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“Irving Mill”


  Occasion: Cuisine: Area: Cost: Rating:
  Night Out New American Gramercy Moderate Good

After enough time cooking in this city, a chef can get a reputation. I don’t mean that kind of reputation (though that is certainly possible too), I mean this more in terms of a culinary signature. Dave Chang is synonymous with his Greenmarket-fueled world of high-class ramen and beyond (and at this point his name pretty much spells success), Dan Barber is the chef-locavore-crusader, Alex Raij is known for her brilliant Basque cookery, you get the idea. Irving Mill’s talented young new chef, Ryan Skeen (formerly of 5 Ninth and Café Boulud in New York, and Elisabeth Daniel in San Francisco), made his name on a hamburger served when he was the chef at Resto. It was a superhero of a patty made from a mix of house-ground beef cheek, hanger steak, and fatback, served with onion, pickle, mayo, and Timberdoodle cheese, all on a squishy white bun (for the record, I never liked the bun). His double-cooked pork belly and deviled eggs served on fried pork toast, added to his rap as “Pig’s Worst Enemy.”

After leaving Resto and helping his pal Nick Morgenstern conceive of the (fantastic) menu for The General Greene, this golden boy of the hamburger landed a gig as a bottom of the ninth reliever at Irving Mill where he was brought in to turn the game around after the previous chef, John Schaefer, had failed to impress critics. The consensus was that his food that seemed too precious, too dull, too shy to make enough of a statement to lure customers in for more.
Based on a number of recent meals, it seems that the owners of Irving Mill have found their savior, their Jonathan Papelbon, if you will. Skeen has brought the team back from the brink, revamping the entire menu so that it offers more approachable food that suits this urban farmhouse setting and a neighborhood in need of a place to grab a burger, a bowl of pasta, or a proper three-course dinner. Indeed, Skeen’s menu offers something for every craving—a bite at the bar (saucy, messy, heavenly mounds of pulled pork nestled into potato buns, $6), a hangover brunch (eggs benedict served on a candied bacon brioche with frisee salad, $14, a ham and egg biscuit sandwich with red eye gravy, $10), or dinner with the parents (hamachi with chorizo and grapefruit, a lamb cassoulet with poached leg, roasted loin, belly and Coco Beans, $26).

Under Skeen, the food is not only well suited to the rustic wood-wrapped room, but his cooking also has ... [more, click below]

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Other restaurants in Gramercy :
+ Casa Mono/Bar Jamon   + Pure Food & Wine   + Parea   + Gramercy Tavern (Lunch)   + 15 East   + Tocqueville   + Irving Mill   + Bar Milano   + Irving Mill   + Maialino   + Asellina   + Corkbuzz Wine Studio   + Breads, by guest reviewer Tracy Weiss   

1.)Mammamia
“Contradictions”

I was wondering why you felt the need to put Schaefer's food down, when your originial review was rather glowing and you gave Irving Mill a Great, as opposed to the Good that you gave it under Skeen? So who's a** are you kissing Andrea and why?

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