Formerly known as “Marc Forgione”, this restaurant has moved from its prior Tribeca location to a different Tribeca location. Since then, they have lost their Michelin Star, but it is still a staple restaurant for those familiar with the history of this restaurant. It was quite easy to make reservations a few days in advance.

When I first came here in 2012, I wrote:

Marc Forgione is one of the Iron Chefs on Iron Chef America. This is his first restaurant, and at the time of this writing it has 1 Michelin Star. Like Michael Voltaggio, this restaurant is one of his babies, so he periodically is cooking in the kitchen to make sure everything comes out as he desires. Unfortunately he didn’t cook today, but I just want to preface this by saying this is definitely one of my favorite restaurants ever that I’ve tried so far.

This is the infamous Minetta Tavern. I had been here back in mid 2010s, and it was pretty good. Before I met my partner, I used to come here once every few months to just scarf their Black Label burger. The price for this was just barely over $20. Now in recent times post-pandemic, it’s been a bit more difficult to walk in without reservations. We were able to sit at the bar on a Friday late-afternoon around 4:55 PM without reservations.

French Dip is really good here, espeically the au jus drippings.

New American centric. Cheap but not too expensive. In the Vale hotel.

I first found out about WD~50 from my friend who wanted to try it out for the longest time. On research, I found out one of the Bravo’s Top Chef previous contestant owns this restaurant. His name is Wylie Dufresne. He is well known for pushing a movement towards molecular gastronomy, which is basically a different way to cook things. This 1 Michelin Star restaurant’s menu is pretty sparse in choices in that you basically choose from 2 different types of tasting menus, the cheaper or the more expensive. Optionally, you could order 2 items off any of the tasting menus at the bar for $25. We of course opted for the expensive one considering we have no plans on coming back any time soon.

One of my goals was to knock out some popular Momofuku establishments. SSAM was one of them. The SSAM Bar is on the San Pellegrino world’s 50 best restaurants list at the time of this writing. The service style is basically family style, so there are a lot of sharing plates. Portions are small for large groups probably, but decent sized for small groups 2-4. The decor has a very modern feel to it.