Melissa McCart (3:08)

Thanks so much for having me back.

Producer/Host (3:10)

Listeners. Let's get you in on this conversation. What do you think was the big New York City food story this year? Maybe you have some thoughts about some of the subjects on the eaters list. On Eaters list, tell us where can you get an awesome croissant in this town? Have you been to any of the new food halls in New York City? Give us a review. 2124-3396-9221-2433. WNYC. That's our phone number. You can join us on air or you can text to us at that number. Or maybe you applied for a job in the food industry. How did that go? Did you leave a job in the food industry? Tell us why. 2124-3396-9221-2433. WNYC. Join us to discuss the biggest New York City food stories of 2020 23. So Melissa, you know, a lot of places do their best of restaurants, best of new places. What made you all at Eater decide to take this approach to your year end coverage? Melissa, did we lose? Melissa okay, well, you know what? I will tell you what my biggest food story of 2023 is as my team found out this morning and it may be why I talked very quickly today. Donut publishing reopen on 14th Street. The classic Donut pub reopened. So I went this morning. I got a dozen plus donuts. I brought them into the team. I am personally a little hopped up on sugar, but I'm very glad that Donut Pub is back in action in New York City. We're talking about the biggest food stories of 2023. Melissa McCarr is the new York editor for Eater. So Melissa, what made you all take this approach to go this way in.

Alison Stewart (4:48)

Doing year end coverage?

Producer/Host (4:49)

Because a lot of places do best of restaurants or best of new places. What made you take this approach?

Melissa McCart (4:57)

You know, I think that it's really important to look at what readers want to see. And what I thought was really interesting is that it spans across news stories like two of Danny Meyer's restaurants closed in a hotel because the hotel was was transitioned into migrant housing to, you know, really over the top decadence stories like the opening of Bad Roman, which is like an absolutely wild Italian restaurant.

Alison Stewart (5:28)

We'll get into that in a minute. So it really was what readers responded to?

Melissa McCart (5:32)

Yeah, definitely.

Alison Stewart (5:34)

Were there. Was there a story in the list or something that came up high? Maybe it wasn't even one of the. You published that you were surprised that readers responded to?

Melissa McCart (5:45)

I think so. I think that we had a story that was in the top five about a Brooklyn cafe goes viral for rude response to job applicant. You know, I really empathize with restaurants because things are tougher than ever in terms of expenses and just competition and trying to make a go of it. And in addition to the fact that, you know, people are trying to stretch their income and make rent and make all their bills and, you know, basically a. Yeah, tell us that story.

Alison Stewart (6:22)

Tell us the story.

Melissa McCart (6:23)

So the story is a guy asked what the salary would be at a little cafe in Clinton Hill called pex. And it's. It's a New York City law that you have to post the salary range. And when the applicant asked Kyle Dollinger, the cafe's manager, what the salary would be, he answered sarcastically. And unfortunately for Dollinger, it was posted on social media and it went viral. This is really understandable because, you know, there's more of a union unionizing push in restaurant world right now. There's, you know, restaurants have been notoriously paying low. That's not to say that PECS does, but, you know, as a worker, we need to be proactive in terms of are we getting paid for our work? And so this caused a lot of debate online, and it ended up being our second most ready piece of the year. Yeah.

Alison Stewart (7:29)

Part of the letter said, I cannot rightly tell you a salary when you do not provide me with your experience, which at the very least, would come by way of resume. Slight sarcasm. Which you did not include, which was also requested on the same advertisement. Not sarcasm. So how about this? The salary ranges between $0 an hour to $1 billion an hour tip. Slight sarcasm. Now, either send me your resume or don't. Not sarcasm.

Melissa McCart (7:53)

Wow. It's painful to hear. So bad.

Alison Stewart (7:57)

It's hard. It's hard to know whose side to be on in that one. That's so interesting that people responded. So, you know, it is interesting, and I think it's. It says a lot that people, A, want to support the transparency and B, want to call someone out when they're being a little bit snarky.

Melissa McCart (8:13)

Yeah, I. I talked to. I talked to the cafe afterwards, and they were like, we've never done anything like this. I can't believe the lapse of judgment in this Case, we're so sorry. We have to figure out how to make it go away. To which I said mistake correction is a great start.

Producer/Host (8:32)

Yes.

Alison Stewart (8:32)

Let's talk to Anna from Manhattan calling in. Hi, Anna, thanks for calling in. What do you think is the food story of the year in your world?

Caller (8:42)

In my world, it's a little restaurant in Greenpoint called Fin Duma F I n D U M O N D e started by these two young people right before the pandemic and they made it through and they do everything themselves and the food is extraordinary. And they're, you know, out at the edge of on drinks, 38 drinks. And they're, you know, the heart and soul of New York. Right. Young people on a shoestring trying to do a business and be part of the community.

Melissa McCart (9:16)

Thank you so much for shouting it out. I haven't been and I've heard a lot of great things about it.

Alison Stewart (9:20)

I love the way Anna presented that. So great. Anna. Thank you for calling in, listeners. We want to know, what do you think is the big food story this year? Maybe in your life, maybe you have a thought on one of the subjects on eaters lists. You can tell us where to get an awesome croissant in this town. Or maybe you've been to the new food halls. We'd love to Hear a review. 2124-3396-9221-2433. WNYC. You can join us online on air by calling in or you can text to us. Also, social media is available at all of it wnyc. Okay, the croissant has hit a nerve. We're getting a lot of texts about the place to get a best croissant. So this first text is best croissant in New York City is Nick and Sons Bakery in Williamsburg. Two exclamation points. My boyfriend is the head baker there. Everyone try it. All right. Like that support of your significant other.

Melissa McCart (10:10)

It's really terrific. Nick and Sons is great.

Alison Stewart (10:13)

We've also got. I do not speak French, so I'm going to give it my best shot. Oh, me de Fred. Smells like you are in a Parisian patisserie. It's amazing. That was another text we got in. Thanks so much. So that story was really, really big. It was written by our friend Robert Citsima. Can you tell us a bit about the pitch meeting about how that story came up?

Melissa McCart (10:37)

Sure. Actually, before we had the meeting, I was out to dinner at Superiority Burger, which is also on our most read list with a friend who happens to be a fashion Editor at the Wall Street Journal. He's from Australia. And he said, where the hell do I get a good croissant around here? So I couldn't believe, actually, we had never done a map because the maps are sort of the eater lifeline in terms of, like, what we're known for since we started in 2008. I talked to Robert about it, and he was over the moon, excited about trying croissants and his, you know, sort of his ways to go about something by trying everything. Not just the most hyped, not just the stunt croissants, but literally everything from the cart to the fanciest croissants. And that's what he did.

Producer/Host (11:30)

Okay, first of all, I love that phrase stunt croissant. Is that. Or that the. Is that the idea that people just keep putting things on the croissant? What are some stunt croissants?

Melissa McCart (11:41)

I. I think of a stunt croissant as perhaps something that you can get at Lafayette. Something that might have, like, a lot of colors inside, or it might be like the cronade is sort of a stunt croissant. But for the purposes of this map, he went minimalist and said croissants without anything in them, without any colors, without chocolate. I mean, it just needs to be a plain croissant the way they were intended.

Producer/Host (12:11)

All right, so a runner up was Paris baguette, which our producer contends is really, really consistently good, as well as your local breakfast cart. What qualities put these two places, which are everywhere, that's, you know, it's not like a particularly small, special place. Your local cart, well, I mean, that is special, But a cart and a chain, basically.

Melissa McCart (12:33)

You know, I talked to Robert right before this interview, and I said, what was your. Like, how did the carts get in there? And he said it has to do with how much he enjoyed them. A lot of it is his opinion. And so he wasn't looking at it as like, what is the criteria for the best croissant from, you know, the croissant makers guild? It was. Did he enjoy this croissant? Is. Is. Is it accessible? Is it fair priced? And this, the carte croissant to him was all of those things.

Alison Stewart (13:04)

The winner was in Chelsea market.

Melissa McCart (13:06)

Alf.

Alison Stewart (13:07)

Why did Alf and Chelsea market win?

Melissa McCart (13:12)

Well, about Robert, is there. There's a trend right now in breads, but also croissants to sort of what he calls burn. What I would say is sort of caramelized. And he doesn't like a croissant that's too, too caramelized. And he feels like this is the Goldilocks effect. It's like not too light and not too dark and the shards aren't like hard and you don't get a mess on your lap when you eat it. It's like the best of all things, the best flavor, like perfect flakiness, perfect browning. And he just loved it.

Producer/Host (13:46)

We are talking about the big food stories of 2023 with Melissa McCart, New York editor at Eater. Got a text agreed on Donut Pub. I lived on 15th and 7th for 25 years and was so, so bummed when it closed. Reopening is cause for celebration. Horn emoji, champagne emoji. I concur. Another text says our favorite BK restaurants came to Manhattan and we no longer have to go through hour long subway rides to get to Brooklyn for Janai Ayat and Al Badawi. I hope I'm saying that correctly. Let's talk to Ruth from Scarsdale. Hi, Ruth, you are on the air.

Caller (14:21)

Hi, I'm so delighted to be here. I have a store in.

Producer/Host (14:29)

Oh, wait a second. You know what, Ruth, you're Ruth, I'm going to stop you for a second because your connection is not great. So I'm going to have our engineer bring you down and maybe get you in a position where we can hear you. And I'll take line two while we're, we're doing that. Hi, Mel, Mel's calling in from Brooklyn.

Caller (14:43)

Hi, I'm calling in to talk about both a new restaurant that I really love and a literary food program that happens every month. The restaurant's called Little Egg. It's in Prospect Heights. And the head chef, Evan Hanskor, is really amazing, does phenomenal food, as does the pastry chef, Tanya Bush, who has amazing cooler that they have that changes seasonally. But the program that they do once a month called Tables of Contents, brings together usually three or four emerging writers or writers who just publish books. And they all give a little bit of a reading, usually five to 10 minutes, and then there's an accompanying small plate. And it's just such a fun experience, such a great way to learn about new writers and new books that are coming out. And also like, you know, see kind of this collaboration between the publishing world and the food world. And that's just something I look forward to every month. So definitely want to plug that.

Melissa McCart (15:31)

Mel, thanks for the great.

Producer/Host (15:32)

Yeah, thanks for checking in. Let's see, I think Ruth from Scarsdale, I think we've got a good line now. Hi, Ruth.

Caller (15:39)

Hi. Thank you so much for taking My call, I have a 14 year old business in Bronxville which is very walkable. And we just opened our second store, Dobbs and Bishop Fine Cheese in Scarsdale, also very walkable. And I was telling your screener that we love food. We have Balthazar croissants. I know croissants is a big topic today. We also have lots of cheese from the Hudson Valley, from Vermont, from Connecticut. And what I really just wanted point out is that the walkability of a suburban street like in Bronxville or in Scarsdale is what makes people really enjoy that shopping experience. So when you're going to the bookstore next door to us in Scarsdale or you're going to, you know, get your hair done in Bronxville, it's that almost city like, you know, excitement and the third place, you know, where you can run into somebody you weren't expecting to. And we bring fine foods to people, but we also sell like Mac and cheese to the school kids and grilled cheeses. And you know, having that small store experience I think is so important for our, you know, for the health of our suburbs that we, you know, we look up to New York City for their, for their walkability. And we live there for many years. But I just wanted to shout out the sort of downtowns that we do have that have that special walkability.

Alison Stewart (17:00)

Ruth, thank you for calling in. Let's talk to Jordan calling in from Ridgewood, Queens. Hi, Jordan, thanks for calling in. You're on the air.

Caller (17:09)

Hi, Alison. I'm so glad to be on and telling everybody about Louisa Cochina on Menahan street and Cypress Avenue in the kind of Ridgewood Bushwick zone. And what I was telling your screener is that there's been so much hype about Ridgewood in the last couple of years, including eat your way around Ridgewood in Conde Nast Traveler. And you know, there's a few restaurants in the area that I won't even mention that, you know, are high traffic.

Alison Stewart (17:38)

I know what you're talking about.

Caller (17:40)

I'm on those block, you know, I'm on that block and I see it all the time. And. But this is really about Louisa. It's a family owned spot. It is consistently, I will say the best Mexican food I've had in New York. I'm a New York native. My lady is from. We spent a lot of time on the west coast and has always complained how she can't find Mexican food that hits those same places. Louisa Cochina does it every time. We've been there dozens of times. It is consistently Fantastic. Every item on the menu, I'm not exaggerating. It's fresh. The kitchen is tiny. So big up to Fernando, who's front of house, Fabi, who's in the kitchen and their mom, Louisa. It's a three person operation. And you know, I'm afraid that we might be making it so we can't get in at this point. But I hope that would be the case because they really deserve the business and the accolades for being just such an exceptionally tasty and friendly experience.

Alison Stewart (18:35)

Jordan, thanks for giving out a local family business a shout out. Appreciated listeners. If you want to tell us what you think is the big New York City food story this year, maybe for you personally. 212-433-969-2212, WNYC. You can join us on air. Melissa McCart's my guest, New York editor of Eater. They put together their list of the stories that readers engage with the most. Okay. Let's talk about this Danny Meyer story you mentioned earlier. You know, it's the food industry is such a huge part of our economy. You have someone like Danny Meyer, very famous restaurateur, very successful Gramercy Tavern, Daily Provisions, the Modern. But two of his places folded this year. What happened and why is this story important?

Melissa McCart (19:19)

I think this story is important because it speaks to the real crisis that we're seeing in terms migrants needing housing in New York City and the volume of migrants that are coming into the city. But basically the short story version is Marta and Maile know were in the Redbury Hotel and with very little notice, the Redbury transitioned from a hotel for paying guests to housing for newly arrived migrants. And Danny Meyer and Union Square Hospitality had to decide, you know, whether to keep the restaurant open. And they decided to close both of them. There's definitely talk that they'll reopen, but really it was just this incredibly dramatic closing and decision. And I think that, you know, a lot of people who were reading it and certainly a lot of people in the ITER offices were absolutely shocked and also really saddened that that's where we are in terms of migrants in the city. And, you know, the housing crisis.

Producer/Host (20:28)

Yeah, it's an intersection of so many different difficult issues we have in the city in that one story. It's, it's, yeah, I'm glad you were.

Melissa McCart (20:36)

Able to bring that up.

Producer/Host (20:38)

Another one that's sort of interesting is who's I'm going to just say problematic.

Alison Stewart (20:44)

In my opinion is Dave Portnoy, the.

Producer/Host (20:46)

Founder of Barstool Sports. He's become a player in the pizza game. Tell our audience why someone might find Dave Portnoy, someone like me, problematic and how he became a player in the food biz.

Melissa McCart (21:02)

I think Dave Portnoy is a really incendiary figure anyway, but he also has this huge legion of fans for his YouTube One Bite reviews. And, you know, for four years, he's been going in and allegedly taking one bite, but it's often more than one bite, and he gives it a numbers rating. On one hand, he's given a lot of press and lines at the door to mom and pop pizzerias, and a lot of them are really grateful to it. But he is very. He's sort of a lightning rod because of. Because of, like, racism and the way he treats women. And just a lot of people are very upset that he has the platform that he does based on the fact that he's had many, many examples of, like, horrendous behavior and, you know, borderline, you know, extremely problematic behavior. And so a New Jersey newspaper called out the pizzerias that are participating in this festival. That was the first festival that sort of collected the pizzerias that he gave high ratings to, saying, why would you. Why would you support this person who has displayed abusive behavior towards women and people of color? Like, what, you know, do you believe in what he said? And why would you stand behind him? And so it was, like, sort of straight out of a Trump playbook in terms of how it split people's responses. And we reported on it, and, you know, after we did, so did the Washington Post and elsewhere. And, you know, Dave Portnoy, of course, trolled the reporters who wrote the stories, as has been the case with other figures of his type in the past. So really, it just was an explosion over a pizza festival.

Alison Stewart (23:00)

Let's talk to Jerry from Forest Hills. Hi, Jerry. Thanks for calling all of it.

Caller (23:05)

Hi, how are you, Allison? How you doing? Just want to say me and my wife listen to your show all the time. I think you're great.

Alison Stewart (23:12)

Thanks, thanks, thanks.

Caller (23:15)

So I think the best croissant in New York City is definitely Canal. They have a place in Long Island City as well as they have in Jackson Heights.

Caller (23:26)

The chef.

Caller (23:26)

They used to be a chef at the Waldorf Astoria. And, I mean, his croissants are one of the best in the city.

Melissa McCart (23:34)

Jerry, what do you like about them?

Alison Stewart (23:35)

Yeah, tell us.

Caller (23:37)

Well, I mean, they're soft. You know, they don't break apart when you eat them. The consistency is just amazing. You know what I Mean, they're just soft on the outside, not too flaky, you know, not overly done. They're just amazing.

Alison Stewart (23:55)

Jerry, thank you so much for calling it and for the kind words. We have some more croissant. People have opinions about croissant, and I know why that made your list. Les Fournil in East Village for all things French baked. Let's see this one. Here we go. Not in New York City, but if you find yourself in northern Westchester, the croissants at First Village coffee and Ossining are exquisite. That was in all caps, by the way. Flaky, flavorful, big. They bake all their pastries in house. So good. Thank you so much. For folks who have been calling in, I want to get to a couple more things on your list before we wrap. Melissa Scarlet, the actor and fairly recent Olivet guests Michael Imperioli and his wife Victoria opened a bar in the Upper west side this year called Scarlet. He's a lovely fellow. This is not the first time, though. The Imperiolis have gotten into the food industry, into the bar industry. What was their first foray? What's unique about the new venture?

Melissa McCart (24:53)

Okay, so the new venture is on the Upper west side. I, I. From what I gather, both he and his wife love bar culture, and they also love the color red because their, their bar that they used to live above in Chelsea in the early aughts was also red. And it basically has like a. An array of cocktails and some snacks. And, you know, when, when they sent over the photos of it, he's naturally in all the photos wearing all black and sunglasses inside. So I think that there's an element of camp to it that I, I love.

Producer/Host (25:36)

But it looks gorgeous from the pictures. It looks really sumptuous. And also, like, the cocktails are, are spendy.

Melissa McCart (25:44)

They certainly are. But I do think we've gotten to an era where drinks are over 20 bucks in new York. So they're spendy there, but I think they're spendy everywhere.

Alison Stewart (25:53)

That hurts.

Producer/Host (25:53)

All right, number one on your list.

Melissa McCart (25:56)

Is.

Producer/Host (25:58)

The Turkish butcher and restaurateur known as Salt bae. Opened a burger joint a few years ago. It was, you know, really panned by critics and patrons alike. Who is Salt bae? Why is he popular? Why was this the number one story?

Melissa McCart (26:16)

Okay, basically, schadenfreude is not dead in New York. So people, I mean, the fact that there's a guy in his muscle tee with the sunglasses dramatically salting everything was amusing for a meme, but instead, it became a restaurant that you could not escape. And then when he opened a burger place, it was even more infuriating because there are so many good burgers in New York. And he was sort of encroaching on territory that felt sort of sacred. And we headlined it the Worst Restaurant in New York City because our friends at the Gothamist had called it the worst burger in New York City. And so we sort of got on that train and wrote about it. And New Yorkers celebrated with gusto the list.

Producer/Host (27:11)

You can find it at Eater New York. Discussions of labor, food, deliciousness, croissant, which apparently really big with our audience, we found out, and with yours as well. Melissa McCart is the new York Editor of Eater. Thank you so much for walking us through your list.

Melissa McCart (27:29)

Thank you so much having me on the show.

Alison Stewart (27:35)

She's breaking out, but I think she's saying thanks for having me on the show. Happy Holiday NYC now delivers the most up to date local news from WNYC and Gothamist every morning, midday and evening with three updates a day. Listeners get breaking news, top headlines and in depth coverage from across New York City by sponsoring programming like NYC Now. You'll reach our community of dedicated listeners with premium messaging and an uncluttered audio experience. Visit sponsorship wnyc.org to get in touch and find out more.