clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

Peanut Butter & Co. Kicks the Bucket, McInnis's SOBE Spat, and More Intel

Stephen Starr's new restaurant in the Howard Hotel gets a name, plus more dining news and gossip from around NYC.

[Dinosaur Barbecue Brooklyn]
[Dinosaur Barbecue Brooklyn]
Daniel Krieger

Single menu item restaurant pioneer Peanut Butter & Co. is now closed. The Greenwich Village restaurant first started serving its yuppified versions of peanut butter sandwiches 17 years ago. It paved the way for cutesy comfort food specialists like Rice to Riches, Insomnia Cookies, Meltshop, and Puddin' By Clio (RIP). The company still has a line of jarred peanut butters, but this was the brand's only restaurant. Fare thee well, sweet peanut prince.

Did Root & Bone's Jeff McInnis get into a fight with his former business partner at the SOBE festival last week? A Page Six spy claims that Yardbird restaurateur John Kunkel "grabbed Jeff’s shoulder and gave him a jerk" at an event, and told him he was "going to make his life a living hell." A security guard allegedly escorted Kunkel out of the party.

— The new Soho restaurant in the Howard Hotel from chef Daniel Rose and Stephen Starr is going to be called Le Coucou. Last year, Rose said this would be "like a Lutèce reboot, with classic French food." It's slated to open this spring.

East Sixth Street Sri Lankan restaurant Banana Leaf is now closed. The restaurant moved from Chelsea to the East Village a few months ago. Now the space has signage for a new restaurant called Tonkatsuya.

The Los Angeles outpost of Smorgasburg sensation Ramen Burger closed after less than two years in business. The west coast operation will live on at music festivals and LA's forthcoming iteration of Smorgasburg.

Even David Chang thinks it's tough as hell to open a restaurant in New York. The chef tells GQ: "When you're opening a restaurant, you need to think, 'Will I have an opportunity to fuck up? To find my voice?' In New York, it's so cost-prohibitive that it's gotta be a perfect thing right off the bat. I hope New York gets back on top, but I don't blame anyone if they want to move to any other city." Check out more of Chang's quotes and other notable soundbites from the "Future of Food" panel here.

A Coney Island historian named Michael Quinn is trying to revive the Feltman's brand — AKA America's first hot dog purveyor. He's been serving his version of Feltman's franks at bars around the city for several months. Quinn also just launched a GoFundMe page to raise money for frank production and possibly a brick-and-mortar location of Feltman's out in Coney Island. Quinn tells Bowery Boogie: "We’re looking to expand in a major way by Memorial Day weekend....Very soon we’ll be supplying hot dogs with the Feltman’s label to restaurants throughout the city."

Anthony Bourdain's first cookbook in 10 years, Appetites, is slated to be released on October 25, 2016.

— And finally, here's a look at how B & B's lamb burger is made: