Photo: Brittany Sowacke for New York Magazine Like many, we were saddened to see the news of Steve Albini’s death. We first published this piece in July, 2018 and are republishing it now as Albini’s friends and fans are sharing their remembrances of the musician and sound engineer. Steve Albini has been one of the underground rock world’s most influential figures since the ’80s. His fiercely independent (and controversial) post-hard-core band Big Black, whose guitar riffs were as sharp as knives, was featured in the classic Our Band Could Be Your Life. Since 1992, he’s played with Shellac ..read more

Photo: Natalie Black I was already on my way to Esse Taco — standing on a crammed L train to Bedford Avenue — when I saw that a friend had posted an Instagram Story of the line outside: dozens of people stretched down North 5th Street ahead of the 5 p.m. opening. This is because the taquería comes from Enrique Olvera, the chef behind Cosme and Atla in New York and Pujol in Mexico City. The chance to get some $6 tacos from a chef whom the culinary world holds in such high esteem is a predictably big draw; the trade-offs come at the expense of comfort. Ess ..read more

Photo: Hugo Yu Last week, I reviewed Penny and Demo. By name, they are each a wine bar, although the cooking is ambitious enough to think of them as wine restaurants. Whatever phrase is preferred, this style has become the dominant genre of restaurant in the city: casual, dark, shareable plates, and lots to drink. In reviewing these two newcomers, it seemed like it would also be a useful exercise to assemble a (non-exhaustive) hit list of the best and most interesting wine bars/restaurants I’ve encountered in my own travels. I’ve tried to account for a variety of moods, tastes, and vintages (t ..read more

Photo: Hugo Yu As Hisham “Ham” El-Waylly, Anoop Pillarisetti, and Michael Tuiach were putting together the menu for Strange Delight, the New Orleans seafood-and-cocktail bar they are set to open on May 15, they faced a crucial question: “Do we have too many oyster dishes?” They’re served on the half-shell. There are oysters Rockefeller — made, in the style of Galatoire’s, without bacon or cheese — and fried oysters served with rémoulade. In lieu of po’boys, there’s a fried-oyster loaf à la Casamento’s, here made with thick-sliced milk bread, Duke’s mayo, pickles, and shredded iceberg. Did they ..read more

Illustration: Ryan Inzana Rita Bullwinkel is the editor of McSweeney’s Quarterly, author of the (excellent) novel Headshot, and an on-the-record superfan of steakhouses, most especially House of Prime Rib in San Francisco. “Everything costs like $65, but you get so much — a disgusting amount of food,” she says. “It’s one of those restaurants that has a really performative doggy bag because you’re meant to take stuff home. They’re like, ‘Do you want more bread to take, too?’” She was there recently and found herself at home with so many leftovers that she had little choice but to make bread pud ..read more

Photo: Hugo Yu/ Wine bars are taking over the city, naturally — keeping pace with the natural-wine boom and as a matter of course. There’s no imported trend New York will not digest and then supercharge. The diminutive bars à vin of Paris, where you get a splash of better-than-ever local plonk and a little saucer of saucisson sec, are urban treasures where you can expect grumpy service (in English, at least) and indulge existentialist fantasies. But the influential neo–wine bars that began cropping up in New York — Estela in 2013 and the Four Horsemen and Wildair, which followed in 2015 — were ..read more

Photo: Suzanne Sarofff April is a month of promise and optimism at the Union Square Greenmarket. The barren, beet-stained days of winter are over. Vendors have started to show up with bunches of agretti, ramps, and fiddleheads. Soon there will be asparagus. Once again, life will feel worth living. But this past April was marred by a terrible turn — at least for anyone who likes Greenmarket eggs. It was the final market month for Millport Dairy, a Pennsylvania farm whose bundles of hen eggs are held in exceptionally high regard. “Guys, I’m in the Union Square Greenmarket rig ..read more

Illustration: Naomi Otsu Welcome to Grub Street’s rundown of restaurant recommendations that aims to answer the endlessly recurring question: Where should we go? These are the spots that our food team thinks everyone should visit, for any reason (a new chef, the arrival of an exciting dish, or maybe there’s an opening that’s flown too far under the radar). This month: an actually good restaurant near Penn Station, fresh pitas in Park Slope, and a Greek spot in Tribeca that elevates lunch. 1915 Lanzhou Hand Pulled Noodles (Kips Bay) Located on East 26th Street just off Third Ave, 1915 Lanzhou H ..read more

Photo: Amy Sussman/January Images/Shutterstock All month, Grub Street has been documenting New York’s past through its assorted restaurant scenes. The focus has been the people, but this is not to say the food was completely secondary. Certain dishes have always had a way of breaking through to mass awareness and acclaim. To cap off the series, we present 14 of the buzziest individual dishes in the city’s history, the culinary innovations that were delicious and sophisticated enough to create little scenes entirely of their own making. 1913 Oyster Pan Roast at Grand Central Oyster Bar Invented ..read more

Illustration: Margalit Cutler Ruby Redstone, marked a New York “It” girl by this very magazine, is a fashion journalist and historian known on Instagram for her bold wardrobe of mixed prints. She graces her feed with billowing ruffles, bottle-blonde hair clipped back with seashell accessories, Mary Jane flats, and bright pops of color. As she puts it, she likes to “mix a bit of antique, vintage, and contemporary, every day.” In her monthly newsletter, Old Fashioned, she takes readers on a tour of modern couture to clothes of years past, drawing parallels to the year 1200. Her historian sensibi ..read more