Street), Brooklyn; 518-290-3955; eatwitharthur.com Recommended Dishes: Kohlrabi, beef tartare, Arthur salad, fingerlings, brioche, tilefish, chicken, île flottante. Price: Snacks and skewers, $6 to $8; shared small plates, $19 to $28; shareable entrees, $30 to $78; dessert, $8 to $14 Wheelchair Access: There is a ramp into the restaurant and the bathroom is wheelchair accessible.
FROM OUR CHIEF CRITICS Marcel is an unfinished portrait of a restaurantI was so hopeful, descending the bluestone stairs into Marcel’s stunning dining room. You can’t argue with these bones: The restaurant commands the lower level of the once disdained but now beloved Breuer building, that granite hulk among the Gilded Age townhouses of the Upper East Side. Art by 20th-century masters hangs on the walls, courtesy of Sotheby’s, which has its headquarters on the floors above. So much care has been lavished on the space, from the mohair velvet banquettes down to the artisanal butter plates from Japan. Even the service is polished. Then the food arrives. The heavens recede. As T.S. Eliot wrote, “Between the idea / And the reality … / Falls the shadow.” Read the review →
RESTAURANT AT HOME Junior’s CheesecakeThere’s so much more to the Junior’s story than air rights and prime real estate. The Brooklyn restaurant has been owned and operated by members of the Rosen family since it opened on Election Day in 1950. And since about that time the restaurant has been synonymous with its cheesecake, which its founder, Harry Rosen, created in collaboration with the Dutch-born baker Eigel Petersen. (There’s always a Dutch angle in New York, after all.) Thanks to Eric Kim, you can make the cheesecake “so rich and creamy it made tough men swoon” at home. See the recipe → Need to know where to eat across the United States? Check out our guides to Atlanta, Austin Boston, Chicago, D.C., Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami, Nashville, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Portland, Ore., San Francisco and Seattle. Follow NYT Food on TikTok and NYT Cooking on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Pinterest.
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