Amanda Cohen’s Allen Street restaurant, Dirt Candy, is rebooting next month with a tasting menu-only format at dinnertime.
She explained the changes in an article published earlier today by Forbes:
Amanda Cohen’s vegetable-focused Lower East Side restaurant will re-launch on September 5, as a tasting menu only, vegetable-focused concept, more intimate and reminiscent of the original Dirt Candy. “We sort of run two restaurants every night,” Cohen said over the sounds of her prep cooks blending and chopping in preparation for Friday night service. “It became apparent in the last few months that it was too hard to do both [a tasting menu and a la carte service] so we had to make a choice.” The choice: Returning to cultivating a dining experience echoing the original Dirt Candy, the 18-seat East Village spot that launched Cohen’s fame as one of New York’s early vegetable deities.
Cohen said she’s grown up along with her customers, and is looking forward to creating a restaurant that feels like a special experience (she’s done with diners showing up in their track pants). She explained her thinking in an email that went out a little while ago.
The a la carte menu will still be available for brunch. Beginning Sept. 5, you’ll have two choices a $57 tasting featuring many of Dirt Candy’s greatest hits and an $83 tasting that will be more experimental.
Dirt candy opened at 86 Allen St. in 2015.
