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Nick Solares

Nick Solares

Carnivore

Nick Solares is an NYC based food writer and photographer. He has published Beef Aficionado since 2007. He has been a Serious Eats contributor since 2008 and has written 400+ restaurant reviews and feature articles.

Nick has made numerous TV and radio appearances including Martha Stewart Radio, The Travel Channel and CBS Sunday Morning to discuss all things carnivorous. His photography has appeared in New York Magazine, Rolling Stone, Time Out NY, The New York Times and numerous other magazines and websites.

In 2011 Nick served as the creative director and principle photographer for Pat LaFrieda's Big App for Meat for the iPad, produced by Zero Point Zero Productions. The app is the definitive butcher's guide to every cut of beef, lamb, pork, veal and poultry and was awarded the coveted "App of the Week" by Apple upon its release.

  • Website
  • Location: NYC
  • Favorite foods: Griddle cooked hamburgers served on generic white buns, Neapolitan style pizza, dry aged USDA prime steak served black and blue, fish and chips cooked in beef tallow, vanilla ice cream.
  • Last bite on earth: A black label hamburger on the blends 100th anniversary in 2108.

First Look: Tres Carnes, Mexican-Flavored Barbecue with Texas Smoked Meat in the Flatiron

First Look: Tres Carnes, Mexican-Flavored Barbecue with Texas Smoked Meat in the Flatiron View Slideshow

Tres Carnes opened last week serving up a fusion of Mexican flavors and Texas-style smoked meats using the (dare I say it?) Chipotle service model. If the concept sounds familiar, the barbecue has a stronger pedigree than you may suspect—the restaurant has enlisted Mike Rodriguez as pit master, who spent almost a decade running the pits at the legendary Salt Lick in Texas. More

Steakcraft: Quality Meats' 'Butcher's Cut,' a 64 oz. Dry Aged Double Rib Steak

Steakcraft: Quality Meats' 'Butcher's Cut,' a 64 oz. Dry Aged Double Rib Steak View Slideshow

"People would fight over the bone, so we decided to give them two." This is the succinct answer that chef Stratos Georgedakis gives when I ask him how the preposterously sized rib steak for two came to have two bones when most everyone else serves one. There are plenty of steaks for two around town, but few top out at four pounds. More

New York: We Check Out the New Joe's Pizza

New York: We Check Out the New Joe's Pizza

New Yorkers may have enjoyed a renaissance of high-end pizza of late, especially for lovers of Neapolitan-style pies. But what is increasingly missing, especially in the East Village / Union Square area, is the middle ground: authentic NY slices for under $3, at the ideal intersection of cost and quality. Which is why I'm so giddy that Joe's has, at long last, expanded. And yes, folks, it's still the real deal. More

Steakcraft: Marc Forgione's Deceptively Complex Tomahawk Rib Steak

Steakcraft: Marc Forgione's Deceptively Complex Tomahawk Rib Steak View Slideshow

"What's more simple than cooking a steak?" asks Marc Forgione rhetorically of his dry aged tomahawk rib steak. And to Forgione it is simple, elemental even. It would be for you as well if your father was Larry Forgione, one of the deans of modern American cuisine, and if you had worked in restaurant kitchens your whole life before opening your own restaurant. More

Steakcraft: The Rib Steak at RedFarm

Steakcraft: The Rib Steak at RedFarm View Slideshow

Quality steak is not something that one generally expects to find in a Chinese restaurant, but Ed Schoenfeld and Joe Ng are changing all that at RedFarm, their avant garde Chinese American restaurant in Greenwich Village. The RedFarm rib steak has all the attributes of a steakhouse cu—a juicy, dry aged chop with charred grill marks cooked perfectly to order—but adds an unexpected and unique twist to the preparation. More

Steakcraft: Michael White's Steaks at Marea, Ai Fiori, and Osteria Morini

Steakcraft: Michael White's Steaks at Marea, Ai Fiori, and Osteria Morini View Slideshow

While chef Michael White is best know for his rococo interpretations of Italian cuisine, he is at heart a corn-fed Midwestern kid with a love of corn-fed American beef. This is evident at three of his Manhattan restaurants: Marea, Ai Fiori, and Osteria Morini. At each he serves one of the crown jewels of the butchers meat locker—the dry aged strip loin. And just as the respective restaurants offer different glimpses of the thematic elements that inspire them, so to is the handling of the same cut, leading to three very different, yet equally compelling results. More

Rome: Pizzarium

Rome: Pizzarium

I am not sure if it was the muted crunch that betrayed a crispness and airiness in the dough or the gasp of approval that left her lips as she finished the bite but I knew that something rather special was going on. I put down the camera and said "let me try that". What followed was a frenzied and orgiastic. We devoured all that lay before us. My camera was cast off like so many used napkins. Even Fashion Week and the need to look fabulously skinny was momentarily forgotten. The pizza at Pizzarium was quite simply extraordinary and completely irresistible. More

Rome: Da Baffeto II

Rome: Da Baffeto II

The pizza here is vanishingly thin—a perfect example of the Roman style pie. It is crispy to a degree, especially around the outer circumference, but it warps and deforms under the torrent of cheese and sauce. The molten cheese swirls and churns on the top of the pie and appears like a stormy sea. More

The Making of Michael White's White Label Hamburger at Ai Fiori

The Making of Michael White's White Label Hamburger at Ai Fiori View Slideshow

Ai Fiori is Italian fine dining phenom Michael White's latest restaurant venture. While White has made his name serving up world class Italian fair and garnering numerous stars from the New York Times and The Michelin Guide, he hails from Wisconsin and has a deep and abiding love, not to mention understanding, of the hamburger. Here's a look at how the White Label hamburger is made. More

Steakcraft: Marc Forgione's Deceptively Complex Tomahawk Rib Steak

@Phong623 the basting time is taken into account (at least by good chefs!)

@BostonAdam It was an interesting discourse but was ultimately not really pertinent to article in general. He has nothing against the technique but he doesn't think it is necessary with a fatty meat like ribsteak and more importantly he wanted to use classic techniques for what he considers a classic dish.

Steakcraft: Smith and Wollensky's 32 Ounce Rib Steak

@Kenji It is just a regular flat top! At one point the whole surface was a rippling blue flame.

Steakcraft: Smith and Wollensky's 32 Ounce Rib Steak

Thanks for all the comments! Steakcraft is precisely about finding out all the ways that dry aged steaks are cooked - from the most advanced molecular gastronomic techniques to the most elemental. S&W obviously falls into the latter - it is a classic steakhouse using time honored techniques that people obviously like - they sell 2 tons of beef a week!

The char they get on their steaks is a deliberate aesthetic choice - and as with all things subjective it is obviously up to individual preference. But to suggest that the there is something wrong with charring steaks doesn't make sense to me and I think the market has spoken quite emphatically in favor of the practice.

IF you don't like char ask for it to not be charred! My friend does it at Luger's all the time and gets a wonderful mahogany crust. Personally (as is indicated in the piece) I like my steak black and blue so I appreciate the fact that a steakhouse can achieve this. And as far a souv vide cooking goes a steakhouse would need a swimming pool sized C Vap to cook all the steaks and the medium rare order that is the most popular is hard to achieve.

I just did an interview with Marc Forgione for next weeks Steakcraft and he is totally opposed to the Sous Vide for steak for reasons that I will cover then. But I promise that we will be exploring souv vide steaks as well!

Steakcraft: Heritage Meats in the Essex Street Market

@ronnieshapley Unfortunately Jeffery's closed because of personal family issues. And no putting down Jeffrey's - they were a LES institution for the better part of a Century - but what Silva and Martins are doing with the space is truly unique.

Serious Eats Neighborhood Guides: Matt Fisher's Ridgewood

Carvel f***ing rules. Any ice cream parlor referenced in a Beastie Boys song gets instant street credibility.

Steakcraft: The Rib Steak at RedFarm

@burger365 I disagree. While wet aged beef of a lesser grade would benefit from the tenderizing effect of the papaya it would lose virtually all of its inherent flavor. Dry aged beef has far less water content than wet aged beef and also a far higher concentration of beef flavor. This, along with the steely tang of dry aging, really come through in the RedFarm steak. the dry aging acts as a compliment, rather than a redundancy, to the marination.

Steakcraft: The Steaks at Resto and The Cannibal

@adnan It isn't intentional and thanks for the heads up - I will look into it correct the problem.

Steakcraft: The Steaks at Resto and The Cannibal

@monopo The extra belt of fat left on the meat serves to protect the cut during cooking, allowing larger steaks to have greater portion of correctly cooked meat from edge to edge. Note that the bone has a similar effect on the other side of the chop. The presentation employed by Resto - steak sliced with all the extra fat thrown in for good measure - is actually quite common here in NYC and has its roots at Peter Luger's (amongst the city's oldest steakhouses) Chef Clark told me that he was initially leaving the fat off the plate but that customers complained. I happen to eat the fat, it is absolutely redolent with the flavor from dry aging - funky, mineral rich with blue cheese notes. But off course no one is forcing you to eat the fat, it is easy enough to trim off. The amount of edible beef is still plentiful - these are prime steers with large muscles. Also bare in mind that muscle is denser and weighs more than fat for the volume. The extra fat is not adversely impacting the bottom line of the product and is imbuing it with significant flavor.

Steak 'n Shake: The Quintessential American Cheeseburger

@sabuscott No one mentions that you could start a grease fire at your table because you can't.

A White Manna / White Mana Pilgrimage Revisited

@P_Monk_Key Seriously?

Tribeca: City Hall, Home of Pat LaFrieda's First Custom Burger Blend

@NYC Food Guy We pay for all of the food we review at Serious Eats. There are no behind the scenes photos. City Hall has an open kitchen of sorts - the burger on the grill images were taken from the dining room as was the the pictures of Chef Meer who was working the pass that night. He had no idea I was coming (to be honest I am not sure he even knows what AHT is) and I had already eaten the burger when I took the pictures of the him and the grill.

NYC: Get Great Sliders at Bill's Bar and Burger

Thanks so much for the kind words everyone (even Simon) I look forward to my return and am bracing for the nitpicking (nickpicking?)

Professors of Neapolitan Pizza to Open Don Antonio in Hell's Kitchen

Photo credit should read: Nick Solares

The Art of the Lunch Deal: Keen's Steakhouse

@rsurfer I think you will find that the common consensus around SE writers and indeed amongst NYC steak lovers is that Keen's is an EXCELLENT steakhouse. One of the best in the city, which is to say one of the best in the world. If your statement about the only good thing there being the steak I think that that is all that is required of a steakhouse. But I think that the sides and the service at Keen's are generally much better than adequate. I had a chuckle when you mentioned Luger's as you will hear often hear the same complaint about them.

Josh Capon's $45 White Truffle Burger from Burger and Barrel in Soho

@Fallopian Tube What is fabricated at about the story? The burger is available for sale at B&B. I am sure that Capon will be very upset that an internet troll doesn't respect him.

Burger & Barrel Makes One of My Top 5 Burgers in NYC

@jakethemate I assure you there was nothing unintentional about my choice of words.

@zedmund It really is.

@amusebouche1 You will have to wait for out yearly roundup in December.

@JohnNOLA The burger is about a great many things. The purist, minimal burger you describe is almost precisely (I prefer a griddle over a grill) what I recommended in my review.

Aloysius C. 'Al' Pawlowicz, Co-Owner of Pizzaland, Dies at 49

@SeriousB Thanks, I didn't think that too many people would notice a comment on an old post.

Josh Capon's $45 White Truffle Burger from Burger and Barrel in Soho

@sarar Sorry, I should have mentioned that I will be reviewing B&B next week and will cover the White Truffle burger and the more affordable options as well.

The Art of the Lunch Deal: Bar Stuzzichini

@gargupie Salted but under dressed.Didn't get to the crostini.

@chiffonte No one is denying that we have always had plenty of Italian restaurants in NYC. But in the last few years Eataly, 'intoteca, SD26, A Voce and Bar Stuzz have all opened within a few blocks of each other (that is what I meant when I said "local") That is significant. A few years ago the only lines in the vicinity were for burgers at Shake Shack, now there are lines outside of Eataly.

Where to Get Deep Dish Pizza in NYC? Not at L'asso

@carreet The pizza I had was very far from the "great" that you describe. I will agree that it is a work in progress. I can't recommend L'asso simply because it is the only game in town or because 2 $16 pies are enough for 6 people. I agree that is more interesting than doing another thin crust pie, but that doesn't excuse the execution.

Where to Get Deep Dish Pizza in NYC? Not at L'asso

@Prairie You would be disappointed. A picture may be worth a thousand words but it won't tell you how something tastes.

@ Seriousb: It is grated ricotta salata, there was mozzarella underneath (although not nearly enough) I don't think it was a mistake as their website has an image of the pie with the shredded cheese on top.

The Art of the Lunch Deal: Resto

@piztaster The burger contains pork which is the reason they only serve it cooked through.

The Art of the Lunch Deal: 21 Club

@gargupie yes, a decent sized basket of fresh tasting white rolls and an excellent raisin crisp bread was provided. Jackets required (but not ties)

Pizza Obsessives: Hong-An Tran, Slice Snapshot Artist Extraordinaire

@bronsonman You certainly have a lot of rules. Is there anything else we should be banned from photographing? How about buildings or people or animals or sunsets? What exactly is disgusting about photographing food? Who says that those that photograph their food are not enjoying it? And what exactly constitutes "taking it to far"? Earth to bronsonman - you are on a FOOD BLOG. What do you expect to find here??? Or perhaps more saliently - what are you doing here?

Pizza Obsessives: Hong-An Tran, Slice Snapshot Artist Extraordinaire

@SeriousB/AK It isn't the narrow DOF or the lack of flash, both of these are attainable with digital. Infact one could argue that digital has exceeded film in low light capability. My Nikon D700 for example has usable ISO up to 6400 and with a 50mm f1.2 lens I can get incredibly narrow DOF in very low light. The new D3S reportedly goes up ISO 128,000! (Canon's offerings are, I am sure, comparable although I am not familiar with their line) But what separates digital from film in my eyes is what Norman alludes to - color rendition and saturation. There is a vividness and a three dimensionality that I see in film that is not entirely present in digital.

Of course digital has come a long way and from a pro's perspective (especially for sports shooters and news photographers) the convenience and the cost and time savings tend to out weigh the aesthetic consideration.

Check this article out for more on the technical differences:

http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/filmdig.htm

Full English Breakfast Pizza

Full English Breakfast Pizza

[Photograph: jerakeen on Flickr] I like the full English breakfast, and I like pizza, but I'm not sure if I'd want to combine the two. Sure, this photo was uploaded to Flickr in 2005, but it's new to me. I just found it on oddee.com's roundup of "the 13 weirdest pizzas." Also in weird-pizza roundup posts, Urlesque does a "Pizza Is Crazy in Asia" video perp walk. But, hey, faithful Slice readers, you already knew that.... More

Meat Master Can Tell Cow's Age, Gender, and Breed After One Bite

Meat Master Can Tell Cow's Age, Gender, and Breed After One Bite

[Photograph: Robyn Lee] Lauren Vernet of the University of Bristol is known for having a "perfect palate for tasting meat." In this feature at The Independent, Kate Hilpern does a steak tasting with Vernet to learn about their different flavors (mushroom, malt, sour milk, and more) while getting Vernet's insight on how maturation period, breed, sex, and feed affect the flavor of beef. What's the best kind of beef? Vernet says it's based on individual preference: "Provided it's good-quality well-reared beef, you can't (as some butchers and chefs do) say one type is categorically better than another." He does say that a good steak should give three to four chews per mouthful: "You chew beef at the back of... More

Hot Dog Of The Week: Texas Weiners

Hot Dog Of The Week: Texas Weiners

Past Weeks' Dogs The Philly ComboTijuana DogsFlo's Hot Dogs, Cape Neddick, Maine The first, possibly most important thing to note about Texas Weiners is that they have absolutely nothing to do with Texas. Originating in Paterson, New Jersey, at Greek-owned hot dog restaurants, a Texas Weiner is deep fried and served with Greek sauce--a smooth, slow cooked meat sauce spiced with cayenne, cinnamon, allspice, cloves and cumin. It's more of a Greek Bolognese or Saltsa Kima than anything resembling Texas Chili. Legend has it the recipe is a closely guarded secret to this day. A Texas Weiner "all the way" includes mustard and diced onions. Texas Weiners also spread to Philadelphia and across Central and Northeastern Pennsylvania, where they... More

Shabu Shabu House in Los Angeles

Shabu Shabu House in Los Angeles

Yoshinobu Maruyama emigrated from his native Japan to the United States over three decades ago. After many years of work as a restaurant consultant and international trader he decided it was time to introduce shabu shabu to America. In Japanese, "shabu shabu" literally translates to "swish swish" and refers to the technique employed in preparing the dish. You take razor thin slices of beef and submerge them into a pot of boiling water—it cooks almost instantly. The beef is accompanied by an assortment of vegetables, noodles, and tofu that are also cooked in the water and served over rice. While some say the dish originated with Genghis Khan, it appeared in Maruyama's native Osaka in the early 20th century.... More

The Best Steak in NYC Might Not Be in a Steakhouse

The Best Steak in NYC Might Not Be in a Steakhouse

A few years ago I would have said that it was not possible but these days there is a paradigm shift occurring in high-end beef in New York City—an extraordinary cut of beef is being offered in three avant-garde but very different restaurants in the city: Tom Collichio’s Craft, David Chang's Momofuku Ssam Bar and Resto (with new chef Bobby Helen) collectively pose a serious challenge to the hegemony of the chophouse. More