The Passengers just completed a lunch date near H's office. We finally motivated ourselves to stand in line, native New Yorkers stand "on line," for our chance to experience
Shake Shack in Madison Square Park. In moments of intermittent sunshine, today felt like a warm spring day, but the weather did not prevent us from sharing a concrete, a cup full of frozen custard mixed with chocolate pieces, along with our hot dog, burger, and fries. There is now a restaurant version of Shake Shack on the Upper West Side where customers can sit inside, but the Madison Square Park location represents the initial vision of a "roadside" burger joint, essential a
haute cuisine Dairy Queen. The fries use Yukon Gold potatoes. Danny Meyer's Shack makes a unique vegetarian patty based on fried mushrooms, and today's custard flavor was milk and honey. It makes for a yummy twist on childhood favorites, and puts another feather in the
Union Square Hospitality Group's cap despite the cutthroat and trendy competition of this city's restaurant business.
In fact, New York City dining features numerous other dining establishments that rely nostalgic palates. We live near the uptown location of
Kitchenette, a homespun diner that boasts pot pies, grits, and hole-in-the-bread breakfasts. Though founded by a pair of female entrepreneurs from New York City (via the French Culinary Institute) and Boston, the place feels like a tastefully appointed lunch-counter cafe from a place like Iowa. Sarita & Caesar Ekya developed perhaps the most single-minded enterprises of the genre in
S'MAC and the Peanut Butter Co, specialty joints for Macaroni & Cheese and peanut butter, respectively.
A number of factors might be contributors to the fascination with Americana comfort food in Noughties ('01 - '09) New York. A simple explanation sees the taste for simple childhood fare as a logical counter-narrative to the so-called fusion innovations behind global cuisine and molecular gastronomy. But most of these places on the New York scene cannot resist coopting the fusion impulse, thus Mediterranean mac' and cheese with kalamata olives and sauteed spinach. Another factor might be a longing for comfort food in a city redefining itself after a terrorist attack. This could explain the popularity of
red velvet cake and pigs-in-a-blanket, but these trends are more national. The culture of
juvenalia popularized these foods and encouraged dodge ball leagues for adults and
Rock Bank nights for bars.
These cultural currents probably play a part in sustaining these throwback businesses, but as explanations they overlook dining as an experience. These establishments permit young professionals in New York to participate in a vibrant restaurant culture on familiar terms. There will come a day for expense-account dinners in
dramatic locations with
diva chefs, but these homespun locales provide everyday food at everyday price points, at least "everyday" according to New-York-City standards. I long for a return to
college-town drinking prices. Nostalgia from twentysomethings might seem ridiculous, but life in the city can be tough for young careerists. A
farm-style brunch with good friends sometimes represents our best substitute for a get-away to a Connecticut farmhouse.
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