Alligator Pear Brings Tempura Gator Bites and New Orleans Cooking to Chelsea

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Off the Menu

A spinoff of a Tel Aviv restaurant in Hudson Square, New Haven-style pizzas at Grimm Artisanal Ales and more restaurant news.

By Florence Fabricant

Though given a popular name for avocado, this New Orleans restaurant, bar and event space is not serving any for now. “I haven’t yet figured out how I want to prepare it, maybe blackened, but it is coming,” said Dominick Lee, the executive chef and a New Orleans native. But tempura alligator bites do lead the menu. New York may be known for urban alligator sightings and rumors, but Mr. Lee gets his reptile meat from a Louisiana farm. The rest of his menu delivers the Big Easy with blue crab beignets, oysters, jambalaya with shrimp and andouille or just vegetables, gumbo, shrimp and okra stew, and bread pudding, and includes family recipes like his mother’s potato salad. Mr. Lee, 34, moved with his mother to New York after Hurricane Katrina, and he eventually become a chef in Houston where he met Kevin Doherty, an owner of the new restaurant with Rehan Alam, another restaurateur. The main dining room and bar are done in polished wood with rose and blue accents, and the Oak Room for private events is on the ground floor of the grandiose three-story space. Upstairs is another bar and several areas, mostly intimate, for private dining. The underground cellar can accommodate up to 150 people.

150 West 30th Street, 646-868-7884, alligatorpearnyc.com.

Inspired by an outdoor restaurant and music venue of the same name in Tel Aviv, this spinoff in Hudson Square is the also the work of the Israeli chef and restaurateur Eyal Shani, along with Shahar Segal. Here, the 4,000-square foot space is indoors, divided into several areas for dining, drinking, listening to vinyl and shopping. The menu is typical of Mr. Shani’s repertoire at places like Miznon and Shmone, with Middle Eastern sandwiches and stews, spiced roasted vegetables and kebabs.

350 Hudson Street (King Street), 212-256-0841, portsaidnyc.com.

New Haven-style pizzas — red, white and clam from a wood-fired oven — are on the menu at this new dining component for Grimm Artisanal Ales. It’s an indoor-outdoor space on the roof of the building that houses the brewery and its sibling, Physica Wines. Unlike those in New Haven, Conn., the pizzas here are built on thin sourdough crusts fermented with the cultures used in the brewery’s sour beer. The summer menu also features a hot pepperoni pizza with tomatoes and a squash pizza with squash blossoms. (Opens Friday)

990 Metropolitan Avenue (Morgan Avenue), 718-564-9767, grimmales.com.

This is a takeaway adjunct to Kokomo, a Caribbean restaurant in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and just steps away. Salads, bowls, gyros and components to assemble your own feature: jerk chicken, cassava, plantains, pineapple, and assorted grains and greens.

52 North 11th Street (Kent Avenue), Williamsburg, Brooklyn, 347-725-3249, oxkale.com.

The first New York edition of a conveyor belt sushi chain with more than 500 locations worldwide has opened in Nassau County, near Roosevelt Field. An app puts guests on a wait-list to be seated, eventually, by a human. Diners can grab a dish from the conveyor belt that meanders through the dining room or order on a tablet from more than 140 choices, with made to order selections arriving by an express conveyor belt, “the sushi highway.” Drinks are delivered by bot. There are also gimmicks like rewards and other perks. Another location is coming to Flushing, Queens, later this year.

47 Old Country Road (Clinton Road), Carle Place, N.Y., 516-475-0007 kurasushi.com.

Destroyed by a fire as it was about to open, this new French spot is not quite in phoenix mode, but it has gamely opened an outdoor area for copious Saturday and Sunday brunches that go well beyond eggs and waffles. The hours are 12:30 to 7 p.m. The executive chef is Geoffrey Lechantoux.

435 East Lake Drive (Rd H), Montauk, maisoncloserestaurant.com.

Amelie Kang’s fiery dry pot Chinese cooking has made it into Brooklyn in a colorful setting. (Friday)

603 Manhattan Avenue (Nassau Avenue), Greenpoint, Brooklyn, 718-500-3881, malaproject.nyc.

Another of the Florentine sandwich shops that could be Taylor Swift for the lines they draw, has opened on the Upper East Side.

36 East 60th Street, 917-819-6559, allanticovinaionyc.com.

For this much-lauded chef, historic restaurants are catnip. Along with French Laundry, he runs several in South Florida. Now he’ll be in charge of the food and beverages at Coral Casino Beach and Cabana Club, owned by Ty Warner, an entrepreneur and hotelier, in Montecito, Calif., near Santa Barbara. The property, a private club that opened in 1937, has several restaurants. Under Mr. Keller’s direction, one of them, Tydes, will be open to the public for the first time. The menus will skew continental, a cuisine he’s come to espouse. The various dining rooms will also be renovated.

An earlier version of this article misstated the opening day for Lala’s Brooklyn Apizza. It is Friday, not Saturday. The article also misstated that the menu included a BLT pizza. It will not.

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Florence Fabricant is a food and wine writer. She writes the weekly Front Burner and Off the Menu columns, as well as the Pairings column, which appears alongside the monthly wine reviews. She has also written 12 cookbooks. More about Florence Fabricant

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