Headliner
Bar Blondeau
Occasionally, the pandemic has had salutary results, and this new bar on the sixth floor of the Wythe Hotel in Williamsburg is one example. When they opened Le Crocodile, the French brasserie on the hotel’s ground floor, the partners, Jon Neidich and the chefs Aidan O’Neal and Jake Leiber, had their eye on a sixth-floor space for a wine bar. So in May 2019, they opened it as Lemon’s, with a breezy Coastal Italian approach. “It was meant to be temporary, a pop-up,” Mr. Neidich said. “It did not have a full kitchen, and we planned to renovate it.” Closing for Covid gave the partners more than a year to install the kitchen and redo the space, which offered views of the Empire State Building. The partners were inspired by Parisian neo-bistros and wine bars. “Their quality is at a high level, but they’re more informal than restaurants,” Mr. Neidich said. The menu features small plates, many of them with seafood like lobster salad, oysters and salmon rillettes. A few more substantial items include halibut and chips, and paella rice with duck and snails. Among the desserts is chocolate babka with salted caramel ice cream. The wine list, assembled by the beverage director Rafa García Febles, is global and lengthy, with many choices by the glass and several nonalcoholic drinks, for which Mr. Neidich said he sees increasing demand. Warm oak walls, banquettes, green velvet and golden lighting define the space, which seats 70 in several areas, including an outdoor terrace.
Sixth Floor, Wythe Hotel, 80 Wythe Avenue (North 11th Street), Williamsburg, Brooklyn, 718-460-8006, barblondeau.com.
Opening
One White Street
Dustin Wilson, a former wine director at Eleven Madison Park, met his partner in this TriBeCa townhouse restaurant, Austin Johnson, while dining at Gregory Marchand’s Frenchie in Paris, where Mr. Johnson was executive chef. Mr. Wilson was impressed, and Mr. Johnson signed on to be the chef and his partner at One White Street. The townhouse, now on a stretch of West Broadway that’s dense with restaurants, has been fitted with an à la carte wine bar accommodating 23 inside, with 25 seats outside. The next two floors, accented with blue upholstery, will offer six-course tasting menus, $148, delivered from open kitchens and largely based on what’s harvested at the restaurant’s Hudson Valley farm, Rigor Hill. Some dishes on the opening menu include roasted tomato focaccia, summer vegetables with sorrel hummus and ricotta, grilled monkfish in a bonito leek broth, and glazed gnocchi with corn, chanterelles and Mimolette. A dessert listed as coffee, yuzu and banana, recalls the banoffee of the Frenchie in London. Audrey Frick from Bobby Stuckey’s Tavernetta in Denver is in charge of the wines. (Opens Thursday)
One White Street (West Broadway), onewhitestreetnyc.com.
Hart’s
The pandemic turned this restaurant’s dining room into a retail space, selling groceries, takeout and wine. Now it is back to serving dinner with a new chef, Gillian Graham, who was the sous-chef at Cervo’s, Hart’s sibling. Her menu includes some of the restaurant’s favorites, like clam toast, lamb burger and olive oil cake.
506 Franklin Avenue (Fulton Street), Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, 718-636-6228, hartsbrooklyn.com.
Philomena’s
The brothers Kyle and Sean O’Brien of Den Hospitality are opening this cocktail lounge with drinks created by Kyle Dailey, who specializes in carved and infused ice cubes. Mediterranean plates will be provided by the nearby restaurant Pomp & Circumstance. (Wednesday)
790 Grand Street (Humboldt Street), Williamsburg, Brooklyn, philomenasbar.com.
