No sooner had Mia Van Der Water, the petite sommelier at North End Grill in Battery Park, New York, poured our first glass of Burn Cottage Pinot Noir 2010 than she explained with pride how soon this restaurant had managed to open after superstorm Sandy. “Fortunately, we are on the Brooklyn electric grid across the water, so we were only closed for two days,” she said. “And we all wanted to reopen as soon as possible to reassure all those who live and work round here that life was going to get back to normal.”
Restaurateurs, like so many New Yorkers, have been counting Sandy’s cost not just in lost revenues, but also in the events that have forcibly been cancelled. And as the damage to flooded kitchens, wine cellars (particularly bad at the River Café in Brooklyn) and shops begins to be calculated, there is a feeling that consigning all this expensive equipment to basements so vulnerable to flooding may no longer make much financial sense.
When we arrived 10 days after Sandy, it was seemingly business as usual at North End Grill, as Van Der Water hoped. Set in a new Goldman Sachs development, the restaurant occupies an awkward, narrow space that was once a hotel lobby. However, architects Bentel & Bentel has turned this to its advantage by putting all the main kitchen sections on show. From the pastry section, chef Alex Ray produced the best lemon meringue pie I have tasted since my late Aunt Bessie’s many years ago.