Il Buco Italian Restaurant - Athens, Greece

An Italian restaurant, Il Buco, opened recently in Psirri, Athens’s up-and-coming district (described as the 'Soho') of Athens. Restaurants, bars and nightclubs cover the tiny neighborhood, but entrepreneur Lucas Papaspirou doesn't think his new venture will have any problems prospering.

Designed by the Athens-based Sotovikis and located on the third floor of a neo-classical building, Il Buco has views of the Acropolis, and the restaurant has three separate rooms surrounding the cocktail bar.

Pure white walls, floors and ceilings are all against the black door frames and Droog and Danish light fixtures. The Greek atmosphere is enhanced by the addition of mismatched wood-frame chairs collected from the antique shops of the neighboring town of Monastirak. Wish I was having dinner here tonight!

*images via cool hunter

John Derian

John Derian is definitely one of my favorite stores in New York. They have vintage furniture chosen with the most tasteful eye, decoupage trays, Rogues Gallery t-shirts with 19th century imagery, and every Hugo Guinness print a girl could dream of. I've got my heart set on these 4" bird egg coasters. Interested yet? Shop here. Or better yet, peruse the store if you're in New York. And stop by Peels on the corner for lunch!

Restaurants: Felice Wine Bar

On a recent trip to Florida over the Christmas holiday, my parents came into New York for a couple of nights and "apartment sat" for me. They recommended Felice Wine Bar, which happens to be a close to my apartment. I finally tried it out last week with a friend and was thrilled with the wine, food and atmosphere. I had the Crostone Con Pomodoro e Formaggio (goat cheese crostini) and the Salmon tartare. I'm excited to have a new favourite neighborhood spot!

Felice Wine Bar
1166 1st Avenue (at 64th Street)
New York, NY 10065

Restaurants: Tavern on Jane, Tartine

Tavern on Jane

Tartine

This past weekend I spent a lovely day in the West Village with friends and found two spots that I loved: Tavern on Jane and Tartine. Unassuming from the outside (and inside, really), we stopped into Tavern on Jane for "a drink" and ended up staying for 4 hours! Given, there was a football game on, but it was relaxing and fun- vintage posters on exposed brick- not too trendy, not too grungy.

We got hungry and thought that Tartine would be a good next stop. It was my first experience at a BYOB restaurant. We picked up our Stag's Leap from a wine shop around the corner, sipped and sat outside waiting for our table (which wasn't actually that cold), and had a lovely meal!

Tavern on Jane
31 Eighth Avenue (at Jane Street)
New York, New York 10014
212.675.2526

Tartine
253 W. 11th Street (at 4th Street)
New York, New York 10014
212.229.2611

*all photography credit to New York Magazine

Restaurants: Upper East Side's Shake Shack

Shake Shack, which has it's main outpost in Gramercy's Madison Square Park, has announced it will be opening another location on the Upper East Side's 86th Street and Madison Avenue. Good food? Yes. Healthy? Not so much. Bonne chance to my girlfriends that live around the corner!

Vino Volo

Who: Founded in 2004, Vino Volo is a small chain of airport wine bars and shops that is making traveling through the U.S. a bit more bearable and civilized.

What: Instead of drinking the airline’s mini bottles of wine on your next flight, you can stop in their shops before boarding for a half or whole bottle of your choice wine instead. The shops have leather chairs, wood floors and jazz music that will relieve the tension of delays and lost luggage. Many of theirs wines by the glass are under $10 and they offer small plates of cheeses and sandwiches.

Where: There are currently ten Vino Volo locations including JFK, Newark, Philadelphia, Washington Dulles, Baltimore, Seattle, Sacramento, Oakland, San Antonio and Detroit.

Pure and Simple Wins the Race

Van Leeuwen Artisan Ice Cream launched in the spring of 2008 by Ben Van Leeuwen, wife Laura O’Neill and brother Pete Van Leeuwen. They have a simple method that makes their ice cream undeniably delicious: using only local, hormone and antibiotic-free milk and cream and other preservative-free ingredients from around the globe.

Their method seems to be working. The eighteen percent butterfat ice cream sweetened with cane sugar instead of corn syrup? Check. The pistachio nuts harvested from a slow-food farm in Sicily and the hazelnuts from Piedmont? Done and done. Even all of their toppings are homemade and organic. The result is a dense and creamy treat (you must try the vanilla). It’s no wonder they can be found in specialty food stores, including Whole Foods, all over New York only a year after their start-up date.

The Van Leeuwen’s are as insistent on fresh, pure and simple ingredients as they are on their low-impact on the environment. All of their cups, napkins and spoons are made from sugar cane or corn husks and are biodegradable. One percent of all profits go to Wildlife Direct, a grassroots org that aims to protect endangered species in the Congo.

The charming Van Leeuwen trucks can be found at the following locations:

Greene and Prince Streets, 12-7 P.M.

University and East 12th, 8-11 P.M.

Read more about them here and in true New York City street-food fashion, you can also follow them on twitter to make sure you get the scoop.

Eataly, 2010

Arguably the top Italian market in the world, Eataly signed a lease on location this week in Manhattan for a store opening next year. The 32,000 square foot space, rumoured to be around the corner from Madison Square Park, will feature artisanal Italian foods, wines, liquors and beers. It will also have educational events and tastings, eight restaurants, two cafés and a gelato stand. The first Eataly opened in Turin in northwestern Italy in January 2007. There are also stores in Milan, Bologna and Tokyo.

Eataly is associated with the Slow Food movement, which according to their site is a “non-profit, eco-gastronomic member-supported organization that was founded in 1989 to counteract fast food and fast life, the disappearance of local food traditions and people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from, how it tastes and how our food choices affect the rest of the world.” This store is sure to be the darling of every Manhattan foodie.

Blue Hill Update

As a follow-up to the Blue Hill post, Lauren Braun Costello blogged about us! Check it out here.

An Evening at Blue Hill

An evening at Dan Barber’s Blue Hill promises the freshest of ingredients directly from the farm in upstate New York, mouth watering amuse-bouches and a who's-who of culinary luminaries. This couldn't have been more true on an evening this past winter when a very good friend of mine and I decided that Blue Hill would be the perfect restaurant to try in the middle of a recession.

We had just begun enjoying our starters when the couple next to us seemingly began to feud. The woman, sitting on the inside of the table, bolted as if from a visceral need to escape the presence of her significant other. After several minutes, an older woman at the bar seemed to have calmed her down enough to return to the table.

We tried not to look at them, or wonder what was going on. Just before I could no longer contain myself, the couple turned to us and told us that we simply had to hear what was happening. As it turns out, the two were in fact not in the midst of a heated lovers' quarrel, but instead co-authors at Blue Hill celebrating the completion of their new book, which was soon to be released (and the woman she ran up to just happened to be Dorothy Hamilton, Founder of the French Culinary Institute).

The discussion of the book turned into a discussion on food, then a discussion on life, and how to make the right choices. It seems that knowing your way around the kitchen is a great metaphor for knowing your way around the world- or at least New York. Ben and I made sure to buy the book as soon as it was available.

This past Saturday, we were able to attend what was perhaps the first book signing for Notes on Cooking at The Conran Shop in New York. We were pretty sure Lauren and Russell would remember us, but we never expected the reaction we got. Best of luck to both of you!

Be sure to check out Lauren’s website here.