New York Restaurants

Providence is the winner. The Los Angeles Times is publishing a book about Jonathan Gold's favorite restaurants, and today, the paper has released the Pulitzer Prize-winning food critic's picks. This is his first annual list for the Times, but he did similar compilations when he wrote for L.A. Weekly. Michael Cimarusti's Providence scored his coveted top spot, followed by Rodeo Drive sushi restaurant Urasawa. But it's not all fine dining: Kogi BBQ Taco Truck came in at No. 5. Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo of Animal (No. 7) and Nancy Silverton of Mozza (No. 4) are the only ones on the list to have received James Beard nominations this year. Check out Gold's top 20 restaurants and an interactive map of all 100, straight ahead. 1. Providence 2. Urasawa 3. Spago 4. Mozza, etc. 5. Kogi 6. Lucques 7. Animal 8. Cut 9. Jitlada 10. Shunji 11. Rivera 12. Spice Table 13. Ink 14. Baco Mercat 15. Tasting Kitchen 16. Sea Harbour 17. Night + Market 18. Bestia 19. Hinoki and the Bird 20. Melisse Jonathan Gold's best Los Angeles restaurants [LAT] Read more posts by Sierra TishgartFiled Under: lists, jonathan gold, los angeles, where to eat

A collection of links from the reporters and editors of the Dining section.

These pretty bottles make for great gifts, too. Welcome to the Great Age of Bitters. For a while, the world has had Angostura, Peychaud's, and even newer brands like Regan's Orange Bitters. But in the past couple of years, start-up companies have begun to use local and sometimes even organic ingredients to handcraft and produce the potent cocktail flavorings. Some bitters 101: They're made by infusing high-proof spirits with concentrated herbs, fruits, vegetables, roots, and spices — and new businesses are experimenting with exotic flavors like Jamaican jerk, coffee, and even black-and-white (as in the cookie). The stories behind these start-up companies are interesting: There's a Violet Hour alum making cherry-bark-vanilla bitters, a husband-and-wife team experimenting with Mexican mole, and a Hawaiian duo using local chocolate. Check out all of our favorite small-batch bitters, straight ahead. Hawaii Bitters One of the co-founders, Mike Prasad, is the digital strategist behind Kogi BBQ's food truck, and the other, Kyle Reutner, an award-winning craft bartender in Hawaii. They handcraft each bottle in Honolulu using locally sourced ingredients like Manoa Chocolate. Bittermens Avery and Janet Glasser, a couple living in San Francisco, made an extract of the traditional Mexican mole cooking sauce back in 2007, and it became their recipe for Xocolatl Mole Bitters. Now they produce all their products in New Orleans using organic ingredients, offering exotic flavors like Burlesque Bitters (hibiscus, açai berry, and long pepper), the super-spicy Hellfire Habanero Shrub, and even Peppercake-Gingerbread. Brooklyn Hemispherical Bitters If one of the roots, vegetables, fruits, or herbs goes out of season, the company no longer produces the flavor. Currently, it's offering Mission Fig, Meyer Lemon, Rhubarb, and Sriracha — just in case you forgot that this is a Brooklyn-based venture. Urban Moonshine A small family business in Burlington, Vermont, produces these bitters, which are rooted in the founder's study of herbal medicine. The company emphasizes the many health benefits of its Maple, Citrus, and Original bitters. Bitters, Old Men "Get Bit Slapped" is the best slogan ever, and it's fitting for cool flavors like Smoke Gets in Your Bitters, made with Lapsang Souchong tea and Asian pear, and Gangsta Lee’n, a mix of bitter orange peels and house-smoked almonds that pairs nicely with bourbon. The Bitter Truth This German bitters company makes flavors that are inspired by Prohibition-era cocktail recipes, like Old Time Aromatic, Creole, and Celery. Scrappy's Bitters This company, which launched in 2008, prides itself on being the first to commercially produce small-batch, handcrafted bitters. It's a debatable claim to fame, but Scrappy's is ahead of the curve by developing experimental flavors like Coffee and Peach. A.B. Smeby Bittering Co. Favored by New York's PDT, this Brooklyn-based company has a rotating roster of seasonal, limited-run variations like Black and White (as in the cookie — and made with Mexican chocolate, Tahitian vanilla, and raw cinnamon) and Licorice-Nectarine. Bittercube Good pedigree: Founder Nicholas Kosevich is the go-to cocktail guy in Minneapolis, and his partner, Ira Koplowitz, worked for years developing bitters, tonic, and syrups for the Violet Hour in Chicago. Together, they've created a line of "slow-crafted Midwest bitters" that are developed in Milwaukee. They avoid extracts and oils, and only use "raw ingredients" to make Cherry Bark Vanilla, Jamaican #1 (spicy, with hints of ginger and black pepper), and Jamaican #2 (bright, with grapefruit and hibiscus). Cocktail Kingdom's House Brand This booze haven in New York's Chelsea neighborhood has concocted two of its own products. Wormwood is a traditional flavor: It was used after the ban on Absinthe to mimic the beverage. The other variation is Falernum, which Cocktail Kingdom develope

[Photo: Jasmin Sun / EATX] Aaron Franklin, the owner and pitmaster of Austin's absurdly popular Franklin Barbecue, will be smoking meat at Hill Country on June 6 as a part of the "TMBBQ Pop-Up Joint." $50 tickets include all-you-can eat brisket, sausage, and ribs, plus all-you-can drink Lone Star and Shiner beer. Texas Monthly's barbecue editor Daniel Vaughn will be there to answer any and all questions related to smoke, meat, brisket, ribs, wood, sausage, rub, Texas, and Aaron Franklin. Vaughn's publication recently named Franklin Barbecue "the best BBQ joint in the world." Franklin has not smoked meat in New York City since 2011, when he was in town for the Eater Awards. · TMBBQ Pop-Up Joint [~ENY~]

Makes perfect sense. Only chicken, turkey, and legume-based patties will touch the grill when Fatburger opens the first of 25 new stores in Northern India later this year, Nation's Restaurant News reports. Ditto the 25 outlets coming to Southern India in the next five years. Despite the fact that none of these Fatburgers will actually serve the chain's signature beef burger, chief executive Andy Wiederhorn is nonetheless jazzed about Fatburger International, citing the “mind blowing” potential for expansion into regions where local economies have improved and more people are apt to waste money on combo meals. And it's raining Fatburgers everywhere: The 61-year-old California-based chain is not only "bringing Hollywood to New York" this year with several new NYC stores, it's also opening in Cairo this weekend for the first time, then in Lahore next Friday. [NRN, Earlier] Read more posts by Hugh MerwinFiled Under: the chain gang, fatburger, india, restaurants fast food, where's the beef

[Tremont by Krieger] · Three Letters to Serve Arrested Development Tasting Menu [Gothamist] · Leah Cohen's Top Lower East Side Eats [SENY] · Meet Eater Young Guns Semi-Finalist Jeremy Hoffman [~EN~] · Restaurant Takeaway: Calliope's Chocolate Hazelnut Ice Cream [DJ/NYT] · Derek Jeter Uses Phony Name at Starbucks [NYP] · Harold Dieterle on What Wine to Drink With Spicy Food [FitR] · Avra Estiatorio Team Opening Anassa Taverna in Midtown East [Zagat] · Dallas Critic Wears a Pig Costume to Stay 'Anonymous' [~EN~]

We’re not breaking news here, but just in case you still weren’t aware, the LES is f*cking done. Max Fish moving out was the proverbial nail in the coffin. Motor City, St. Jerome’s, Dark Room, and Welcome To The Johnson’s will likely all follow suit very soon, which is a sad state of affairs. We used to get hammered there in our 20′s, and restaurants like Tiny Fork moving in only kicks salt into the wound. Look, we’re all for an oyster and lobster roll joint with excellent beers on tap. In fact, places like that tend to be our favorite kind of dining establishments. But, it’s also important to take your surroundings into account. Tiny Fork legitimately feels like it was air lifted straight off a fancy block in Nantucket – Vineyard Vines, popped collars, and sweaters around the neck in tow. That sounds kind of awesome now that we think about it, but it unfortunately feels brutally out of place on the Lower East Side, regardless of how gentrified the neighborhood has become. The crowd here is hysterical. Did they open a country club inside The Ludlow we didn’t get a terrible press release about? If Tiny Fork were awesome, this whiny tangent about the Lower East Side probably wouldn’t have been nessecary. After all, good food has a way of making everything OK. Unfortunately, that’s not the case here. The $25 lobster roll? Not good. Oysters? Questionable. And if you’re going to name yourself after a tiny shellfish forks, at least have the wherewithal to explain what oysters you’re serving. Don’t just plop a dozen in front of a customer without pointing out where they come from and why they’re awesome. We’re not saying you can’t have an oyster bar on the LES. It’s definitely possible to execute this type of place appropriately for downtown NYC. Just look at Upstate Beer & Oyster Bar. We love that spot because they know what they’re doing and they’re passionate about the product. Tiny Fork just misses the mark. Photo Credit: Urban Daddy Food Rundown OystersThey have a nice selection of oysters, but as we complained about above, the overall execution wasn’t great. We like to know what we’re eating when it comes to oysters, and just dropping off a dozen assorted oysters sans explanation is bush league. As is serving oysters that suck, which more than one of these did. Oyster SlidersWay. Too. Much. Bun. That is all. Lobster RollAs we declared above, this wasn’t our favorite roll. It was no where near the complete debacle of Claw, but it just wasn’t our favorite. It looks huge in the photo, but, for $25, it was actually not as big as we had hoped. The lobster salad had nice chunks of lobster in it, but for some reason it didn’t have much flavor at all. The lobster needs to steal the show and for whatever reason, it didn’t. Hand Cut FriesGreasy, soggy and pretty gross.

MIDTOWN EAST — Salvation Taco debuts its custom-brewed "Devil's Plaything" citrus IPA tonight at the rooftop bar. The beer is a collaboration between Sam Anderson and Bill Brooks, the beer managers at Salvation Taco and The Breslin, and Greenport Harbor Brewing Co., and is made with chilies, oranges, limes and dried Haitian bitter orange segments. [EaterWire] NOLITA — Tomorrow, May 23, Mike Breach, the guy who makes crazy latte art portraits will be at The Little Fox Cafe from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. Stop by and you can get your portrait done in your afternoon coffee. [EaterWire] GOVERNOR'S ISLAND — Little Eva's, the seasonal outpost of Kevin's Red Hook is re-opening for the summer on Governor's Island this weekend. They've moved their location to the end of Colonels' Row in the Historic District of the island, and will be open from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. for all of the Memorial Day long weekend. [EaterWire] FOOD TV — The James Beard Award-winning PBS series The Mind of a Chef just announced its second season, which features both Sean Brock and April Bloomfield. The 16 episodes will be split between the two chefs, with the second half dedicated to Bloomfield as she travels "from the Pacific Northwest to Birmingham, England, tracing culinary tradition, instinct and obsession – from cops to curries to clams." [EN] [Krieger]

The NYC Food Truck Association is a nominee for the 12th annual Helping Hands Award from the City. This year's nominees recognize groups that helped during Hurricane Sandy, with the mobile food vendors' group nominated for having helped coordinate fundraising and relief efforts for its members. [Serious Eats, CBS]

Sad news from Williamsburg, as a tipster is reporting that the Levee, the bar famous for its cheap drinks and old timey bar snacks has closed. Apparently owners Howard Hunt and Susan Surdacki let their liquor license expire last month and stopped operating as of this week without telling anyone why. They had run the Levee since 2005, in the same location that once housed the infamous narcotics friendly bar Kokie's in the late 90s and earlier part of the new century. Eater has called the bar looking for comment but no one answered. Maybe Williamsburg is only good for mega dance clubs now or something. · Nightlife Coverage [~ENY~]