Little Park 85 West Broadway (212-220-4110)
PHOTOGRAPH BY ERIC HELGAS FOR THE NEW YORKER
Andrew Carmellini’s latest Tribeca restaurant has a conundrum that could be filed under Good Problem to Have. The vegetable-focussed food is so good, so gorgeous and seasonal, that the setting, a curtained annex to the Smyth Hotel that has changed hands twice in the past two years, feels incongruously dispassionate. The blond-wood tables with straw-colored banquettes are nice enough, and the room is hushed and tasteful, but how lovely it would be to eat this exuberant food, like the luscious pea soup, in a garden! (A New Yorker can dream.) The soup is made from the freshest peas, puréed into a cool, thick Kelly-green cream, topped with a crunchy little salad of minted sugar-snap peas and a scoop of horseradish ice cream—this is the exquisite taste of summer.






