The Restaurant: Mokum
This is the type of café that we would find in a city like Prague, Milan, Kiev, London – you get the idea – and completely obsess about. Surprisingly, we found Mokum on the UWS, where we followed the music they have pumping at their outdoor kiosk. It’s an unexpected piece of Europe, where they make a real Italian coffee with their legit Sanremo machine and serve up high-end teas, alongside olive oil lemon cake bread. The menu is all about simple, clean ingredients, with healthy combinations like a little gem lettuce salad with steamed salmon and olive oil mint dressing, black bean hummus with local crudités and chilled vanilla marinated strawberries. We’re hoping they do outdoor seating; if they can create atmosphere with an open storefront, we know they’ll crush it with an outside café.
The Restaurant: Miznon North
If you’re in the city this summer, you’ll probably be spending some quality time in the parks. The spoils from the Miznon group are what will make a lavish picnic. Miznon North, run by the team behind Israeli Chef Eyal Shani of Hasalon, is serving up family style and a la carte of their signature dishes, including falafel kits, roasted cauliflower, hummus, and that impossibly fluffy pita. Make sure to order some extra spicy green sauce to soak up the bread.
The Restaurant: abcV
What Jean-Georges can do vegetables…. Even hard-core carnivores are impressed with abcV, the vegetarian restaurant of JG’s empire. We were pretty psyched when we got the notice that he was doing pickups, from a number of his NYC outposts. It’s hard to make vegetables unhealthy, but even harder to make them satisfying. A lot of the favorites are on the takeout and delivery menu, from the spring pea guacamole, mushroom walnut Bolognese, and the whole roasted cauliflower, which takes food to a whole new art. The abcV items are part of their overall abc menus, so you can cross pollinate and order from the other abc restaurants including pizzas and cheeseburgers. We won’t judge.