Four Brothers and One Star for Caravaggio

[benjamin petit for the times]Pete Wells heads uptown for his review in the Times today and files on four-year-old Caravaggio. The Upper East Side restaurant is owned by the four Bruno brothers. It opened in 2009 and throws back to the era of white tablecloths and dress codes. "Caravaggio," writes Wells, "is defiantly elegant in an age that sees white tablecloths as a medieval relic whose sadistic power to stand in the way of a good time is second only to that of the chastity belt."

In the dining room, elegance takes the guise of fresh flowers and a selection of well-curated art. There's "a signed Matisse lithograph," "a pair of Ellsworth Kelly prints," and "a pair of Frank Stella paintings." "Donald Baechler has covered the entire back wall with a crowd of the eeriest children in the world," the critic writes. "The mural is unsettling," Wells notes, "but it has the hovering, electric presence of real art."

Of Caravaggio, "It is one of the most civilized Italian restaurants to turn up anywhere in the city in the last few years," Wells writes. But he also cites ample inconsistencies in the kitchen, and with the all-too-common, steep Upper East Side prices, the critic awards just one star. "First-time travelers should be warned: no matter what the euro is trading at, the exchange rate on the Italian Upper East Side is always awful." [NYTimes]

Return of the Great GoogaMooga

The Great GoogaMooga is returning to Prospect Park this weekend. Last year's festival drew 30,000 people and left Superfly, the entertainment production and marketing agency that runs the event, scurrying to keep up. Festival goers had a laundry list of complaints last year, but the team has reworked the format with hopes to avoid making the same blunders. The Googa website notes, "It’s fair to say we learned a lot last year. We’re changing, adding, tweaking, building—to make this year’s festival better for you in every way."

This year's festival launches Friday, with a Kickoff Concert featuring Yeah Yeah Yeahs, the Flaming Lips, and the Darkness. Tickets for that event are $55, but the rest of GoogaMooga is free (tickets were granted to those who registered on a lottery basis). There will be ten more fod stalls than last year, making a total of 85 contributing restuarants and, unlike last year, most of these vendors will have bottled water for sale. Guests are also allowed to bring their own now. Temporary cell towers will be brought in to ensure reliable phone service, so guests will be able to go nuts on Instagram.

Fences have gone up around the perimeter of the festival grounds, but we got in yesterday to snap a few pictures of GoogaMooga Part II coming together in Prospect Park.

Click to read more ...

So Long, Joe's Dairy

Joe's Dairy has sat on Sullivan Street between Prince and Houston for nearly 80 years. In 1977, Anthony Campanelli and his family took over the operation from Joe Aiello. After running the mom and pop shop for 35 years the family has decided to call it quits, and Saturday was the last for the iconic Soho storefront. The wholesale aspect of the business will remain. So their products will still be available, you just won't be able to stop in for amazing mozzarella sandwiches or chat with the Campanelli's and neighbors that have been shopping there for decades.

We stopped by to take pictures Saturday and ran into Piero Iberti and Jeremy Zalben, two native New Yorkers who started filming a documentary about Joe's two years ago. They found out Joe's was closing the night before and spent all day Saturday filming, interviewing patrons, and trying to make sense of it all. Hail came down in sheets and seemed to be washing away a New York legacy. We endured the storm under the small green awning at 156 Sullivan Street, each of us aware it was the last time we would ever do so. Here's a teaser for the documentary, and a toast to the end of an era.

Eat the Week; May 6th - May 10th

Scenes and bites from Jazz Fest in New Orleans | Signage goes up at Dinosaur BBQ in Park Slope | Pete Wells awards two stars to Pearl & Ash on Bowery | We try the roast beef po' boy at Domilise's in New Orleans | Donde Dinner? - 700 East 9th Street

Donde Dinner? - 700 East 9th Street

Donde Dinner? wants to make your next dining experience an adventure. So, every Friday, we pick a restaurant and post its address for you. The catch is, that's all the information you get. No name, no type of cuisine, and no Googling. But first, here's last week's address:

13 Doyers Street = Nom Wah Tea Parlor

This week's restaurant follows typical Donde Dinner? fashion. Price, quality, and accessibility have all been taken into account. You won't be waiting at the bar for two hours with $15 cocktails and you never have to worry about a dress code. Just hop on the train, or your feet, or your bike, and head to:

700 East 9th Street (map)

Roast Beef Po' Boy at Domilise's In New Orleans

Spend three minutes online looking into the iconic food joints of New Orleans and Domilise's will show up at the top of your browser. The Uptown po' boy shop is a NOLA institution. We were torn between the fried shrimp, hot sausage, and roast beef, but settled on roast beef after flashingback to our plane ride with the trumpet player; remembering he had said something about "100 napkins" in regard to the sandwich.

Click to read more ...

Pearl & Ash and the Two Stars from Mars

[ed lefkowicz for the times] cappiello at workPearl & Ash has been a much buzzed about restaurant since it opened four months ago on Bowery. The combination of Patrick Cappiello's extensive wine knowledge and Richard Kuo's eclectic plates there quickly garnered rave reviews.

Cappiello was a sommelier at Gilt previously, and he worked with the wine lists at Veritas and Tribeca Grill before that. Kuo was born in Taiwan, lived in Australia, and cooked with Fredrik Berselius at the short-lived Nordic pop-up Frej in Williamsburg before it closed and morphed into Aska.

"First things first," Wells starts his two-star review of Pearl & Ash in today's Times. "Going to Pearl & Ash without opening a bottle or two is like buying a chocolate bar and not unwrapping it." Cappiello has a thing for low markups. His competitive pricing affords wine enthusiasts and casual diners alike the ability to drink from his near-300 bottle list, one where high-end Bordeaux is balanced by an abundance of affordable new world selections.

"Mr. Kuo studied the modernist tool kits at WD-50 and Corton," Wells writes of the chef's background. "Some people who’ve gone to Pearl & Ash seem confused about what kind of restaurant it is," he continues. "The menu is heavy on small plates, but then the dishes under the meat and fish headings can also be prepared in main-course sizes. You can cover the table with a carnival of little dishes, or start with an appetizer and proceed to an entree. Whatever. Let’s just call it a very high-functioning wine bar that offers one of the best values in the city, and move on."

Jordana Rothman filed on Pearl & Ash for Time Out last week. Her review mentions Cappiello was "sporting a Joy Division tee" during her visit. Wells notes a "Black Flag T-shirt under an untucked, unsnapped cowboy shirt." At Pearl & Ash, Cappiello has abandoned the suits and showmanship of uptown and opted for a more casual, downtown approach. But it's one he executes with an equaled sense of passion and professionalism. The band shirts could be a nod to what was once New York's most iconic venue two blocks north, but maybe they're a sign that wine is the new food is the new rock. [NYTimes]

Show Me a Sign: Dinosaur Barbecue in Park Slope

Dinosaur Barbecue gets one step closer to opening with new signage that went up last week. It hangs off a steal frame on the east side of the building in a way that looks like it's been there for years. Windows have also been delivered and installed where plywood used to keep passersby from peeking in. Their old, wooden frames synch up with the rugged, honky tonk aesthetic the space is going for. The restaurant is slated to open next month.