Five Pervasive Manhattan Restaurant Trends We Could Totally Do Without
Hotel Restaurants: It used to be that dismissing a dish as hotel food was the worst possible insult you could leverage at a chef. Because for ages, hotels were the exclusive domain of in-house restaurants akin to ambitious TGI Fridays’, with fare geared towards uncultivated, unadventurous Midwestern palates topped with bizarre, inedible garnishes, like giant fans of rosemary or radishes cut into roses. But in the last few years, Manhattan’s hotel restaurants have become destinations unto themselves, from April Bloomfield’s John Dory Oyster Bar in the Ace to Marc Murphy’s Kingside at the Viceroy. And this isn’t a bad thing in theory; Reynard and The Elm are both worthy additions to Brooklyn’s dining scene, and if the Marriott on Adams Street is interested in upping their game, all the more power to them. But Manhattanites are used to living with 1000-foot glass and steel behemoths hemming them in on either side. And the last thing resolutely residential Brooklyn needs is a baroque monstrosity popping up in Carroll Gardens, or a hyper-modern hostel taking over Fort Greene. Because good eats aside, we’d much rather see whatever unused bits of land there are converted into decently sized dog runs, or other multi-use green spaces. Alas for the Seamus Mullen farm-to-table spot planned for the Pierhouse, a massive new development overhanging Brooklyn Bridge Park.