The recent launch of La Mar Cebicheria, South American celebrity chef Gaston Acurio’s temple to Peruvian ceviches, has much of the New York culinary scene interested in checking out the renovated colossus that formerly housed Tabla in Madison Square Park.  And although I look forward to visiting Acurio’s latest establishment in a string of 8 successful restaurants, [...]

Bruschetta is a dinner party staple with its ease of prep and ability to make ahead of time. And what’s just as exciting, you can play with a wide range of ingredients as long as you balance flavors and not over-serve with too much bread & filling. As you can see, I went a little [...]

I have to give a lot of credit to the folks at Motorino over in the east village to open up their shop and draw such popularity so quickly, aside from their sister location in Brooklyn. The quality of these smaller pies hold up quite well, with the right balance of flavor and sustenance for [...]

Sometimes you just need to go with a dependable classic.  And on Tuesday night after a long ride on the Acela home from DC, the classic I craved was a golden brown grilled cheese sandwich. It’s hard to go wrong with such a simple combination of ingredients, but there are some nice tricks  you can [...]

Many of y’all know that I’m a huge fan of Bloody Marys, so I was quite excited to check out the well-known recipe down at Phillips while visiting Baltimore after the wedding of my good friends Maya & Cam.  The celebrated seafood restaurant’s variation on the Red Snapper, is quite a good concoction with a [...]

One of my absolute favorite pasta dishes to make quickly and easily at home is Penne a la Vodka, especially when served with some Italian sausage.  One of the best parts about this recipe, at least how I approach it, is that you can ‘kitchin-sink’ it – meaning you can add pretty much any Italian-themed ingredient [...]

Though there’s a plethora of great places to grab pizza in New York, it’s great fun to bake your own from time to time while getting creative with your ingredients. Structurally, pizza is a very simple and interchangeable dish, so you can easily swap out different vegetables, cheeses and sauces to suit your tastes or [...]