Genesis House, the Manhattan flagship for the Korean automobile company that last year opened its restaurant Genesis House Restaurant Curated by Onjium, now has a serene tea pavilion in its building where Korean teas — green, red, black, blue, white and herbal — are served and available for purchase. Now, on Saturdays and Sundays there at 1 p.m., a tea master, Ashley Lim, is conducting traditional tea ceremonies for up to six guests. Described as less formal than a Japanese or Chinese routine, it involves learning the etiquette of darye, as the Korean tea ceremony is called, and sampling three teas, with snacks. The sessions will take place every weekend.
Tea Experience at Genesis House, $80 per person, Genesis House 40A 10th Avenue (13th Street), 855-444-0836, genesishouse.com.
A Lavender Cream Mille Crêpes Cake for Spring
Stacking multiple layers of gossamer crêpes has provided the Lady M bakery with a distinctive signature, the mille crêpes cake, a template for infinite variations. For spring it has introduced a fragrant, alluring lavender version. The crêpes are layered with lavender cream with a midsection pause for a jammy blackberry filling; the outside is spread with pale lavender-blackberry cream. The nine-inch cake is available for shipping nationwide.
Lavender Mille Crêpes, $108, ladym.com.
A New Chef for Mast Market
Rick Mast, who runs a chocolate company, founded in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, with his brother, Michael, recently opened a market on the Upper West Side in November 2021 with a coffee bar and a finely tuned inventory of food products, ingredients and tableware from small producers. It now has an in-house chef, Franz Fruhmann, whose experience includes Blue Hill at Stone Barns, and who is preparing salads, like a toss of heirloom potatoes and arugula; sandwiches; and soups to go, all $12 and under and made mostly with the farmers’ market produce sold in the store. There are baked goods like muffins and cookies at the coffee bar. This market is a branch of the Mast Market that opened in Mount Kisco, N.Y., in 2021, after the brothers closed their Brooklyn chocolate operation which succumbed, in part, because of a controversy over their chocolate making, and relocated to Westchester. Both markets, and many stores, sell their bars.
Mast Market, 353 Columbus Avenue (77th Street), 212-874-6278, mastmarket.com.
John Donohue Sketches the London Restaurant Scene
Pen and pad in hand, the artist and writer John Donohue has dined and sketched his way through the New York and Paris restaurant scenes. Now it’s London’s turn. “A Taste of London” covers 101 restaurants, a diverse lot reflecting the city’s mosaic of cultures, grouped by neighborhood. Each light-handed drawing is accompanied by brief commentary from the artist and others. Included are standard-bearers like the Ivy, River Café, St. John and J. Sheekey; Gymkhana and the venerable Veeraswamy for Indian food; the Marksman and other pubs; Chiltern Firehouse, for celebrity-watching; and the Connaught and the Savoy for hotel dining. You might discover the fish and chips cooked in suet at the Fryer’s Delight.
“A Taste of London: The Restaurants and Pubs Behind a Global Culinary Capital” by John Donohue, alltherestaurants.com, (Abrams Image, $27.50).
A Dashi Reduction From Noma Projects
The latest concoction from the alchemists working at Noma Projects is a syrupy dashi reduction made of kombu, katsuobushi, sake and mushrooms, and meant to deliver a touch of umami when drizzled on vegetables, seafood, eggs and rice. It’s dark, somewhat brackish and not sweet. Less than a teaspoon on a filet of seared sockeye salmon nicely rounded the flavor of the fish. Use it sparingly; at $37 for 100 milliliters (3.5 ounces), you would.
Dashi RDX, $37, nomaprojects.com.
New Drinks From a Cocktail Revivalist
In 2012, Dale DeGroff, the bartender who was a key figure of the cocktail revival in late 1980s New York, introduced his own brand of bitters. Now, the DeGroff line of spirits is set to grow by two. Collaborating with the distiller Ted Breaux and the Clear Creek Distillery in Oregon, Mr. DeGroff has introduced a namesake aperitivo and amaro, both packaged with handsome, retro-style, green-and-red-striped labels. The products have been in the works for five years. The bittersweet aperitivo is well suited to a Negroni or spritz, while the more unusual “new world” amaro brings some surprising Caribbean spices to the typical amaro formula and is a nice accent to a manhattan. The aperitivo has an alcohol-by-volume of 25 percent while the amaro comes in at 35 percent. ROBERT SIMONSON
DeGroff Bitter Aperitivo, 700ml, $30 at bottlerocket.com, $32 at sommcellarswine.com; DeGroff New World Amaro, 700ml, $40 at bottlerocket.com, $43 at sommcellarswine.com.
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