Also By These Authors

The Slow Food Guide to New York City

Restaurants, Markets, Bars

by Patrick Martins, Ben Watson

Preface

Recently I saw a bumper sticker that said: “If I am what I eat, then I’m fast, cheap, and easy!” I didn’t see it in New York, which makes sense if you consider that no other city is slower when it comes to food. I think one of the main reasons people perceive New York as fast is because of the overwhelming amount of choice that exists here. This guide is an attempt to pare down your food options so that it becomes easier to view this aspectof city life more slowly--of the more than 18,000 food establishments in the metropolitan area, only our favorite 600 or so appear in this guide.With a fork and this guidebook as your map, you can discover a lifetime of culinary delights from every culture imaginable!

In this book you will learn about the restaurants, bars, and markets that excel at serving foods that are in line with the Slow Food mission. Besides serving delicious food, all of the venues herein also possess one or more of the following virtues: artisanship, tradition, and conviviality. Many also possess what to us is the most important virtue: a commitment to serving sustainably grown and local ingredients. We have singled out the establishments that excel in this category for special recognition by using the Slow Food snail logo in their text descriptions.

Sustainable foods grown nearby simply taste better and likely come from independent family farms. They also represent a biodiversity in the food world that is at risk of disappearing in the flood of industrialized culture and big business. By supporting establishments that serve ecologically sound foods, you are supporting the vision of a landscape dotted with small, viable farms that today we are in danger of losing unless weunderstand that eating is a political act! As the Slow Food movement in America grows stronger, we hope to work with restaurants so that, in thesecond edition of this guide, you will find more “snail” ratings.

The publication of this book is only the latest effort in Slow Food’s never-ending quest to save the myriad traditions and pleasures of the table. From the creation of our manifesto in 1989 (see page viii) to theformation in 2000 of a national office in the United States, where 10,000 members and 100 convivia (or chapters) now support our projects, suchas opening gardens in grade schools and saving endangered foods like the Bourbon Red turkey and Iroquois white corn, Slow Food remains steadfastly committed to bringing the concept of eco-gastronomy to food lovers everywhere. While this guide does not claim to be perfect (please send us your comments so that our second edition will be even better!), it will no doubt be a helpful resource, whether you are looking for a good pastrami sandwich dripping with fat or a great French meal dripping withfour stars.

I am a born-and-raised New Yorker, and I absolutely love this town.With this guidebook I hope to give back a little to this city that has givenso much to me. I also hope that this book gives something back to our many members who have done so much to sustain our organization in the United States through their membership and through support of our projects and events. This guide promotes a tourism that nourishes both the visitor and deserving businesses. Slow Food is about doing good by eating well—what could be better?

Before I leave you to your reading, I would like to thank the many member volunteers who hit the fast streets of New York City to make thepublication of this guide possible. Their hard work demonstrated what ismost beautiful and most powerful about being a grassroots organization. It was only thanks to their enthusiasm, willing appetites, and expanding waistlines that we were able to write this first Slow Food USA guidebook!

Eat well and be slow,
Patrick Martins
Executive Director
Slow Food U.S.A.