Midtown Lunch

It seems like it’s been awhile since a lunch spot like French Cafe Gourmand has opened in the Financial District – as in a place that’s not a chain or a new branch of a chain. No, this cafe on Maiden Lane (btw. B’way & Nassau) is run by actual French people and they sell a small selection of items including coffee, soup, salads, sandwiches and some French pastries and baked goods. When I went in to check it out, I could almost for five seconds imagine that I was somewhere else but Manhattan (or at least in cafe-heavy Tribeca or Soho).

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In recent months I’ve seen multiple posts about Famous Ben’s Pizza on Spring St. (at Thompson) and their Palermo slice. It looked like a delicious brick of carbs, perhaps made not such a gut bomb by its absence of cheese. Then there was a post last week by Ben Leventhal basically calling the slices at Artichoke Basille’s overpriced crap (my words, not his) s0 I opted to head up to Soho for a taste of Famous Ben’s. What I found was a good pizza experience slightly soured by tourists.

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I probably wasn’t the only one surprised by the Twitter announcement on Tuesday of another food truck lot spawning downtown. The lot’s called the Lent Space Food Truck Court at Hudson Square, located at 70 Varick (at Grand) next to Duarte Park, and it’s another one involving the NYC Food Truck Association’s members, like the collection at the World Financial Center five days a week.

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As is customary here on Midtown Lunch, every Tuesday we’ll profile a different lunch’er and get their recommendations for places to eat in Downtown NYC. This week, we have the president of the Alliance for Downtown NY, Liz Berger, who not only works in lower Manhattan, but has also lived there for 30 years.

Name: Liz Berger

Occupation: President, Alliance for Downtown New York

Where you work: Broadway between Cedar and Pine streets

Age: 51

Favorite kinds of food: Anything delicious, fresh and not too sweet, from Shaun Hergatt’s take on haute cuisine to the fantastic new food trucks at the World Financial Center.  Right now, I’m craving crunchy, Asian home style and fusion, Italian or anything grilled, but I’m easily entranced by other flavors and cuisines.  I love to eat, am fascinated by foodways, and co-authored a book about food many years ago in which I interviewed Julia Child, among other great cooks, chefs and food writers.  I’ll never forget what she said her favorite dessert was:  a perfectly ripe pear.

Least favorite foods: I’m embarrassed to say that I don’t like yogurt, a staple of so many cuisines and a really versatile lunch.  I’m also not so fond of dishes that gild the lily – lobster mac and cheese, brownie hot fudge sundae, anything “supersized”; while I’m happy to redefine authenticity, sometimes more is too much!

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