Root & Bone, a traditional Southern food restaurant, opened last week in Alphabet City. After having worked together in Miami at the popular southern food restaurant Yardbird, Jeff McInnis and Janine Booth, both previous Top Chef contestants, partnered together to open their own restaurant in New York City. The menu is focused on a revival of rural and coastal American cooking that uses seasonal, locally-sourced ingredients of only the highest quality.

This concept has been long in the works and is finally open and creating a lot of buzz. Menu items include a fried chicken brined in sweet tea and served with tabasco honey, the classic southern shrimp and grits, a blue crab Waldorf salad and of course fried chicken and waffles. In case you weren’t salivating yet, Crystal Cullison, pastry chef at Root & Bone, is also offering delicious southern sweets such as Mississippi mud pie, coconut layer cake and a kitchen sink sundae!

The antique/farmhouse looking restaurant also has a takeout counter (The Little Root Market) which offers many options such as buckets of chicken, pie, sandwiches and soft serve from lunch through to late night. To take a look at the menu and some photos of the space, click here

A new French restaurant is set to open in the brand new Ludlow hotel on Ludlow Street in the Lower East Side. Rich Torrisi, Jeff Zalaznick and Mario Carbone, known as the Torrisi Team of Major Food Group, are working together to put the last touches on the restaurant, Dirty French. In the meantime, so as not to keep us waiting too long, the Ludlow Lobby Bar will have a soft opening tonight!

The bar space is still having some minor work done, however the bar and outside seating area will be open tonight for anyone who wants to check it out and get a drink. David Waugh from Major Food Group’s ZZ Clam bar has been working with infamous drink-maker Dan Nicolaescu to create an exciting cocktail list. To check out the original cocktail menu and read more about the soft opening click here