East Village: After having sufficiently satisfied the Department of Health, Big Gay Ice Cream Shop is finally announcing an opening date for its 125 East Seventh Street storefront: Saturday at noon. Yes, this Saturday! [Biggayicecream/Twitter] The Lower Eastside Girls Club is taking over Astor Center to host a benefit called Cocktails and Crafts on Monday, September 12, from 6 to 9 p.m. The evening will feature tastes from guest chef Mary Cleaver of Green Table, artisanal cheeses from Lucy Whey’s, [...]

A good buzz is recession-proof. With Fashion Week around the corner, it would be nice to have a champagne food truck like Berlin did, but for now, there’s Winston’s Champagne Bar, an extremely high-end spot we read about over at Diner’s Journal. There’s a piano, and caviar, and everything is just perf for their “international clientele that presumably does not mind spending four figures on a bottle of Krug Clos du Menil 1996, or five figures on the 1979.” If [...]

The Breslin is slated to get even darker. Yesterday, Thrillist enlightened us about a lights-off dinner party coming to the Breslin in late September, but since we were still in the dark about a few of the details, we decided to reach out for more. Breslin chef April Bloomfield is traveling, unfortunately, but we did manage to get in touch with Christopher Lynch of Opaque — Dining in the Dark, the West Coast group putting on the event. (They’ve been [...]

Do try this at home. The Times‘ Robert Simonson might have already provided his primer on barrel-aging cocktails, but any cocktail nerd worth her rhubarb bitters knows it was Jefrrey Morgenthaler at Clyde Common in Portland who brought the trend Stateside. StarChefs checked in with the aged-quaff expert to get his recipe for barrel-aging a Negroni; it seems you’ll need a Tuthilltown barrel, a funnel, a sieve, and six weeks. Here in New York, Clyde Common co-owner Matthew Piacentini is [...]

It’s 4 p.m., and that means it’s time to play Two for Eight. We just asked ten restaurants the best time they can squeeze in a couple for dinner; you need only make your chosen reservation. (As always, we make the calls but don’t guarantee the results.) Today: New & Buzzy. ABC Kitchen (Menu) 212-475-5829 Two for eight? No Best available: Fully booked Ai Fiori (Menu) 212-695-4005 Two for eight? Yes Beauty & Essex (

If you have short bangs and smoke, make an early reservation. Dressing the staff in Brooklyn Industries is one thing, but launching a website that is drenched in spiked punch, beer magnums, and artisanal everything is a little bit of a cliché, non? Regardless, Hotel Williamsburg on Bedford Avenue is opening next month, and its website is up; it looks like Pillar & Plough, with all of its retro-chic tater tots and coffee-scented squab, run by Andrés Grundy, is almost [...]

Today we ran across a curious ad on the Good Food Jobs listing board, titled “Business for Sale: Favorite neighborhood specialty shop for sale,” and naturally our ears perked up. It seems a certain Brooklyn-based “beautiful shop with an amazing selection of some of the finest craft beer, cheese, charcuterie, chocolate and coffee” and “an extremely loyal and wonderful built-in clientele” is available at a six-year lease (in case you’re looking!). But, being the inquiring minds that we are, we’re [...]

A porky good place. The September 10 pork-a-palooza known as Pig Island just dropped its full menu, and it looks epic. You already knew about bacon sticky buns and pig’s-head tacos, but get a load of the full shebang below, including pork belly stuffed with lard, prunes, and cayenne pepper, served on black cabbage (by chef Alan Bravaccini at San Rocco), or perhaps some maple-smoked-bacon custard with crispy French toast (by pastry chef Ryan Butler at Mary Queen of Scots). [...]

The Upper East Side is so excited! The most coveted French macaron boutique in town opened today, Ladurée on Madison Avenue. Everyone above 59th Street is there in line, while everyone below 59th Street is buzzing about their downtown expansion plans, which the rep confirms to Grub Street is happening (“We are looking at downtown locations, yes”). The first people to ever buy a Ladurée macaron in New York? “A family from across the street, who bought sooo many!” says [...]

Pastry chef having “plumbing” issues. Johnny Iuzzini may be ridding the world of constipation, one Activia at a time (who is handling his endorsement deals, an old man on the prune juice?), but on a more serious note, his weekend home — of which he recently professed his love to GQ — was hit pretty hard by Irene (which is not funny). He tweets: “So we survived that damn hurricane. We evacuated to my cabin in the catskills thinking we [...]