Matthew Schneier

New York

Features Reporter at New York Magazine

Critic and features writer eating the city at @nymag and @grubstreet. Formerly @nytimes. Also on Instagram, just like you. Tips? First name dot last at gmail.

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Articles

Momofuku’s Pan-Caribbean Kabawa

2 weeks ago | grubstreet.com | Matthew Schneier

Kabawa is a new kind of restaurant for the company — one devoted to the many cuisines of the Caribbean. Stock in good feeling is sinking of late. An atmosphere of headache prevails. The markets, the mood, the outlook: low, low, low. That’s a lot to heap on a restaurant, especially one down an East Village cul-de-sac: Oh, look, another dead end.
Printemps Is Full of Shoppers, But How’s the Food?

2 weeks ago | grubstreet.com | Matthew Schneier

My lunch date dabbed at her mouth, and we signaled for the check. We’d have stayed longer, lingering over the last leaves of a petite salade (nicely dressed with nuoc chomvinaigrette and tiles of lightly pickled rhubarb) and a remnant scrap of gingery crab rémoulade, but she had places to be. She was off to a consultation with her new cosmetic dermatologist. I didn’t plan it this way, but I would’ve if I could’ve.
The Best Rockefeller Center Restaurant Is Actually Two

3 weeks ago | grubstreet.com | Matthew Schneier

Golden HOF and NY Kimchi are a multistory ode to late-night Korean feasts. When the annals of developer-led neighborhood “revitalization” are written — and what annals they’ll be — the Rockefeller Center chapter will be a meaty one. New York history and New York amnesia meet there (and who were more megadevelopers than the Standard Oil, Chase Manhattan Rockefellers?).
The Otter and Brass in New York City

1 month ago | grubstreet.com | Matthew Schneier

At Brass, there is live piano but little natural light. The otter burrows into habitats called holts, tunneling imperceptibly into the landscape to make its home. So, it seems, does the Otter, which opened this past September in the Manner hotel. It is as holtish a restaurant as you’re likely to find. Tucked off the lobby, this Otter is all but invisible from the outside and protected from things like sunlight.
The Dog Days Are Over for Marlow & Sons

1 month ago | grubstreet.com | Matthew Schneier

Marlow & Sons in 2006. Have you checked on your elder millennials this week? It’s been a rough one for our lost generation. First the Pencil Factory in Greenpoint announced its closure after 25 years, and on Monday, Marlow & Sons, a micro-generation’s date-spot-slash-proto-co-working-space, said its preemptive farewell after 21 years as well.
Daniel Boulud’s La Tête d’Or Steakhouse

1 month ago | grubstreet.com | Matthew Schneier

Walk west on 24th Street at twilight, as I recently did, and it’s hard not to notice the glow d’or. Emanating from the recently completed One Madison, a refurbished office tower home to IBM and the global investment firm Franklin Templeton, the warm, rose-golden light is luxury in lumens: a flame for high-spend moths.
Will Shortz Is Back in the Game

2 months ago | vulture.com | Matthew Schneier

In February 2024, the New York Times crossword editor Will Shortz was sitting at his desk in Pleasantville, hard at work around 11 p.m., when he shifted to the left and found he couldn’t shift back. The side of his mouth was drooling. Shortz recognized the signs: He was having a stroke. Later, at the hospital, he had a second, larger stroke and then, after thrombolysis to dissolve the clot that caused it, a brain bleed — a rare and serious complication.
A Tiny Restaurant With a Big Following

2 months ago | grubstreet.com | Matthew Schneier

When someone tells you who they are, believe them. Ha’s Snack Bar, a tiny, delicious little pocket on Broome Street, is a snack bar. That’s not to diminish the food, which is ambitious, filling, and meal-size, but to fairly assess the space itself, which is ambitious, full, and minuscule. Forty seats might constitute a petite restaurant. Ha’s, with 24, mostly bar and counter, is a restaurant snack. I share this up front to manage expectations.
Robert De Niro’s Tribeca Grill Closes in NYC

2 months ago | grubstreet.com | Matthew Schneier

closings A final night at Robert De Niro’s neighborhood cafeteria. Tribeca Grill in the early 2000s. The room didn’t change much over the years. Tribeca Grill in the early 2000s. The room didn’t change much over the years. Tribeca Grill in the early 2000s. The room didn’t change much over the years. “It’s been like this since we opened today,” a hostess at Tribeca Grill told me on Saturday night.
It’s Hot. It’s Mysterious. It’s on the Upper East Side?

2 months ago | grubstreet.com | Matthew Schneier

Chez Fifi. I suppose I should know at this point that if you want prime real estate — say, a townhouse on East 74th — you should be prepared for a bidding war. So it goes lately with Chez Fifi, a 1920 townhouse turned pocket-size French bistro on 74th and Lex. Since its opening in January, Fifi has been, by seemingly universal agreement, both unbookable and unmissable. New York does not want for French bistros; cognac-scented au poivre sauce flows like the Seine through these parts.