Manhattan’s Worldly Cuisine Getaway

Stanton Street Kitchen—Craft Beer & Wine Bar

Stanton Street Kitchen’s open-kitchen food show

I’m fully aware of the advance of cool joints creeping into my neighborhood of 15 years. This stretch of Stanton St., unlike its parallel universe, hip Rivington St., is still an archetypal lower (lower) east side street with little fanfare and some lingering grit—the edge of a creeping frontier. Charging ahead on this frontier is the Stanton Street Kitchen Craft Beer & Wine Bar. Grand but intimate, this open-kitchen food show features an in-house beer advisor (suds sommelier) who’ll no doubt be tailed by a wine whiz for comrades so inclined. The décor is reminiscent of the late 1920s with brick walls, high ceilings, copper accents, and black granite. Newsflash: if scallops, pork belly, gigantic tasting stouts (from the cellar below your feet), and a revived take on non-mainstream handpicked wines are your kind of thing, then this is your kind of getaway.

As opposed to being an opinionated foodie, I review restaurants based on how they physically transport customers. To me, this key to this destination is renowned master chef Erik Blauberg’s passion for food-inspired travel. When not fine-tuning his restaurant, he leads food and wine journeys—literal cooking tours—via Culinary Passport, which frequently collaborates with The Culinary Institute of America. With years of guiding food and wine lovers around the world on his resume, Blauberg’s forthcoming fine-food foray opportunities are to Spain, France, Italy, and New Zealand. Throughout these trips, customers enjoy local culinary experiences and exclusive food and wine tastings available only to travelers in these exclusive groups.

Back on the Stanton St. home-front, Blauberg has created a menu of small plates designed to pair with the beer and wine offerings, allowing guests to fashion their own tasting menus. There is also a “Chef’s Feast” tasting menu presenting off-the-menu seasonally inspired dishes, available to guests who are seated at the 14-seat bar that overlooks the open kitchen. The contemporary menu reflects Chef Blauberg’s worldwide travels and is heavily influenced by the many different global cuisines he has studied.

So if you can’t join Blauberg on a culinary journey, don’t fret, as he brings the best of his gastronomic discoveries from around the world to you on New York City’s Lower East Side. Bring on the truffles paired with beer sampler “flights” that hit each of your taste buds. The beer cellar features 100 different varieties of bottled beers from around our planet, ranging in styles from Kolsch to Imperial Stouts, and is no stranger to the revolution of small batch brewing overtaking Brooklyn. Trust their beer sommelier to pair the 24 rotating seasonal drafts—and an extensive wine list—with their reasonably priced menu.

The menu features an assortment of “beer bites” served on toast such as Spicy Prawns with cracked corn, jicama, and cilantro; Kadotas Figs with goat cheese and 50 Year-Old Sherry; and Braised Pork Belly with red cabbage and toasted peanut slaw. Small plates such as Sugar Pea Risottowith cepes and delicata squash; Homemade Tagliatelle with hen of the woods mushrooms and wild boar sausage; and Port-Braised Oxtail with foie gras and fava bean ravioli can be yours. The lineup also includes a few vegetarian items, including a Salad of Wild Arugula, flat bread, Humboldt-fog goat cheese, candied spicy pecans, and pistachio vinaigrette.

You won’t be bored.

Stanton Street Kitchen seats 70, including a 14-seat intimate food bar overlooking the open kitchen and the hustling chefs. The beer cellar also showcases a private Chef’s Table with seating for up to 30 guests.

178 Stanton Street, Manhattan, NYC, 917.963.6000, Stanton Street Kitchen

Worry not … they also feature veggie options (and organic brews)