New York Restaurants

The urban explorers behind Wanderlust Projects really went for it with their latest effort, an invitation-only speakeasy constructed in a watertower on top of an abandoned building in the heart of Chelsea. The bar was named The Night Heron and operated for six weeks, with guests meeting on a street corner at the right hour and then going down a dark hallway, across from a fire escape into a building that is slated for redevelopment. The guests then climbed 12 flights of stairs and squeezed through a trap door to find a "candlelit wooden cylinder outfitted with a bar, drink tables, and chandelier, all made from upright piano parts." The construction took about two months to pull off, and the only way to get in was to be offered the pocket watches that the organizers used to control the event. No tweeting, no pictures, and a once in a lifetime chance to risk life and limb for a cocktail and a view. It seems pretty intense for a few cocktails but got rave reviews. Would you do it? · Into the Water Tower, With Flair [Atlantic Cities] · Night Heron Speakeasy [Official Site] · A New York City Water Tower Doubles As A Hidden Speakeasy [Curbed NY] · Nightlife Coverage [~ENY~] [Photo]

Restaurant critic Tejal Rao announces her departure from the Village Voice today. This new comes just three days after veteran critic Robert Sietsema was unceremoniously shitcanned from the weekly. Ms. Rao started writing restaurant reviews and blogs posts for the Village Voice just over a year ago, and she earned a James Beard Award for her work earlier this month. Now the Voice has no resident restaurant critic, but the weekly is looking for more food writers ASAP. Tejal Rao has not announced any future plans yet. · @tejalrao [Twitter] · All Coverage of Tejal Rao [~ENY~]

VIEW SLIDESHOW: My Pie Monday: Ramps, Queso Fresco, Detroit-Style and More! It's a beautiful day for another round of My Pie Monday! Come on through for a look at this week's collection of brilliant homemade pizzas. If you're making your own pies, be sure to send us a photo for next week's My Pie Monday. Just take one snapshot of your homemade pizza, briefly describe your cooking method, and follow these instructions to get it to Slice HQ by 8pm EST on Thursday night. Please make sure to include your Serious Eats username! Looking for inspiration? Find dozens of recipes and home kitchen adaptations on our Pizza-Making Guide or peruse our collection of past My Pie Monday contributions. Even if you're not baking your own pies, we want to know about the ones you're eating. Submit to My Best Slice to help us spotlight the great pizza being enjoyed across the country. We don't care whether it's a super-simple corner slice or a fancy-pants pie, so long as its memorable. Send a photo and short description to pizz[at]seriouseats.com! About the author: Niki Achitoff-Gray is the editor of Slice and a part-time student at the Institute of Culinary Education. She's pretty big into pizza. Also, she likes offal. A lot.

Fitzcarraldo, a Ligurian-inspired restaurant from the owners of Rucola will open some time this summer in 3rd Ward, the community workspace education center in East Williamsburg. Grub Street has a first look at some of the items on the menu, as well as the space, which takes its cue from the "crumbling opera house in an overgrown jungle outpost" in the Werner Herzog movie the restaurant is named for. [GS]

[All Photos by Scott Lynch] The Great GoogaMooga wasn't a total bust — a lot of people had pleasant experiences on Friday night and Saturday afternoon. Check out photos of the scene on Saturday from frequent Eater Flickr pool contributor Scott Lynch above. Yesterday's cancellation announcement was especially frustrating because the vendors and the patrons had been told that the event was happening "rain or shine." And now, several restaurateurs are already citing losses of around $10,000 - $15,000 because of the cancellation of day three. The official word from Superfly on the vendor losses: "GoogaMooga is all about supporting local businesses and our intention is to do right by each vendor. In the coming days, we will be sitting down with all our partners to find financial solutions." One of the owners of James in Greenwich Village sends word: "We're donating over 2,000 duck sausages to St. John's Bread and Life. They're accepting donations if you hear of other restos looking for a home for their Googa goods." If you know of any other organizations that are accepting donations like this, let us know. Here's a roundup of more responses to the day three cancellation announcement from chefs and restaurateurs: From Northern Spy Food Co.: From the Brindle Room: The Brindle Room lost money this weekend: Ozersky chimes in: Here's a conversation between Eddie Huang, Mile End, and an observer: Gothamist reporter Lauren Evans: · All Coverage of The Great GoogaMooga [~ENY~]

So much fun. Despite promises that several improvements had been made to avoid the debacle of its inaugural run in 2012, yesterday's second annual Great GoogaMooga festival in Prospect Park came to an abrupt and soggy end when it was announced the entire day's programming had been canceled out of general safety concerns and the threat of potential damage to Prospect Park. You can't fault promoter Superfly for the weather, but news of the cancelation was made public only after hundreds of festivalgoers had turned out and were waiting to get in. Meanwhile, the majority of the hundred-odd vendors were suddenly left with the logistical issue of how to dispense with several thousand portions of everything from precooked lamb ribs to whiskey bread to egg and kale sandwiches. While event co-founder Jonathan Mayers admirably and quickly announced that organizers plan to "find financial solutions" to mitigate those food and labor costs, the general consensus on this puddle-filled Monday morning is that maybe it's time for GoogaMooga the great and powerful to pack it in and shuffle off to Buffalo, once and for all. Here's why. • Food waste. Less than a month ago, Mayor Bloomberg announced that 100 restaurants had signed on to a new city initiative designed to divert food waste away from landfills and turn it all into compost. Rain or shine, the potential glut of leftovers and waste at an event the scale of GoogaMooga is staggering and requires an effective plan to avoid the kinds of chaotic losses Heritage Radio noted were happening throughout the venue after the cancellation was announced yesterday. Other large-format events, like the annual Specialty Foods Show held for the trade at the Javits Center, have a well-developed and robust plan for waste, which is removed from the venue with alacrity once it ends and, for the most part, is donated to food banks. • Even after improving, the festival couldn't catch a break. Last year, long lines, dwindling pork-belly supply, and one fried-chicken fistfight made for an interesting three days of craft beer, indie music, and small-batch food in the park. But it also pissed a lot of people off. "We'll improve," said co-founder Rick Farman. "First year, always a lot to learn." Accordingly, many changes were announced, and on Friday and Saturday this year, lines were down considerably and there was more than enough food to go around. But now it seems organizers are ready to throw in the towel. Though the festival is already rumored to be expanding to Chicago in August, its future in Brooklyn seems less certain. "I think we all worked so hard so that this could be an annual event," Mayers told the Braiser yesterday, "but right now we’ll take things as they come and we’re focused on finalizing this year and that’s it." • It may be outdoors, but it's not taking us anywhere new. Even if the festival's format allows chefs and restaurateurs to tinker with the kinds of things they regularly serve, GoogaMooga's vendor lineup still consists mostly of local restaurants. As Bloomberg critic Ryan Sutton writes: "Maybe we don’t really need GoogaMooga’s particular brand of an NYC food festival because maybe it’s just bringing together NYC restaurants we can already visit any day of the week, except here, they’re outside." • It's not worth it. City Room reports the Prospect Park alliance gets $75,000 from GoogaMooga's organizers, but the cost of the festival is the destruction of Prospect Park's grassy areas. Others lament the intrusion of a for-profit group into a space that belongs to the people of New York City and the alighting of hundreds of Porta Potties onto a space used by thousands for respite, meditation, and exercise. In theory, Grub Street likes the idea of something like GoogaMooga, but in practice, the festival is zero-for-two after yesterday's rainout and more than ever, it seems like organizers may have a difficult time enlistin

Dominique Ansel was on Fox & Friends yesterday talking about his smash hit dessert, The Cronut™. The chef also used the croissant-donut hybrid to bribe his way into Lafayette this weekend. [Fox, Twitter]

February 5 will be a dark day. The Grub stance on national food "holidays" is that they're ridiculous, irrelevant, and a vehicle for annoying press releases. Did you know that today is both National Quiche Lorraine Day and Pick Strawberries Day? No, you didn't. And you should not care. But it's extreme that Nutella, owned by Italian company Ferrero, sent a cease-and-desist letter to Sara Rosso, who founded World Nutella Day in 2007 to encourage fans to express their appreciation for the product. The company's legal team is requesting that she not publish anything with the Nutella name, logo, or likeness. Rosso has a full-time job (she won't say, but it's probably this), and never wanted to profit off of the holiday she created. This isn't the first time Nutella's sent a cease-and-desist letter: In October, the company's legal team stopped Burrito chain Bolocco from using the product in milkshakes. Way harsh, Nutella. [Earlier, Earlier, HuffPo] Read more posts by Sierra TishgartFiled Under: ouch, nutella

Do not miss the final SNL appearance of tweaked out New York City club kid Stefon. It involves a wedding attended by many of his nightlife friends, like Alf in a trenchcoat, Gizblow (the coked-up Gremlin), Furkle (fat Urkle), DJ Baby Bok Choy (who "spins records with his little ravioli hands"), and Menorah the Explorer. [Eater National]

Now that the restaurant has been open for exactly one month, Adam Platt files on Andrew Carmellini's blockbuster French brasserie Lafayette. Plattypants writes that the restaurant is "almost perfectly timed to catch the wave of French-food nostalgia that has been building, these last several months." He likes the dining room, the cocktails, and many of the starters: The small-plate toast dishes popularized by Jean-Georges at ABC Kitchen are called tartines here, and you can get them piled with spoonfuls of opulent duck-liver mousse ($8) or Selles-sur-Cher goat cheese, decked with tomatoes and slivers of fresh radish. My classic beef tartare ($18) was a much better deal than the mealy Hawaiian prawns ($19 with sauce verte), but if you're in the mood for serious feed, begin your dinner with the lardon-rich salad frisée, which is served on a plate the size of a small hubcap.Platt is disappointed by some of the entrees, but he loves the pastas and the risotto dish. Overall, the critic gives Lafayette one star for the space and another for the "solid brasserie menu." · Adam Platt on Lafayette [GS/NYM] · All Coverage of Lafayette [~ENY~] [Krieger]