NYMag's epic piece on Freeman's and Rusty Knot owner Taavo Somer came out this morning. We're posting about it now because...well, because it took us all day to get through it. Thesis: the thing is ridick (choice sentence: "Somer, 35, is widely called Taavo even by people who’ve never met him.") If you don't feel like wading through the whole thing yourself, we've pulled out some choice quotes:
Somer's aesthetic: "Somer's aesthetic is different, built around the idea that rougher edges and cheaper materials can have an unexpected power if carefully arranged...Somer is drawn to contradictions—a T-shirt at a department store!"
The Paradox of Freeman's: "Eating at Freemans is not cheap—dinner for two can easily run to $100—but it feels cheap, which to a certain kind of New Yorker is an even better, guilt-assuaging deal."
Love/Hate relationship with hipsters: "'He's going to hate me for saying this, but he's kind of become the patron saint of hipsters,' says MacPherson. 'They follow him, and he rejects it. The more he rejects it, the more he becomes it.'"
Today the Rusty Knot is open for its first lunch service. According to an onsite report, the place is empty, the Hudson, glistening, and "Quino is there himself, wearing shorts." [EaterWire]
Toby Maloney, bartender and 'mixologist' at Ken Friedman's Rusty Knot defends the place's lack of jiggers to an eGullet poster who misses them: "Not every bar needs jiggers. Sometimes they just don't look right. If you are in a regular bar, there is a juke playing Led Zepplin, the bartender is wearing a black Peaches t-shirt and ripped jeans, the jigger comes off as being stingy with the booze. Not a good look. I am instituting a program where the drink is made freepour, then tasted, then if it is out of balance, corrected with fresh lime or lemon or simple." [eG]
At most bars and restaurants these days everything from the lighting fixtures to the stool upholstery to the bartender's mustache is chosen to fit an exact theme. At schmancy cocktail joints like Hotel Delamano the theme is classic 1920s (or perhaps it's Deadwood). At Merkato 55, the theme seems to be kitschy African dance club. And at the newly opened Rusty Knot, every detail from the wood paneled walls to the ship's wheel to the mismatched furniture, is meant to say homey 'nautical' dive bar. But, as far as owner Ken Friedman was concerned, the place wasn't truly finished, wasn't perfectly coherent, without this mural (above), installed over the weekend. Commissioned for the bar and painted by biker/artist Robert Garey, it features two babes, a tankerbattleship, a harbor, and some ominous clouds—just the scene you want to gaze upon while ordering a Dark and Stormy or a can of Dale's.
· Overcrowding at the Knot [~E~]
· Opening Report Coda: Rusty Knot Opens Tonight [~E~]
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NYMag's epic piece on Freeman's and Rusty Knot owner Taavo Somer came out this morning. We're posting about it now because...well, because it took us all day to get through it. Thesis: the thing is ridick (choice sentence: "Somer, 35, is widely called Taavo even by people who’ve never met him.") If you don't feel like wading through the whole thing yourself, we've pulled out some choice quotes: 
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