WELCOME to the Bowery, DBGB — and welcome, jaded New Yorkers, to the Bowery itself, one of Manhattan’s great strolling grounds for those with a taste for urban misterioso.
Daniel Boulud’s new, reasonably priced restaurant, where “French brasserie meets American tavern,” epitomizes the gentrified northern spur of the new Bowery.
Not only does DBGB offer “interesting sausage,” as Boulud told us it would last fall — there’s a ton of it listed under a “to share” category of “links/bangers/saucisses/wieners.” The 13 choices range from “Touluse” (pork and duck gizzard and garlic link) to “Viennoise” (port and emmenthaler cheese “kaiserkrainer”) to “Polonaise” (smoked pork and veal kielbasa), with German, Tunisian, Spanish and Italian variants, as well.
Despite being cheaper than some of its neighbors, DBGB is the Bowery’s new Big Enchilada.
A few years ago, the idea would have been laughable: a great chef on one of the world’s most notorious former skid rows — a perception yet held by clueless tourists who think Manhattan still resembles “Taxi Driver” territory.
DBGB contains 175 seats in the dining room, bar and private room and is designed by the gifted Thomas Schlesser, who also did Bar Boulud uptown. Much of its rough-hewn look — bracketed by open shelving all around, stocked with dry goods, flatware and linen — is inspired by the Bowery’s historic role as home to the city’s industrial- and restaurant-supply wholesale/retail business.
Although diminished, that world still exists on the Bowery, within an easy stroll of DBGB. And I hope DBGB’s loving homage will inspire those who flock there for sausage, saumon a l’oseille and “piggie burgers” to venture south on foot — because the Bowery is one captivating walk, from top to bottom.
Most people still perceive the boulevard in discrete sections: the gentrified blocks north of Houston Street; kitchen supply and electrical fixture-heaven below Houston; and Chinatown, south of Delancey.
But there’s a cheerful, disheveled continuity here, an exotic ramble not yet homogenized by Duane Reades and bank branches.
Much of the Bowery still looks as it must have 100 years ago: a procession of low-rise, utilitarian structures, keepers of secrets known only to the weathered bricks and mortar. Thanks to the street’s unusual width and mostly low-rise scale, it opens up like a time capsule, especially on sunny days.
The lighting-supply shops are crystal wonderlands, and fun to browse even if you don’t need more than a three-way bulb.
And all around, there’s weirdness to spare. A ghost sign for the old chocolate syrup U-Bet recently vanished, but signs for surviving businesses are amusing enough: Hawaii Restaurant Fixtures; The Bari pizza-oven building boasting of “dough retarders.”
And what exactly do they make at Jiangu Hengshundan Bioenergy Co.?
The Bowery can be compelling even where it’s most contemporary. Skip the John Varvatos boutique on the CBGB site and proceed to the New Museum’s bookstore, where the selection is not like those at other museums. I recently stumbled on “I Love New York, Crazy City,” a compilation of city-image collages by the German artist Isa Genzken.
Improbably enough, tucked amid the cover’s baffling images was the business card of one Dr. Martin J. Schwartz — a Third Avenue dentist who’s been my dentist for 30 years. (He has no idea how he scored free advertising on the cover of a coffee-table book retailing for $100.)
They’re sold out of the book right now, so you’ll have to settle for a volume of dissection photos (“A Rite of Passage in American Medicine: 1880-1930”), something called “NATO: The Military Codification System for the Ordering of Everything in the World,” and the indispensable “Iranian Typography.”
At the Collective Hardware gallery at 196 Bowery, neither a ground floor hung with large-scale photographs of rock musicians, nor a second floor full of vintage clothing and a retro-style hair salon, struck me as odd for this part of town.
What was peculiar was that, on Saturday afternoon, it was devoid of life except for myself and one other visitor. No manager or employee of any kind was in the house, although the front door was wide open. One might have wheeled the entire contents into a truck and not been questioned. On what other street do they trust the honor system?
Toss a glance at 190 Bowery — a vacant-looking former bank building. It remained a mystery until New York magazine revealed last year that the 72-room, 35,000-square-foot address is occupied by a single family: that of photographer Jay Maisel. Maisel bought it 42 years ago for $102,000 and likes it just the way it is — and has no intention of selling, despite brokers’ estimates that it’s worth up to $70 million.
Below Delancey, Chinatown engulfs the Bowery in a profusion of color, traffic, and monumental buildings like the Capitale event space at Elizabeth Street. The Canal Street corner is a chaotic intersection to love, with Canal making a diagonal eastward thrust while the Manhattan Bridge beckons you onto its pedestrian walkway to Brooklyn.
And, of course, there are restaurants — Chinese, Vietnamese and Malaysian. They’re not a designer’s evocation of the Bowery, like DBGB, but the Bowery itself, in its gritty glory.
IT’S A NEW RESTAURANT WALK OF FAME
Ready for a stroll? Here are some of the eateries that surround DBGB at the northern end of the Bowery:
DOUBLE CROWN, 316 Bowery (at Bleecker Street); 212-254-0350.
Playful clash of 19th-century British and colonial Asian cuisines — better executed than you’d expect, given the whimsical concept. Served amid tenement remnants and exotic fixtures.
SALA, 344 Bowery (at Great Jones Street); 212-979-6606.
Spanish tapas bar/restaurant was something of a pioneer 10 years ago, and is still going strong. Moody, faux-decayed setting for inexpensive “raciones” including some of the best gambas al ajillo I’ve had in ages.
GEMMA, 335 Bowery (at Third Street in the Bowery Hotel); 212-505-9100.
Predictable, inoffensive Italian menu in a vibrant setting that spills outside to a sidewalk cafe.
TABLE 8, 25 Cooper Square (Cooper Square Hotel, at Fifth Street); 212-475-5700.
Los Angeles star chef Govind Armstrong brings his seasonally attuned American menu to the noisiest dining room in town. Dishes priced most in the low $20s are compelling, if you can stand the racket.