Quiz: Dead Restaurants (Part 6)

Since the Tribeca Citizen Restaurant Guide was founded in 2011, many restaurants have been removed upon their closing. Here are blurbs describing 10 deceased establishments, with their names and other pertinent proper nouns redacted. Feel free to answer in the comments. (All of the restaurants are in Tribeca proper.) These are a bit tougher than Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5, and subsequent posts will be worse. UPDATE: The answers have been posted at the end.

1. Without the coffee- or style-related ambitions of its competitors, XXXXXX is content to be a funky neighborhood café serving breakfast items, sandwiches, salads, smoothies, and more. Despite XXXXXX’s hang-loose name, the clientele includes a lot of folks working across the street at XXXXXX.

2. XXXXXX is the kind of restaurant where men dine with other men without feeling like they’re on a date—in other words, it’s a steakhouse at heart. One distinguishing trait is the way it embraces history: It’s in an 1863 cast-iron building, a soaring and handsome space with 20-foot-high ceilings and black-and-white photos of bygone New York City days. Tables are nicely spaced, the better to do business. Chef/owner XXXXXX applies the techniques he learned at La Côte Basque and Lutèce to all-American classics: There’s a raw bar, a big list of steaks, excellent sides—the smashed potatoes, in particular, are superb. Note: There’s an adjoining bar area, and downstairs is a large private room.

3. XXXXXX is about as old-world as New York City restaurants get, with lace curtains on the windows, white tablecloths even at lunch (along with a single red rose on every table), dressed-up waiters, and what may be the only doilies below Canal Street. But the location—in a fabulous landmarked 1891 building—remains so out of the way as to be a bit avant garde; even now, more than three decades since the restaurant opened, there’s something wonderful about finding a true bistro in what is a fairly unpopulated area. The space is cavernous, the tables are well-spaced, and the menu is exactly as you would suspect (onion soup, sole meunière, steak frites, gorgeous soufflés…).

4. If you like your Italian restaurants old-school, you’ll love XXXXXX, where the menu includes clams oreganata, veal scallopine, scampi fra diavolo, and zabaglione that’s prepared tableside. The façade and the room have seen better days, but to some folks, that indicates a certain type of authenticity.

5. Opened by two veterans of the West Village’s XXXXXX, the subterranean XXXXXX is more of a bar with jazz than a traditional jazz bar—there’s neither a cover nor a minimum, tables aren’t jammed up against each other, and even though the sound is rich, the music doesn’t dominate the evening. (You can have a conversation.) The vibe is Art Deco Yacht—love the wallpaper, padded bathroom doors, and cloth cocktail napkins—along with a dash of white New England cabinetry behind the bar and old family photos on the walls. A menu of small plates is available to go along with the artisanal cocktails.

6. XXXXXX, underneath XXXXXX, is a great example of the high-low trend: For a price not far from Corton’s, you might find yourself hanging your coat on the wall, sitting on a flat wooden banquette (although most tables have chairs), and staring at a paper tablecloth. Or take the menu, presented at the end of the meal: It’s handwritten, in a herky-jerky cursive. And yet, on the “high” side, the menu is prix-fixe (“5 or 6 courses,” says the website, although it’s more like nine or ten), with no substitutions, and $100 a head. It’s only open Thursday through Saturday, at least to start, and you reserve by emailing your credit card info at least five days in advance. Where the upstairs is made to look old, rich with patina, the downstairs is somewhere between Spartan and Scandinavian. It takes a moment for the personality to pop: the gorgeous metal staircase, striking wooden chairs, a stack of wood along one wall, delicate flowers on each table, delightful matchbooks and coasters with Donald Sultan artwork.

7. If XXXXXX feels like a soundstage where a Graham Greene adaptation is being shot, its half-sibling to the north seems more likely to be the set for a Spanish-language version of the sitcom “Alice.” All the kitsch (aggressive colors, thrift-shop finds, wood paneling, rec-room light fixtures) and diner motifs (Formica tables, linoleum floor, pinkish polyester napkins) speak less of Latin America, perhaps, than to the 80s and early 90s, when you scavenged at the Goodwill store and your favorite band was from Athens, Ga. The menu draws from all over Latin America—arepas, pupusas, tacos, ceviches, and so on—and the spirits are Latin-focused (rum, tequila, mezcal, pisco, cachaça). The drink menu is ambitious in the contemporary way—infusions, herb syrups, funky bitters, et al, with the most eye-popping ingredient being coca leaf tea. The wines and beers are all from Latin America, too.

8. From the folks behind XXXXXX and XXXXXX uptown, XXXXXX aims to be both a bar—with 22 beers on draft—and a restaurant, serving everything from snacks, sandwiches, large salads, pastas, and entrées. The room, which has a high enough ceiling that there’s room for a balcony with seating, has been given a touch of patina, with exposed brick and reclaimed wood. Most notably, perhaps: no TVs. As for the name, the “k” is for old-school zest.

9. The XXXXXX part of XXXXXX, founded by local orthodontist XXXXXX and a childhood friend who has cafés in Moscow and St. Petersburg, is a wall of children’s art, to be refreshed every month or two. As for the XXXXXX part: It serves Dallis Bros. coffee, Mariage Frères tea, pastries from Balthazar and Amy’s Bread, and many varieties of Stolle pies, both sweet and savory.

10. XXXXXX is a rare restaurant these days in that it’s concept-free: Instead, it serves straightforward American fare (plus pastas) in a straightforward room. The charm is in the smallness of the operation, the corner location, the outdoor tables, and the neighborhoody vibe. And if all those wine corks in the windows are any indication, there’s a lot of fun being had, too.

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Answers: 1) Peace & Love. 2) City Hall. 3) Capsouto Frères. 4) Il Giglio. 5) Silver Lining. 6) Le Restaurant at All Good Things. 7) Los Americanos. 8) Church Publick. 9) Galerie de Café. 10) Ivy’s Bistro.

 

6 Comments

  1. 2 – City Hall
    3 – Capsouto Freres
    7 – Super Linda

  2. 9 – Galerie de Cafe

  3. 1 – Peace & Love

  4. 1 Peace & Love
    2 Dylan Prime
    3 Chanterelle
    10 Ivy’s

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