FOOD ARCHIVES North End Grill: Bacon + Peanut Butter = Pizza
by Lauren Bloomberg
With all of the hype leading up to the opening of Danny Meyer and Floyd Cardoz’s new Battery Park City eatery, North End Grill, there’s one thing you probably didn’t realize. That some of the duo’s most interesting flavor combinations can’t be ordered in the dining room.
Snag a seat, before one of the suited post-bell Goldman guys, at one of the half-dozen tables in the bar area and you’ll be rewarded with a fairly reasonably priced assortment of bar bites. There are grilled mushrooms that are balanced with a tangy dash of vinegar and cubes of compacted ground chorizo atop honey-soaked toast, but look beyond the tacos for what may be the most innovative pizza in New York. Or at least the most bacon-y.
A personal-size pizza is topped with crunchy bacon crumbles — the real stuff, not bacon bits made of fabricated chemicals. But the brilliance is in the condiment. Shmear the provided peanut butter onto each slice for a topping that would make Elvis swoon, and could convince an Upper East Sider to traverse the subway system to this former food-no-man’s-land for a hot Saturday night.
North End Grill,
104 North End Grill, near Murray Street,
646-747-1600, northendgrillnyc.com