Manhattan restaurateurs have been attempting, with varying degrees of success, to bottle that homespun, organic quality that the new generation of Brooklyn dive bars and neighborhood joints are famous for and make it their own. But what happens to that elusive outer-borough mystique when ambitious, bewhiskered Brooklyn restaurateurs decide to cross the river and set up shop in Manhattan? Earlier this year, the venerable Brooklyn pizza parlor Grimaldi’s opened a new branch on Sixth Avenue in Chelsea; the popular Mexican establishment Hecho en Dumbo moved a while back to a new location on the Bowery; and those industrious (and bewhiskered) culinary entrepreneurs Frank Castronovo and Frank Falcinelli recently opened a boisterous West Village branch of their red-sauce bistro chain, Frankies Spuntino, which is as different in tone and scale from the Carroll Gardens original as the first Palm steakhouse is from the one in Vegas.
Now comes Fatty ’Cue Manhattan, Zak Pelaccio’s glitzy Manhattan reimagining of his great Asian-accented Brooklyn barbecue joint, Fatty ’Cue. Unlike the poky, closet-size flagship on the fringes of Williamsburg, the new Fatty ’Cue occupies a prime piece of storefront real estate on Carmine Street in the West Village. The façade of the new restaurant is sheathed in painted brown wood, the windows are covered with stylish blinds, and like that of a downtown nightclub, the heavy door is affixed with a silver handle molded from a real pig’s foot. The dark interior is lit like a nightclub, too, and features a black-tiled bar and rows of padded green leather banquettes. There is no pleasingly authentic, spark-belching smoker in the backyard (the meat is smoked at the Williamsburg restaurant and trucked across the river), and the walls are set with glowing displays of “table service” liquor bottles, which patrons can buy for the evening, like high rollers in a casino.
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