Levain Bakery’s Long-Awaited Downtown Location Opens Very Soon

Levain Bakery’s Iconic Chocolate Chip Cookies Head Downtown Next Week

The legendary, half-pound chocolate chip cookies from Levain Bakery are finally headed to downtown Manhattan next week. The iconic uptown bakery tells TimeOut that their coveted Noho storefront will open to the masses at 340 Lafayette Street, at Bleecker Street, on February 26. The new bakery on Bleecker will bring Levain’s total number of New York locations locations to six — two on the Upper West Side, one on the Upper East, one in Harlem, and one in the Hamptons — with a seventh location rumored for Williamsburg.

Levain Bakery co-owners Pam Weekes and Connie McDonald have been serving their gooey chocolate chip cookies for more than 25 years now and drawing lines out the door for just as long. But outside of New York City, Levain Bakery isn’t a household name — at least not yet. The bakery’s latest two openings in Noho and on the Upper East Side are all a part of the bakery’s ongoing push to expand their brand more aggressively nationwide. Not just to New Yorkers, but to the nation. Weekes and McDonald told Grubstreet last year that they had their sights set on a location in Boston, Chicago, or Washington D.C. in 2020.

In other news

— Chef Chintan Pandya of Adda Indian Canteen and Niven Patel of Miami’s Ghee Indian Kitchen are hosting a seven-course dinner on Sunday, March 1 at Adda. The menu includes traditional and contemporary Indian dishes, including fried quail, smoked paneer bhurjee, an Impossible meat mappas curry, and sticky date cakes. Tickets cost $77 per person.

— The East Village’s Jiang Diner will be returning to its original location at 309 E. Fifth Street, between First and Second Avenues, after a brief stint one block away. The Northern Chinese restaurant, which Eater critic Robert Sietsema described as a “magnetic entry into NYC’s Chinese dining scene,” announced that it would be moving to 104 Second Avenue, between Sixth Street and Seventh Streets, six weeks ago.

— A Chinese restaurant on Madison Street is taking orders on Seamless. The problem? It closed over two months ago. Local publication Bowery Boogie suggests that the new Chen Wong may be an imposter, as it features a different menu, a $9.99 delivery fee, and a recent review in which someone claimed their food was never delivered.

— Barneys New York is closing this Sunday but the restaurant inside of it, called Freds, will remain open with the same hours. Starting Monday, the restaurant will be managed by Infuse Hospitality, a group that sets up and runs food and beverage venues.

— Florence, Italy’s Cantinetta Antinori will bring its Tuscan cuisine to Tribeca’s Tutto il Giorno for a four-night, pop-up dinner, featuring a three-course prix-fixe menu and wine pairing for $95. The pop-up, located at 114 Franklin St, between West Broadway and 6th Avenue, will run from February 25 to February 28. Tutto il Giorno is now accepting reservations for the dinner.

— City Council Speaker Corey Johnson is calling on the Department of Education to provide kosher and halal lunch options for the city’s 430,000 public school students who are Jewish or Muslim.

— Acai and pitaya bowl maker Playa Bowls will be replacing the storefronts formerly held by now-shuttered Liquiteria at Urbanspace Vanderbilt and Urbanspace 570 Lex.

— Modern Asian pop-up restaurant Daily Spoon has found a new home at 25-34 Jackson Avenue, at 44th Drive. In addition to soups and noodles, the pop-up will serve baos and wontons filled with jerk chicken, spicy pork, and Korean beef.

— The new vegetarian Reuben at Sarge’s Delicatessen & Diner has the New York Post saying soy vey.

— That feeling when the recipe is older than you are: