Headliner
Torrisi Bar & Restaurant
Unlike his partners in Major Food Group, Mario Carbone and Jeff Zalaznick, Rich Torrisi is not moving to Miami, the current focus of this now-global restaurant company. “I’m happy to be doing what we started to do,” Mr. Torrisi said, referring to Torrisi Italian Specialties, his homage to Italian American fare on Mulberry Street, but not as a red sauce restaurant. It closed in 2015, after barely five years, but Mr. Torrisi’s goal was to revisit it. Now he has, on the rear ground floor of the Puck Building, just steps from the original. “This is personal, this is home,” he said. Torrisi 2.0 is now Torrisi Bar & Restaurant, grander, layered with atmosphere with a 35-seat bar area that faces a swath of open kitchen, and a 40-seat dining room with a geometric marble floor and tablecloths beyond. The menu’s take on Italian American is not cookie-cutter red sauce, the group has the Parm restaurants for that; here the food has a strong New York focus. Stuffed peppers, hand-pulled mozzarella, linguine with Manhattan clams, tortellini pomodoro, cucumbers New Yorkese, short ribs with pastrami spices and, for drama, whole turbot are some choices. The executive chef is Charlie England. The pastry chef, Stephanie Prida, will produce almond cheesecake and an array of Italian ices. “There’s still lots of room for New York City-driven food,” Mr. Torrisi said. (Opens Thursday)
275 Mulberry Street (Jersey Street), 212-254-3000, torrisinyc.com.
Opening
House Brooklyn
There are just eight seats available at this new French-Japanese restaurant within the retail complex at 50 Norman in Brooklyn. The chef and owner, Yuji Tani, plans to serve only tasting menus, $150 for seven to nine courses with two seatings, from his open kitchen in the spare but warmly wood-paneled space. He has a similar restaurant in Tokyo. Here, some of his specialties will be romanesco flan with vegetable soup, a sea bream spring roll with vin blanc sauce, burned leeks with miso mustard, foie gras pilaf and citrus Basque cheesecake with salt ice cream. (Thursday)
50 Norman Avenue (Guernsey Street), Greenpoint, Brooklyn, 929-675-7887, house-bk.com.
Bao Tea House
This new, larger offshoot of the Bao Tea House in Greenwich Village, which is mostly for takeout, has seating at a bar and an upstairs mezzanine. But the bao choices, 17 of them, are consistent with the original, including Cantonese baked bao with pork, fried chicken bao, Taiwanese steamed bao and Japanese rice bao. There is a long list of teas. Alcohol is pending. (Thursday)
122 Mulberry Street (Hester Street), 646-655-2824, baoteahouse.store.
