Immaculate Infatuation

If you read our reviews or follow us on Twitter, you know that food, music, and sports are on an equal playing field. In general, we loath most sports bars. We have no time for tasteless places that think merely having the game on is enough reason to exist. It’s not hard to put together and semi-classy place with excessive flat screens and reasonable pub grub, so why aren’t there more quality sports bars in the city with the world’s most dedicated sports fans?

New York Ranger/Vogue Magazine intern heartthrob Sean Avery must have thought he was coming to the rescue when he opened his own upscale spot in Tribeca, an area in dire need of a good sports haven. Don’t get me wrong, the place is dope. With a vintage locker room vibe, walls filled with memorabilia of local sports heroes like Joe Namath, Lawrence Taylor, and Dave DeBusschere, comfy leather booths and cocktail table video games, Warren 77 certainly could be an Infatuation hangout.

Unfortunately, Avery opened this “sports bar” with the guys famous for making Beatrice Inn the hottest coke den for gossip girls citywide. Yeah sure, rolling into your local sports bar and finding blondes in heels lining the bar is cool … for about 60 seconds. Until they start yapping way too loud and asking you to explain the game of baseball to them.

If you’re into blow, don’t care about watching a game, like shitty bar food, and are looking to get laid, jack our ranking up three whole points – this place is for you. If not, avoid this place like the plague. For a sports bar, screens are limited, the layout does not accommodate big crowds (exactly what Warren 77 attracts on game night), and the back area is worse than the 4 train to Yankee Stadium at 6:30 on game day. So much for the whole “the space is dope” thing.

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Just as we were swearing ourselves off the Meatpacking District for good, Bill’s Bar & Burger opens its doors and drags us right back in. Bill’s took over the space that used to be the Hog Pit, and even though we had a handful of good nights there somewhere around 2003, it was time for something new. Luckily, what took over the space is not another nightclub with a chef or restaurant with a DJ, but rather an excellent burger joint reminiscent of the great middle-of-nowhere dives around the country.

Bill’s burgers are griddle-top masterpieces with a low profile and a soft sesame seed bun, and they‘re definitely one of the best burgers in town. Variations on the standard include a burger with Anaheim chiles and an excellent homage to the In-N-Out classic. The prices are middle-of-nowhere cheap, and the service is laid back and friendly. We were especially pleased to find two well placed flat screens in the bar – perfect for discreetly watching a game while you house a burger or two.

At the end of the day, it’s probably a good thing for our health that Bill’s didn’t open in a neighborhood that we visit more frequently. Plus, that central Meatpacking location will make them a mint feeding all the drunks before they hop back in the limo and text their friends from a phone they dropped in the toilet. We’ll save our visits for afternoons.

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L’Artusi can officially go on our list of favorite restaurants in this town. A few things stand out as qualifications for such an honor – outstanding and consistent food, great service, good music, and some ancillary entertainment since we can’t sit still. Let’s address each individually. L’Artusi is the sister restaurant to Dell’anima, and it’s the larger, louder sister for sure. The cuisine is Italian, and it’s the kind of Italian cooking that’s not afraid to go heavy on big flavors like garlic, lemon, olives, chiles, and fat to win your favor. Not that it’s unrefined – these are some of the most well thought out and beautiful plates we’ve had the pleasure of eating at an indecent pace. The service is fantastic, from the hosts to the bartenders to the guy getting crazy at the cheese counter. Music get’s an A+ with Santogold and Kid Cudi in the mix on current and upbeat playlists. As for entertainment, that comes in the form of excellent people watching. There is always a good mix of dates in various stages of progression, generally hot people, and a celebrity here and there to pretend you don’t notice. Not to mention one night when some dude spent three minutes violently pounding on the bathroom door that he couldn’t push his way out of, despite the massive “pull please” directly in front of his face. Yes, L’Artusi gets a ridiculously high rating, but we stand by it. It hits all the Immaculate Infatuation erogenous zones, and the roasted mushroom dish alone is worth a boatload of points.

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The best pizza grows in Brooklyn. We know this. Perfecting your dough craft outer-borough style before bringing those pie skills to the big time seems to be a theme these days, so it comes as no surprise that with a brand already established in Williamsburg, Mathieu Palombino’s Motorino (which the NY Times awarded “best new generation pizza”) recently opened up their first Manhattan annex in the East Village. Their small pizzeria is in the old Una Pizza Napoletana space on 12th street’s mini restaurant row. Having an award winning oven already in place, Motorino has hit the ground running. The masses will now get a taste of Motorino’s unbeatable margherita and signature soppressata pies.

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A few things to note before we get into it. First, this is a review of the Boqueria on 19th St., not of the newer SoHo location, and not of both. Boqueria Soho has a different dynamic and clientele. Second, let us preface this by saying that we’ve been coming to Boqueria for a while now, and we generally enjoy the place. The only problem we have is that it’s slowly becoming to Spanish food what Sushi Samba is to Japanese. What does that mean exactly? It means that it’s on the short list of venues for Girls Night Out, and that the food is hit or miss. Don’t get us wrong, we’re absolutely fine with going to a restaurant loaded with girls, but consistency is what we crave and Boqueria seems to be all over the map these days. The best bets on the menu tend to be the more simple items like Brussels sprouts, pan con tomate, and anything with chorizo. The wine list is good and reasonably priced (plenty of bottles priced under forty dollars), and the churros are pretty excellent. Maybe even better than the ones that dude sells on the L train platform. At the end of the day, the good at Boqueria is definitely good, and if you stick to the right things, you’ll probably walk away happy. Then again, when we’re craving some Spanish food we’re probably headed to Bar Carerra, Mercat, or Casa Mono instead. For the purposes of this food rundown, we’re going to stick (mostly) to the stuff we liked.

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