Where Patricia Howard and Ed Szymanski of Dame and Lord’s Go for Date Night in New York

Ed Szymanski: Cosme’s chef, Gustavo [Garnica], is just a really down-to-earth talented guy. He makes intelligently simple foods, a very farmers-market-driven thing. Both Dame and Lord’s are pretty heavily influenced by local produce and seasonality, and I see that in Gus’s food a lot too, but refracted through the lens of Mexican heritage, which is just such a delicious cuisine. We use the same farms – Lani’s, Norwich Meadows, Bodhi Tree – at the Union Square Farmers Market – so it’s really cool to see their take on the same produce. And with the perfect balance of refinement and playfulness.

The octopus tostada is a good example of his style of cooking. It’s very flavor-forward and ingredients-focused, but not fussy. It’s very well-cooked octopus with chile sauce, and then lots of fresh herbs on top.

Patricia Howard: They have a seasonal tlayuda that changes each season. We go to Cosme four to six times a year and it’s always a different set on that. Their ceviche or crudo has a lot of lime juice and many different types of fish depending on the season. It’s a very fresh, light style of cooking that we tend to enjoy on our days off. The corn husk meringue has been on their menu ever since they opened but we have to get it every time because it’s so delicious. I like savory desserts, so it brings a saltiness. The corn mousse on the inside has a lot of salt and that’s what I like in a dessert. We love drinking margaritas, and they have a bunch from the more classical to one with shiso that I also love.

Howard: We’ve been loving Chambers. They have the best wine list in New York City, according to Ed. And the food is amazing. The chef [Jonathan Karis] does a Sungold eggplant parm in the summer, and it’s one of my favorite dishes in New York. He’s using whatever’s at the farmers market. So it’s fun to go regardless of the season and see what he’s coming up with. It pairs really well with [beverage director] Pascaline [Lepeltier] and [head sommelier] Ellis [Srubas-Giammanco]’s wine list.

Szymanski: They’re doing lots of fun stuff with tomatoes, corn, and new season potatoes, which are not something that people consider to be a seasonal product, but they are. They’re much more delicious when they’re freshly dug. The chef does a really nice brown butter Hollandaise on top of that. The larger meat entrées are very thoughtfully garnished. In the spring, there are lots of peas and fava beans, while in the summer it’ll be peppers and corn and tomatoes. It’s really yummy stuff.

The wine list has a range of everything. It’s very value-focused, which is important to note because for most current wine lists that get a lot of press attention, the price gouging is very significant. You know, you just say a few trendy buzzwords, and anyone who writes about wine will just say, ‘Oh, natural wine, this is amazing.’ That’s a very reductive take on it. What Pascaline and Ellis have built is a multi-decades-long project of cataloging the world’s winemakers, through tasting and getting to know these people and visiting them.

It is rare to find that amount of stuff in general, and specifically, vintage stuff at that price point. And they could easily charge double what they are for it, but they care about people drinking the wine so they don’t.

Howard: Rosella has this delicious, crave-able style of sushi that’s not super expensive or fussy. That seems to be a trend with the things that we like — nothing pretentious, but still really high-quality ingredients and care put into the foods. Whenever we leave an omakase, we’re still kind of hungry, but that never happens at Rosella. You can order à la carte and we always order too much. But their shtick is sustainable seafood, so they source domestically, which is just an interesting way to enjoy high-end sushi.

The fatty tuna roll is one of my favorite bites in New York. It’s very simply done. It’s just rice, a little soy, and the tuna, but delicious. You can taste how superior the fish is there and for it not to come from Japan is just a cool education for guests.

They also have a fun all-American wine list with great oranges and rosés that pair really well with food.

Szymanski: We often go on Sunday night, when we’re off and they’re open, and at the end of the night they’ll make up a rice bowl with all the best fish they have, like uni, trout roe, hiramasa, tuna, and Arctic char, and all kinds of delicious stuff. It’s a really delicious, over-the-top indulgence, I guess, so that’s a very enjoyable thing.

Howard: We love going to Superiority Burger for dessert after a meal at Rosella. Everything that [pastry chef] Darcy [Spence] touches is amazing. We have to get the gelato and then whatever griddle cake she’s making. There was a cherry pie right when they opened, but now they’re using strawberries. Everything was delicious. When Superiority Burger was a takeout window, it was one of our favorite spots, and it got us through COVID. Now that they have a larger space, it’s nice that we can continue to pop in for dessert whenever.

Szymanski: Like a lot of the other restaurants we enjoy, they make very good use of the farmers market and fresh products in season, which taste a lot better than stuff that comes out of a box and shipped from halfway around the world. They’re very elemental. [Chef-owner] Brooks [Headley] worked at a four-star New York Times restaurant [the now-closed Del Posto] as pastry chef, so his food could easily tend towards stuffy or precious. But it’s not. It’s a kind of Americana-y dessert applied with a more thoughtful lens. How can we make our cooking better every time? It’s never complicated. Always really simple and really flavor forward.

I think it’s about technique more than anything else. It’s testing recipes again and again and improving them. And you know, they have a very fancy gelato machine.

They have a funnel cake on their menu that’s unlike a funnel cake you would get at a state fair. I think it’s made with cornmeal and topped with fresh fruit and labneh gelato. It’s the best funnel cake I’ve ever had.