RestaurantChinatown
FOOD
The 1971 restaurant that fed and employed downtown artists is back on Canal Street, run by an artist and a Parisian chef.
Photo by Greg Navarro for Beholdr
Walk in With Us
The room is narrow. A long counter runs down the center. The seats are sculptural stools designed by Max Lamb. The menu changes daily. It’s based on whatever the chef, Mathieu Canet, feels like cooking. Artists work the floor and kitchen.
Artist Lucien Smith, in collaboration with The Estate of Gordon Matta-Clark, revived it from the original FOOD, founded in 1971 in SoHo by Carol Goodden, Tina Girouard, and Gordon Matta-Clark, to feed and employ painters and sculptors.
The menus balance serious cooking with plenty of creativity — bagels or hot dogs because the main course has run out, anyone? It can feel like watching a friend cook something great out of whatever’s fresh and in the fridge. The food is good, but you come because there aren’t many dining rooms in New York where it’s food for art’s sake and not the other way around.
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