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You’ve never been good with names.
Faces, sure. Cocktails, obviously. But names are just not in your strengths column. So we think we may have stumbled onto a place that may feel well-suited… It’s called…actually, it’s not called anything (for the moment, at least). And it’s opening in a matter of hours. Here’s what you need to know: it’s a bar opening on the hush-hush. It used to be a small, nondescript pizza shop. And it now deals in oysters and burgers and rock and roll. On top of a speakeasy. Rest easy knowing that the speakeasy, Cabin Down Below, is still alive and dealing in hipsters, loud music and strong cocktails. But in place of mozzarella and red sauce, upstairs you’ll find exposed brick, tufted black leather banquettes, an old chandelier or two and just enough light to see Agyness Deyn sitting in the corner. Brought to you by the same gents who’ve gathered the attractively pouty rock-and-roll scenesters at Bowery Electric and next-door East Village staple Niagara, you can expect the same upscale dive-bar feel, just with a few more bivalves, some intricate cocktails and a windowed smokers’ patio that lets you keep your eye on the scene inside. There’s even a rumor that a piano may end up in the corner—you know, just in case you get inspired to perform. That means you can leave your stand-up bass at home. |
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Opening tonight at 6pm for drinks, food service begins next week
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| Suckling Pig Happy Hour | ||||
| Conventional restaurant wisdom says you roll out one ridiculously good deal at a time. To which Marc Forgione respectfully raises a middle finger, simultaneously introducing you to its Tuesday three-hour Suckling Pig Sliders happy hour with two-for-one beers and bottomless mimosas at its Sunday brunch. How you spend your time between Tuesday and Sunday is up to you. | ||||
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If you are picturing a meager burger topped with a clump of yellow mac and cheese, it’s time to think just a little bit bigger… Sure, it all starts innocently enough—a mix of cheddar, American, pecorino and Gruyère cheeses with ground Hereford beef—but don’t be deceived: this little devil is packing something extra. That something: macaroni, cooked, salted and packed inside the burger before it hits the grill, so by the time it starts to cook, the cheese, beef and macaroni become one charred, melted, buttery unit of deliciousness.
And to top things off, you’ll notice a few homemade Gruyère bread crumbs and a generous ladling of homemade cheese sauce on the patty. You should also know that they’re not putting it on the menu, so you’ll have to ask for it by name. Or, to avoid alarming other blissfully naive customers, write it on a slip of paper and slide it across the counter before muttering, “Just put the macaroni in the burger.” The seven most beautiful words in the English language. |
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Mac and Cheese Burger, available now at Burger Shoppe, 212-425-1000
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Setting up in the old Rush Hour space with the industrial-minimalist flare of bare white brick walls and plain black bar stools, MB’s the latest-latest effort from Michael Huynh, whose high-school experience flipping short order burgers upstate plays muse to the victuals, and provides hilariously unfair hope for White Castle line cooks everywhere. The hyper-focused menu boasts just four different, potato roll’d, six oz sammies (sided w/ jalapeno-cilantro slaw), with the namesake headliner a chuck/short rib/brisket concoction — pressed with raw onions/corned beef hash, griddle crusted, and finished with pickled mustard seeds — that “evokes the flavors of the coffee shops of yesteryear” (nothing says Small Town, USA like Asian-influenced condiments!). Off the beaten path you’ll find a satay-style lamb job w/ spicy peanut sauce and fresh mint, a wasabi aoili/pickled onion abetted tempura-fried tilapia patty (w/ optional caviar topping), and a BLT burger rocking chinese bacon/sausage and Kewpie mayo, which is crazy considering some of those dolls are worth, like, thousands of dollars.
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When ordering a hamburger, most choices are confined to condiments, like “Do I want Swiss or American?”, or “Is the chef special enough to warrant eating his sauce?”. Forcing delicious decisions on the meat of the matter, Patty and Bun.
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Exuding old-school sophistication thanks to understated dark wooden booths and banquettes, a similarly-hued & leather stool’d marble bar, and burnt newspaper print walls obscured by vertical beams, P&B’s from a disparately resume’d duo (Follow Me Caffe/Euzkadi) whose tavern-esque menu sports a gooey burger center that demands you to actually think inside the bun. With meat grinding and bun baking going on in house, the standard burger’s a pasture-raised beef job rocking pickles/lettuce/tomato/house sauce, but every other patty’s unique: sliders get shot through w/ bacon and roasted onions; a three-meat blend Havoc Burger capped with chimichurri Napa cabbage; and a 10oz special “reserve” beef job topped w/ Vidalia onions and optional braised duck/shiitake called the Caddy Paddy — order it pink and it’ll give you Eastwood. Beyond the beef there’s a free-range turkey burger stuffed with creminis and topped w/ guac and roquefort or Irish cheddar; a pastured lamb piece smothered in jalapeno sheep’s cheese; and two seafood jobs: wild king salmon w/ creamy chardonnay sauce, and BBQ sauce/double smoked bacon topped monk fish, for those devout enough to give up…physical fitness.
There’s plenty of non-sammy action as well, including flash-roasted oysters, crab cakes, seared scallops, mac & cheddar/sheep’s/goat cheese, and a slew of steaks and chops sourced from DeBragga, whose pedigree’s so unassailable only a fool would refuse to eat their meat.
