Roberta's Debuts Tasting Menu Restaurant Blanca

For well over a year now, one of the must-try and almost impossible to get access to tasting menus in New York has been served at Bushwick restaurant and pizzeria Roberta's. Spanning about two dozen courses and offered to only a handful of diners two nights a week with a waiting list months-long, the menu made it into countless food blogs and Sam Sifton's New York Times review. Now chef Carlo Mirarchi has taken the tasting menu concept and launched a proper restaurant devoted to it.

Sifton reports that the restaurant, called Blanca, seats 12, is located behind Roberta's, and is currently open to the public four nights a week when Mirarchi is in the kitchen (it's closed when he's not around). It features a record player—guests can choose and play albums at will—is outfitted with padded captain's chairs, and is described as sleek and spacious where Roberta's is rustic and ragtag.

The tasting menu now runs $180 without wine and reservations will be taken starting August 1 after they've gone through the current tasting menu wait list. Click over to Sifton's account to read about the armies of uni, the "duck aged into wobbly senility" and more menu details and Siftonisms.
· A Sleek Surprise Around Back of Roberta’s [NYT]
· Blanca [Official Site]
· All Coverage of Roberta's [~ENY~]
[Photo via Robert Wright for The New York Times]