mode| still hungry Shadow 66
nice to meat you End Cut can hold its own as a steak house thanks to prime cuts, cooked as ordered, with perfect crust and no culinary curveballs.
What’s Not On The Menu
Getting the food right is key, but it’s not everything. How did Shadow 66, End Cut and The Elm fare? By Hal Rubenstein
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know people mean it as a compliment, so I let the dubious phrase go by with a demure thank you, but when someone says, “I really enjoy the way you write about food,” it takes Simone Bilesian stick-the-landing willpower not to scrunch my zygomaticus minor muscles into a post-lemon sucking grimace. If the contents on my served plate were all that mattered, my roster of favorite places to dine would triple in length. But when you’re writing about the joys of going out to eat—which is how I regard my four-decade-long fascination—there are other components to forming judgment that can’t be tasted with a knife and fork. Understanding a chef’s mission, if the chef has one, and sharing a chef’s passion, if the chef radiates any, in creating both a menu and the dining experience surrounding your meal are equally essential when spending a few hours in his/her/their charge. But as vital as these two responsibilities are, we rarely get to speak directly to kitchen maestros for much more than a few shared pleasantries as they amble over to your table during their cursory nightly walk through the dining room. The person you will converse with, hopefully learn from, and, if all goes well, trust next time out, is your server. That’s why, even more than learning to balance a table of four’s dinner entrées on one arm (now as uncommon as plate-spinning), the paramount task of anyone working the floor is to make you feel appreciated, as if your presence in the room tonight makes a difference. It’s an easier task to master than plate spinning, which is good news, since failure to do so causes more lasting damage than broken china. Win te r 2024 | The Hol i d ay s & B eyond
Seventeen years ago, long before Martha Stewart began chronicling her antiquing along Warren Street, or The Maker Hotel embarked on hosting slavishly devoted Vogue readers to Amtrak it up to Hudson, there was Astrid Jehanno, staking her claim on 6th Street with an outpost of her West Village café, Le Gamin. Astrid’s now a legend up here, due to her steadfast commitment to quality, her playful rapport with regulars, the Emma Stone-like rasp in her sexy alto voice and the deadly Thanos-like glare that emanates from her large blue eyes when asked something stupid like “How come you don’t have Wi-Fi?” (“Try having a conversation” is her answer, posted on a sandwich board in the street) or “Can I get an onion soup with the cheese on the side?” I apologize in advance for admitting to getting off on Astrid’s handling of the increasing raft of entitled day trippers. Oh, they’re so easily scared, often quivering once they discover that the customer isn’t always right. Astrid is. Let them call her an acquired taste. I find her delicious. And I’m not alone, since so many have waited in eager anticipation for her chef/ husband Patrick to open his dream project, Shadow 66. Now that the doors are open, it’s immediately apparent what took him so long (three years including a break for COVID). No restaurant I can think of looks like this. With its dark wood walls, polished concrete floor, retro signage all in red, expansive wraparound bar (Jehanno built everything), flattering lighting and two gleaming vintage Citroëns dominating the space, Shadow 66 could be mistaken for the world’s most rustically elegant garage with a liquor license. (Whether you like whiskey or not, order an Inspection. Gin lovers will savor a Route 66). And if you’re looking for the coolest space in the Hudson Valley to throw a party for a few dozen people, you cannot best the diner, complete with soda fountain that Jehanno found, restored and affixed to the far license to thrive Shadow 66 could be the world’s most rustically elegant garage with a liquor license.
