At the end of February, I spent a long weekend in the city on assignment for Food Republic, covering a couple of natural wine fairs, New York’s first. You can read the preamble I wrote beforehand, and then the post-game recap. Both events were gratifying, with impressive wines across the board and some terrific people and meals thrown in for good measure.
Achilles Heel took very good care of us on Saturday night, and afforded me the opportunity to cross something off my bucket list: handing a menu back to a waiter and saying “this will be fine.” They only had nine items on there, and we ate the shit out of all of them. The “blood on bread,” a schmear of cooked and seasoned pig’s blood with slivers of raw onion, was the dish of the night. Those of you following me on Instagram already know this. Just saying. The next night we ate at Wassail; Sabine has been after me since they opened to check it out so I finally did. Good food, and excellent ciders; their list is simply outstanding. We ended up at The Ten Bells with many of the French winemakers. Severine and Nick took good care of us.
I also saw firsthand the degree to which Williamsburg and Greenpoint (my old neighborhood) have changed almost beyond recognition. Oh, to have bought a vacant lot there in about ’98 and just sat on it for fifteen years.