August effect
August effect
Misipasta x Governors Island, The Meat Hook, Red Hook, best fishmongers (the fish hook!), Turkey and the Wolf, a special planter, MORE
RESTAURANTS • First Person
An island (not so far) away
A hot late July evening saw us on Tribeca’s Pier 25, searching for a particular boat dock. We found it on the left side of the pier, next to the mini-golf course. And after the check-in station and a gangplank to the dock, we boarded the tender itself, flying a MISIPASTA flag. Our journey to Misipasta x Governors Island had begun.
Within minutes, we were skimming across New York Harbor, right off The Battery, before going full bore to the destination dock on the Buttermilk Channel side of Governors Island. Several Misipasta team members met us there, ushering us into golf carts for the drive around the island. Now in its fourth season, the entire operation is extremely well orchestrated, as befits a venture from the Missy Robbins/Sean Feeney team that also oversees Lilia, Misi, and the new brick-and-mortar Misipasta wine bar.
The pop-up’s Governor’s Island perch — at what’s known as Picnic Point — is spectacular, right at the spot on the island closest to the Statue of Liberty. We sat in lounge chairs and sipped spritzes as the sun dipped into the horizon and we waited on the second boat of diners to arrive. There’s room for 16 diners each evening, with departures from Pier 25 at 530p and 6p (take the earlier boat, if you can, for extended cocktail hour with a view).
When the rest of the diners arrived, we took our seats at our two-top, nibbled on the excellent olive oil sesame grissini (breadsticks) waiting for us, and took in the menu. The first surprise: no pastas would be served. Instead, the food is all cooked on wood-burning grills adjacent to the dining area. Soon, the plates started hitting the table, in rapid succession. Soppressata with cherry bomb peppers, smoked mozzarella, and pickled ramps was an early standout, spicy and hot with the smoke from the grill punchy in each bite. From there, grilled romano beans, charred cucumbers, grilled spring onions — all upleveled with breadcrumbs, vinaigrettes, and the like — one after the next, until at one point, our table had seven or eight small plates on it. Mercy.
A few larger dishes crowned the meal: grilled squid, grilled clams in green garlic butter, and our favorite, grilled salmon collars with fennel pollen. All of it was washed down with a pairing heavy on natural wines, included as part of the $450 per cost.
A few notes of advice: The dinner runs four nights a week through the end of the month, and is (as of this writing) fully booked out on Resy. However, we got in on only a few days’ notice with a Resy notify, so it’s definitely worth the shot. And no matter how warm the night, bring a cover-up for the boat trip back. That pullover may end up infused with the smell of smoke from the grills, but in late summer, is there anything better? —Lockhart Steele
→ Misipasta x Governors Island (Governors Island) • Picnic Point • Mon-Thurs, pickups at Pier 25 at 530p and 6p • $450 per • Reserve.
NYC RESTAURANT LINKS: Pop-up Cha Cha Tang goes permanent, succeeding Hancock St. in the Village • Inside Massara’s classic and “super Italian” interiors • Governors Island getting year-round restaurant • How Astoria has become an incubator for restaurants.
WORK • Out of Office
Beached
Did financial executives on vacation contribute to last week’s market chaos? Possibly! Per the Financial Times:
Senior investors scrambled to respond to the global sell-off from their holiday homes, and junior traders struggled to keep up with the unfolding chaos as markets plunged then recovered this week. Those left at their desks said a lack of liquidity — the volume of money shifting around world financial markets, slowed by thin staffing over the holidays — made the market ructions worse.
We’ll wait for the Michael Lewis book to unravel whether twenty-something HBS grads in their first months on the desk are really to blame (for the ructions!). But there’s no denying that August is a historically bad time for bad things to happen at work.
I’m writing this from the beach myself, an admission that probably invites some sort of unexpected happening. Fortunately, there’s not much in FOUND’s portfolio likely to blow up this week — no positions to unwind, no big transactions inching toward close. But I remember very clearly the times in my career that there were — the hastily arranged calls and Zooms taken from rented rooms and porches ill-suited for serious work. Usually, they arrive just as you’ve submitted to the sounds of the surf.
Contrary to distressed traders’ anecdotes — like the merger arbitrage trader who told the FT about the one guy who lost millions on the Eurostar, heading to the Olympics, when he “went into the tunnel and… had no connection right when contagion was spreading” — it’s also possible that the pandemic and corresponding shift to WFH-readiness have taken away some of the jarring contrast of an August (or Thanksgiving, or late-December) surprise. Maybe it doesn’t hurt quite as much to be summoned back to your desk when your desk or “desk” is just a few steps away. What we lose in the blurring of work and life, we gain in the smoother transitions from one to the other.
Still, I’d never willfully plan anything important for these next few weeks. Leave it for September, when the beach is closed. –Josh Albertson
WORK LINKS: Owners of 330 Madison pay off $500M mortgage • Why Manhattan office leasing went gangbusters in July • Is the 4-day workweek in peril before it truly arrived? • See also: say goodbye to raises! • But to get ahead, don’t fall into the workhorse trap.
WORK • Tuesday Routine
Attorney at large
JASMINE MOY • owner • Jasmine Moy Law P.C.
Neighborhood you work in: Bed-Stuy
It’s Tuesday morning. What’s the scene at your workplace?
I'm a business attorney for chefs and restaurateurs, and work for myself out of a home office. After coffee and the New York Times games with my husband, if it's nice outside, I'll do a little work from our backyard before the heat sets in. Otherwise, I head over to my office standing desk and treadmill. Getting 15K steps in over a tedious document review has been nothing short of life-changing. I've also gotten into lifting thanks to Casey, but now I'm singularly obsessed with my protein intake.
Tuesday morning is easy, though: always a whole fruit and veggie smoothie. It's disgustingly virtuous, looks awful (a dark grey speckled matter), but tastes (somewhat) better than it looks. And it has 60 grams of protein, so I suck it up literally/figuratively.
What’s on the agenda for today?
I'm working on a bunch of TBA things with the Musket Room/Raf's ladies, whom I adore, but owner Jenn V. always makes fun of me for walking during calls. Girl, let me live! In my defense, I never walk while on zooms, or on calls with opposing counsel. I'm in the middle of various agreements for Turkey and the Wolf’s Mason Hereford, who is doing a bunch of stuff (in and out of New Orleans), but sadly nothing in NYC (yet).* Lastly, I'm negotiating a term sheet for a very exciting chef for a possible restaurant (their first in NYC!). I can’t breathe a word about it beyond that because of how early in the convo we are, and also because breaking restaurant news is FloFab's job, not mine. [Ed.: Tips also welcome at found@foundny.com!]
If I finish early enough in the afternoon, I'll walk over to Artshack and mess around for a couple hours with some clay — it’s a Covid hobby that stuck. Artshack opened an adorable cafe in front of the studio, and you can get delicious teas, fruity slushies/coffee granitas, focaccia sandwiches, and pastries there.
Any restaurant plans today, tonight, this weekend?
I’m a Bed-Stuy loyalist. Because of the protein situation, Chicken Feastin' does a decent whole fire-roasted chicken that we order fairly regularly. We're going out tomorrow and our standard date-night rotation is a pre-dinner painkiller at Barb's, then a bitter salad and rigatoni alla norma at Macosa. We'll probably start adding Daphne's into the rotation because Macosa doesn't really do protein entrees for some reason? I forgive them because their late-summer panzanella is the stuff dreams are made of, and it's an otherwise perfect little gem of a place. We end with an after-dinner glass of something funky/orange/frizzante at Dear Friend Books, which has an immaculate vibe and smells amazing.
How about a little leisure or culture this week?
We bought a piece of land in Red Hook, NY and are early in the process of building a house there, so we need to go up every few weekends to talk with builders/engineers/etc, but it's easy to fill the extra time. This weekend we're seeing Elevator Repair Service's version of Ulysses at Bard and will swing by the Spiegeltent as well. While the apple cider doughnuts from Grieg Farm are my drug of choice, they're seasonal, so I'm making due with Mighty Donuts which recently opened in Red Hook. Their brown butter yeasted doughnuts and flaky, savory hand pies are fantastic. They've started selling gorgeous bouquets grown locally by my dear friend Colin, so I like to support him by picking one up to take back to Brooklyn with me.
What NYC store or service do you love to recommend?
I try to make everybody order from Davocadoguy if they eat avocados with any regularity. Miguel used to only supply fancy restaurants, but turned to home delivery during Covid, and we're so lucky for it. Free next-day delivery to just about anywhere in the city and often cheaper AND higher quality than the ones you get at Whole Foods. You can order them green so they can ripen gently on your counter over a few days, or get them ripe the day before you need to make a huge batch of guac. I mostly cut them up and freeze the halves for my smoothie, which is tragic because they're so gorgeous and buttery and really deserve to be devoured unadulterated.
*Ed.: This just in: This Thursday, Turkey and the Wolf will be the featured guest grilling this week’s backyard cookout at Williamsburg’s go-to butcher shop, The Meat Hook. Get there early before the lines form and it sells out.
GOODS & SERVICES • FOUND Object
Putting down roots
Self-taught ceramicist Candice Romanelli was once an award-winning movie poster designer. Now, she spends her creative energy making everything from patchwork trays to vases imprinted with the Grateful Dead logo — all in beautiful muted color palettes. Her work, including the Shipibo Planter, belongs in any home that values a “collected” aesthetic. Place special keepsakes inside, or maybe a small, whimsical plant that you want on full-blown display. –Zoe Schaeffer
→ Shop: Candice Romanelli’s Shipibo Planter (Friedman Benda) • $2,250.
GOODS & SERVICES LINKS: On warm eggs at the Greenmarket in Tribeca • BAS Stone adds bar, lounge, meeting space to LIC showroom • Boat sales sunk 9% in the first half of ‘24 • Venetian slippers are having a moment.
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GOODS & SERVICES • The Nines
Fishmongers
The Nines are FOUND's distilled lists of NYC's best. Additions or subtractions? Hit reply or found@foundny.com.
Lobster Place (Chelsea, above), gold standard at Chelsea Market