Marcus Samuelsson is Making Me Want to Go Back to His Restaurants Again and Again and Again

 

Save for my neighborhood pizza place or my Sunday night Chinese food ritual, I never want to go to a restaurant more than once. Ever. I don’t care how good it is. There are just too many of them. I recently caught myself wishing that no new restaurants would open for a good 6-8 months because I need to get myself up to speed.

But Marcus Samuelsson is doing something different, and he makes me want to go back to his restaurants all the time. He’s constantly innovating and reinventing his menu to the point that it feels like a completely different place.

And it’s not just a Valentine’s Day tasting menu, or wings for the Super Bowl. Streetbird Rotisserie and Red Rooster Harlem often serve as the location for what feels like pop up restaurants, and I always want to go back for more. This month, for example, Red Rooster Harlem is doing a special menu for Black History Month, inspired by “goddesses.” It’s five courses and $62 (a steal in Manhattan), and it’s this month only.

An even larger departure from what he normally cooks is for the Chinese New Year. At Streetbird Rotisserie, Samuelsson is doing a special menu which features Chicken Dan Dan Noodles:

I simply must have those Dan Dan Noodles. It’s just such a different concept from one of my favorite chefs and I have to try it out.

And despite all of my rules about never going anywhere twice, I’m sure I’ll also “need” to have whatever he does next.

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