The Best New Restaurants in America, 2011
Over the past 12 months, I’ve spent something like 250 nights eating out, sometimes with my family, sometimes with friends and colleagues, and often on the road by myself. Not a bad gig, I admit, but at the end of the day it was work. Everywhere I went, no matter what the chef’s reputation or the price of the entrée, I considered it for this list. After much deliberation and a few difficult choices, I narrowed down all these meals to this: my top-ten best new restaurants of 2011.
I can’t promise that your list will match mine—after all, how fun would food be if we didn’t get to argue about it? One thing I can promise is that all the spots I’ve chosen—from a Southern gem in Charleston, SC, to a surprising indie hit in Robbinsdale, MN—are driven by passionate people who care deeply about the food they’re cooking. They all have a story to tell, and I’m thrilled to share them with you before I start eating my way toward next year’s list. Bon Appétit!
©2010 David S. Dadekian. All rights reserved.1/10No. 10: Bondir, Cambridge, MA
When people talk about a small restaurant run by a couple, they always seem to say, "It's like eating at grandma's." To me that sounds like a polite way of saying the place was charming, the staff cheery, but the food dowdy and the decor a bit twee. Bondir convinced me otherwise. For starters, there are remarkable homemade breads, including one flecked with seaweed, served with butter so intense it made me ask where it's from (Cabot Creamery). Each homespun dish—hand-rolled tagliatelle with chicken; braised lamb shoulder—is available in either a half or a full portion, encouraging sharing. And then there's the fireplace, appealing staff, and intimate setting that, yes, make it feel like you're eating in grandma's country house. And that's a very good thing.
279A Broadway, 617-661-0009, bondircambridge.com
Photo: Table for two at Bondir
2/10No. 9: Congress, Austin, TX
I'm all for keeping Austin weird, as the city's indie slogan goes, but sometimes you want something more than breakfast tacos and eccentric street food (chicken-avocado dogs or bacon-and-maple-syrup doughnuts, anyone?). You want a place that's, well, a bit more grown-up. And that place is Congress, a bustling restaurant complex that consists of a fancy white-tablecloth spot (Congress), a more casual tavern (Second Bar + Kitchen), and a bar (Bar Congress). It occupies the ground floor of a luxe new condo building—not my preferred restaurant location, but I'll go anywhere for executive chef David Bull's distinctly American comfort food, which includes everything from chicken-fried olives and avocado fundido to short rib "pot roast."
200 Congress Avenue, 512-827-2760, congressaustin.com
Photo: The communal table at Second Bar + Kitcheb
Adam Goldberg3/10No. 8: M. Wells, Long Island City, NY
Let me get this out of the way, since it's the first thing people ask about M. Wells: From Grand Central Station, take a Queens-bound 7 train two stops to Hunters Point Avenue in Long Island City. Your reward for the seven-minute trip is diner food unlike any other. Starters include pickled pork tongue and escargots with bone marrow. Want a sandwich? Try the General Tso's sweetbreads, or a hot dog with bacon chili and maple syrup coleslaw. The we're-not-at-Mel's-Diner-anymore feeling is courtesy of Canadian chef Hugue Dufour (he cooked at Montreal's cult favorite, Au Pied de Cochon) and his wife, Sarah Obraitis, who oversees the front of house. Go for lunch and order the French onion soup if they have it—it's the best I've had. If you ask, they'll put foie gras on top. In fact, you can add foie to a lot of things here. Looks like I'm gonna need to walk back to Manhattan.
Note: After the September issue went to press, we learned that M. Wells had lost their lease and would be closing at the end of August. Bummer—we liked that old diner cart. Thankfully, they've found a new location nearby and will be opening shortly. Long live snails and bone marrow!
21-17 49th Avenue 718-425-6917, mwellsdiner.com
Photo: Sarah Obraitis and Hugue Dufour of M. Wells, where "diner" food includes beef tartare and torilla española.
4/10No. 7: Son of a Gun, Los Angeles, CA
What Wolfgang Puck's Spago was to the 1980s (hip hangout with an A-list crowd and great food), Animal is to the 2010s. Culinary-school buddies Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo made "stoner food" (foie gras poutine, Buffalo-style pig's tails) mean more than Doritos and Funyuns. But there's creative subtlety to their food, and it's more visible than ever at Son of a Gun, the duo's seafood-centric homage to their Florida roots. Expect their smoked-mahi fish dip to be copied by other restaurants around the country. The satisfyingly rich shrimp-toast sandwich with Sriracha mayo is the thinking person's grilled cheese. Salmon collars (good meat in them necks) with a yakitori glaze will have you licking your fingers clean. Most impressive was spring lettuces with a zingy green goddess dressing, avocado, and a mess of radishes and carrots. I know: a salad—how L.A. But that salad, like Shook and Dotolo's cooking, defies expectations. There's no script to follow. It's just two guys with two restaurants cooking food they want to eat. And, son of a gun, they do it well.
8370 W. 3rd street 323-782-9033, sonofagunrestaurant.com
Photo: Jon Shook working the line
Copyright: Courtney Apple Photography 20095/10No. 6: Talula's Garden, Philadelphia, PA
I never ate at Chez Panisse during its '80s heyday, but I imagine the food tasted something like the meals I had at Talula's Garden. I'm talking ultra-fresh ingredients in flavorful, straightforward dishes. It seems easy to do, but as your average mesclun salad proves, it's not. It requires the talent of someone like executive chef Michael Santoro, who cooked at the Fat Duck in the U.K., and the vision of someone like co-owner Aimee Olexy, whose tiny store-cum-restaurant, Talula's Table in Kennett Square, PA, is considered the hardest reservation in America. If I made a list of my top-ten dishes of 2011, three would come from Olexy's new big-city spot: braised rabbit with handkerchief pasta, soft-shell crab with spicy fennel pickle, and, above all else, golden potato gnocchi with succotash and lemon-brown butter.
210 W. Washington Square 215-592-7787, talulasgarden.com
Photo: A communal table at Talula's Garden
6/10No. 5: Ruxbin, Chicago, IL
As a kid, Edward ("Teddy") Kim was called Teddy Ruxpin after the talking teddy bear
that was big during the 1980s (I admit it. I had one). So when naming his restaurant, he chose Ruxpin—or, rather, a misspelled version of it. It's a quirky story for this quirky, BYOB restaurant in West Town that feels off the beaten path. The space looks like a set from Blade Runner—everything is refurbished, repurposed, or reclaimed, from walls lined with shipping crates to a banquette back made of old seat belts. All this, and the Korean-American chef manages to make the food the most memorable aspect. Skipping the kimchi taco route that's so popular elsewhere, Kim takes a chance (and succeeds) with dishes like a clever spin on the clambake and calamari stuffed with chicken and pork forcemeat and Korean chili. If there's a wait—and with only 32 seats, there will be—sit at the communal table, snack on the house popcorn, and take solace that memories of the food will outlast those of that teddy bear.851 N. Ashland Avenue 312-624-8509, ruxbinchicago.com
Photo: Chef Edward Kim at Ruxbin
7/10No. 4: Travail Kitchen and Amusements, Robbinsdale, MN
There was no celebrity-chef hype around the opening of Travail Kitchen and Amusements. I didn't book weeks in advance. I just drove to this unassuming suburban spot 15 minutes from Minneapolis for lunch one day and ended up going straight back for dinner. Here's why: They've got the best house-made charcuterie, crazy-low prices (a ten-course tasting menu for two for $60!?), and smart, ambitious food that applies elements of molecular gastronomy to the Midwestern traditions of pickling, preserving, and lots of meat. It's both prepared and served by a motley crew of chefs who cook like a band making its first album, i.e., without limits. They've got a hit on their hands.
4154 W. Broadway, 763-535-1131
Photo: The calm before the storm at Travail
8/10No. 3: The Walrus and the Carpenter, Seattle, WA
It would be a shame to visit this tiny spot named for a Lewis Carroll short story and not get beyond the oysters. It almost happened to me. First I ordered a dozen, then six more, and six more after that. The quarter-size Olympia, "Samish Sweets," and Malaspina varieties were that good, especially when chased with a bright Muscadet. (Luckily, the order comes with a piece of paper so you can keep track of what you're slurping.) But that's only the tip of the menu, followed by smallish dishes composed mainly of things plucked from local waters. Plump fried oysters were crispy and irresistible. Grilled herring (a first for me) and a tartare of butter clam almost made me forget about those oysters. Almost.
4743 Ballard Avenue NW, 206-395-9227, thewalrusbar.com
Photo: The oyster bar at the Walrus and the Carpenter
Alanna Hale9/10No. 2: Mission Chinese Food, San Francisco, CA
The unlikely story of this breakout spot goes something like this: Anthony Myint and Karen Leibowitz open a taco truck, Mission Street Food. It lasts four weeks. Next they launch a pop-up restaurant in Lung Shan, a no-frills Chinese place in the Mission District, featuring weekly guest chefs. It eventually matures into this fully operating restaurant, open six days a week. The no-reservations policy means there's always a line. But it's worth the wait to get some of the most out-of-this-world creative (and seriously delicious) Sichuan-inspired dishes in America right now. The cumin lamb belly? Fiery and addictive. Warm egg custard with duck confit and sea urchin? Brilliant. Hot-and-sour pork dumplings made to order? Further proof that the runaway success of MCF is no accident.
2234 Mission Street, 415-863-2800, missionchinesefood.com
Photo: The dining room at Mission Chinese Food
Terry Manier10/10No. 1: Husk, Charleston, SC
My first impression of Husk involved a bowl of boiled peanuts and a shot of bourbon. Not enough to earn the title of Best New Restaurant? Let me explain.
As a son of the South, it's always bugged me that I didn't really grow up eating classic Southern food. My family did the pimiento cheese thing, but I missed out on homemade cast-iron skillet fried chicken, peanut soup, hominy grits, braised collard greens, pickled okra (actually, okra everything), fried green tomatoes, and piles of fluffy biscuits. A few restaurants in my hometown of Atlanta prided themselves on scratch cooking, but their numbers seemed to dwindle every year. Traditional Southern food, it seemed to me, was dying.
And then a few years ago a curious thing happened: Southern-inspired dishes started popping up on menus across the country. My New York friends began asking me about country captain, Brunswick stew, and chess pie. Talented young Southern chefs, perhaps realizing they'd grown up with a food culture that was already "local" and "farm to table," returned to their roots. America's greatest regional cuisine was being rediscovered—and reborn.
This brings me back to the chef responsible for the boiled peanuts and bourbon, Sean Brock. Together with the folks from his molecular gastronomy-driven restaurant, McCrady's, Brock opened Husk in Charleston in November 2010. The historic Victorian house in which it's set is the first indication that the restaurant is a throwback of sorts. And then there are the ingredients he uses in the kitchen, which are all harvested or raised in the South. That even includes vinegar (Brock makes his own), salt, cheese, and, yes, olive oil (from South Texas, if you're wondering). Brock's self-imposed restrictions separate him from the pack of pretenders. But noble causes alone don't make a restaurant great. In this case it's the fact that Brock is a helluva cook.
A meal at Husk begins with buttermilk dinner rolls sprinkled with benne seeds (a.k.a. sesame seeds). You know how people tell you not to fill up on bread? When you're at Husk, you can ignore them. After that it's on to wood-fired clams with Benton's sausage, crispy pig's-ear lettuce wraps, and country ham-flecked pimiento cheese on heirloom-wheat crackers. And do not leave without trying the smoky fried chicken skins served with hot sauce and honey.
Brock isn't reinventing Southern food or attempting to create some citified version of it. He's trying to re-create the food his grandma knew—albeit with the skill and resources of a modern chef. As a result, he (and Husk) has become a torchbearer for an honest style of home cooking that many of us never truly tasted until now.
76 Queen Street, 843-577-2500, huskrestaurant.com
Photo: Husk's Sean Brock
