This is the place to go for a hang over brunch (it's quite noisy though ). In this traditional french restaurant you can everything from a seafood platter to a soft boiled organic egg. Bread and pastries (croissant, scones, pain au chocolate and so on) come from the beautiful next door balthazar bakery.

It's quite packed and sometimes you have to queue for a table.
It's also a go place for homesick europeans, c'est tres francaise.

"Balthazar serves traditional bistro meals from breakfast through late-night supper. Opened by Keith McNally in the spring of 1997, Balthazar offers a French menu prepared by chefs de cuisine Riad Nasr and Lee Hanson. Diners can also choose from an extensive wine list, a raw seafood bar, and breads and pastries from Balthazar bakery.
Balthazar is renowned for its exceptional design. The building was converted from a leather wholesaler's warehouse to an airy space that can accommodate over 200 people in the dining room and at the zinc bar. "

80, spring street, Soho New York, ny 10012


BREAKFAST Mon to Fri: 7:30 AM - 11:30 AM
Sat & Sun: 8:00 AM - 10:00 AM
BRUNCH
Sat & Sun: 10:00 AM - 4:00 PM
LUNCH & LATE LUNCH
Mon to Fri: 12:00 PM - 5:00 PM

www.balthazarny.com/

If you want to eat some truly outstanding food go to Blue Hill.
They have to restaurants, one in New York and one where they have their farm, in pocantico hills, some 40 minutes out of town.

"with Dan Barber, chef and proprietor of Blue Hill in Manhattan and Blue Hill at Stone Barns in Pocantico Hills. Stone Barns is only 45 minutes from Manhattan, but it might as well be a whole different universe. A model of self sufficiency and environmental responsibility, Stone Barns is a working farm, ranch, and a three-michelin-star-worthy restaurant. (Note to Michelin: limiting your guide to the five boroughs means you've missed out on perhaps the most interesting and unique restaurant in all of New York.)

Dan's commitment to the environment is well known, but he is hardly a die-hard radical. He is a businessman determined to find a way to be both environmentally and economically sustainable - now that's the way of the future."

We actually wanted to go to Blue Hill farm but then we were running out of time and decided to go to the one on washington place.

Let me tell you we ate the most outstanding food.

www.bluehillnyc.com

Blue Hill Restaurant
75, Washington Place
Greenwich Village
New York

Schiller's is a very nice restaurant in the Lower East Side. The perfect place for a brunch, a lunch, or just a latte and some good newspapers (they offer a very wide selection of nice magazines and newspapers).
It looks like an old butchery or so. We had a lovely tuna burger and a Guinness - nice!

131 Rivington Street
10002 New York
Phone:  212 260 4555

www.schillersny.com

Hours
BREAKFAST & LUNCH MON to FRI
11:00 AM - 4:00 PM

BRUNCH SAT to SUN
10:00 AM - 5:00 PM

LATE LUNCH MON to FRI
4:00 PM - 6:00 PM

DINNER MON to SUN
6:00 PM - 12:00 AM

LATE SUPPER
MON to WED: 12:00 - 1:00 AM
THU: 12:00 – 2:00 AM
FRI and SAT: 12:00 –3:00 AM
SUN: 12:00 – 1:00 AM

April 4 - May 3, 2008
The gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 to 6pm
www.cohanandleslie.com

138 Tenth Avenue
New York, New York 10011

«... the US debut exhibition of Swiss artist Uwe Wittwer, including large scale watercolors, paintings and unique inkjet prints.
While the works are figurative, Wittwer is more accurately a painter of images. His source material is chosen from the overwhelming sea of digital representations - images of images - found on the internet. Wittwer’s dominant interests are old master paintings and vernacular photographs of families and soldiers.

The show is centered on two massive watercolors based on 17th Century paintings by Nicolas Poussin. Their size and strength upend the typical prejudice towards watercolors as small and delicate. Across the gallery a group of 5 medium sized watercolors are based on photographs from family albums dating from the 1940s-60s, which suggest subtle narratives when seen as a whole.

The back gallery will feature large scale, black and white inkjet prints based on photographs by American soldiers during the Vietnam War. Although entirely digital from beginning to end they are undeniably painterly, and rely on formal conventions similar to those of the watercolors. Usually rendered in negative, the watercolors and inkjet prints share a sinister sense of confronting memories or a history that may be difficult to face.

Wittwer denies the conventional hierarchy of media in favor of his engagement with images. Similarly, through the filter of the internet a painting by Poussin enjoys no hierarchy over an anonymous snapshot. The compositions found in a soldier’s photograph are as valid as the classical structure of the Old Masters. Both are representations of history with blurred, and possibly irrelevant, distinctions between ‘reality’ and fabrication.

Uwe Wittwer was born in 1954 and is based in Zurich. His work has recently been the focus of solo exhibitions and publications by Haunch of Venison Zurich, the Ludwigforum Aachen, and the Kunstmuseum Solothurn.»

Lovely neighborhood, will go back tomorrow but now it's time for a pint with the boys.