By this point, we’re sure you’ve picked up on the fact that we at The Braiser are not about the food. We’re not about the restaurants. We’re especially not about the reviews. We’re about the chefs. All that celebrity dishy-ness behind the food and the restaurant and the Michelin stars fascinates us. Sure, we looove food, and brag about the fancy places at which we are sometimes are allowed to eat, and will judge you if you “give your stars back,” Marco Pierre White. But, ultimately, we want to know what the people serving up the food are all about. Thus: Dining Diaries was born.
Dining Diaries will ask one chef each week about his or her personal favorite dining spots. Not recommendations, or hawking their co-star’s newly opened whatever as a PR favor. But where a celeb chef goes to eat or drink or brunch or late-night snack or hangover binge on his own time.
This week, we asked Pichet Ong, award-winning pastry chef, Top Chef: Just Desserts judge, and head of the bake shop at the newly-opened Sugar and Plumm, about his favorite restaurants. Though his specialty is sweets — Pastry Arts & Design named him one of the best pastry chefs in America — Ong’s taste for the savory is darn classy, and he fills his Dining Diaries with some of New York City’s best. But would you expect otherwise from a pâtissier who got his start working for Jean-Georges Vongerichten?
To get an after work nightcap: Death & Company.
For a late night meal: Coppelia.
For your early morning coffee: Blue Bottle at Milk Studio.
For a weeknight dinner in the neighborhood: Annisa.
For dinner with visiting friends and family: Lincoln.
To get your favorite sandwich: Mile End Deli.
For a lazy Sunday brunch: Cookshop.
For your weekly grocery shop: Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods.
To order Tuesday night takeout: Legend Chinese.
To while away a sunny Saturday afternoon: Smorgasburg & Williamsburg.
To celebrate your birthday: Del Posto.
PREVIOUSLY: Luis Bollo, David Burke, Michael Chiarello, Chris Hastings, Nicholas Elmi, Jenn Louis, Sunny Oh, Waylynn Lucas, Paul Qui, Harrison Keevil,James Boyce, Jeff Michaud, Manuel Trevino
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