"The East Village has been a walking graveyard for years now, sputtering along as a cover-band version of itself. "
Correct. Now it is "Murray Hill South".
April 6, 2017 at 6:50 AM
Anonymous said...
So we are basically the modern-day Rolling Stones, he is saying. Sad!
April 6, 2017 at 11:08 AM
Anonymous said...
Have only been there once, agree with Sietsema's "heavy and gluey" description, but nonetheless sad to see it go. Once again, the EV gets a little less cool and original.
April 6, 2017 at 1:54 PM
Anonymous said...
Perhaps it could become a catering service.
April 6, 2017 at 1:54 PM
Anonymous said...
Always preferred Souen where I ate at least 20 times a year and some years double that. Just once at Angelika was enough for me but will ever mourn the loss of Souen.
April 6, 2017 at 2:22 PM
Anonymous said...
Anonymous, there is still Souen, one on E. 6th St., one in Soho. I think they're successors to the original. souen.net
Owner Leslie McEachern said that "making the numbers work week in and week out is just not viable for us anymore."
Since the announcement broke on March 24, the restaurant at 300 E. 12th St. near Second Avenue has been full of well-wishers turning out for a last of Angelica's vegetarian cuisine.
Eater's Robert Sietsema paid a final visit.
In addition to real estate woes — and the refusal to take any kind of plastic as payment — Angelica Kitchen’s problem may have been the food. It tended to be heavy and gluey and bland, true to the cuisine it came from. Yet that sort of vegetarian cooking can still excite reverence and nostalgia. I, for one, will be sad to see this vestige of the old East Village vanish.
And at The New Yorker, Jay Sacher, a former Angelica's employee, pens an essay under the headline "The East Village Loses Another Place for the Young, Hungry, and Weird." He writes about delivering food to Joey Ramone and recalls other celebrity encounters at the restaurant.
But, really, it’s the non-famous folks I remember most: Spencer, always walking into work with a purple plastic Kim’s Video bag in one hand, stuffed full of records—a man of obscure and eclectic musical tastes who was prone to saying things like, “The only good Beatles song is ‘Norwegian Wood.’"
And...
The East Village has been a walking graveyard for years now, sputtering along as a cover-band version of itself. For me, the loss of Angelica marks its true and complete ending. I know, of course, that such things are relative, and other New Yorks will exist for other younger waves of the young, hungry, and weird, but it does nothing to soften my lament for the passing of this one.
This weekend, the restaurant is hosting a memorabilia sale... selling off "chopsticks to food processors to sculpture."
6 Comments
Close this window Jump to comment form"The East Village has been a walking graveyard for years now, sputtering along as a cover-band version of itself. "
Correct. Now it is "Murray Hill South".
April 6, 2017 at 6:50 AM
So we are basically the modern-day Rolling Stones, he is saying. Sad!
April 6, 2017 at 11:08 AM
Have only been there once, agree with Sietsema's "heavy and gluey" description, but nonetheless sad to see it go. Once again, the EV gets a little less cool and original.
April 6, 2017 at 1:54 PM
Perhaps it could become a catering service.
April 6, 2017 at 1:54 PM
Always preferred Souen where I ate at least 20 times a year and some years double that. Just once at Angelika was enough for me but will ever mourn the loss of Souen.
April 6, 2017 at 2:22 PM
Anonymous, there is still Souen, one on E. 6th St., one in Soho. I think they're successors to the original. souen.net
April 6, 2017 at 8:45 PM