The Insiders | Ben Leventhal and Lockhart Steele

In 2005, Ben Leventhal and Lockhart Steele founded Eater, a local blog about New York City’s restaurant and nightlife industries. Soon after, the site expanded to Los Angeles and then San Francisco and, as of Friday, went live with a national presence. It has also just rolled out “Eater 38,” a round-up of the go-to dining establishments in each of the site’s three satellite cities. Here, the duo share their favorite finds in their own backyards.

Age:
Ben Leventhal: 30
Lockhart Steele: 35

Occupation:
Leventhal: Head Eater
Steele: President of Curbed.com LLC.

Home Base:
Leventhal: Financial District (FiDi)
Steele: Lower East Side, Rivington Street

Neighborhood Haunts:
Leventhal: I have a thing for hardware stores. Weinstein & Holtzman on Park Row is a gorgeous, old-school hardware store. You can find anything you can think of there. I like the dog park on Water and Pearl: it’s tiny but surrounded by green on all sides. NY Vintners on Warren is a really great small-shop wine store.

Canteens:
Leventhal: Barbarini Alimentari — the spicy squid-ink linguini with seafood is great, and they have a market attached, which I love and where you get amazingly good homemade Italian almond cookies. Rosella’s Pizza on Williams is the perfect New York slice and, by sheer luck, is a half block from my apartment. Beyond my neighborhood, Locanda Verde, the Spotted Pig, Barbuto and a little place we like to callthe Balth.
Steele: Schiller’s is my neighborhood canteen. The huevos rancheros at brunch on weekends, cheeseburger with blue cheese most other times. We’re at Lure a lot. Whatever [Josh] Capon wants us to eat; he’s always playing with new things and convincing us to try something new. And increasingly, since it’s near the office, DBGB. It has Wi-Fi (you have to ask for the password), so we sit there in the afternoon and get work done. Leventhal slags it, but the Frenchie burger is really good.

Watering Holes:
Leventhal: I don’t really have any. I kind of don’t do watering holes.
Steele: There’s a bar called the Scratcher on East Fifth, across from the office. That’s the office watering hole, and we go to Tom & Jerry’s a lot — total New York classic. I also love Madam Geneva, the back bar at Double Crown on Bowery. (These are all in between my home and office.)

New Restaurants (already opened favorites):
Leventhal: Joseph Leonard and the Standard Grill.
Steele: I heard Leventhal say Joseph Leonard, which is unfortunate, because I’d pick it too. That new taco spot Los Feliz, in the old Suba space on Ludlow Street, is pretty wild. And Michael Hyunh, the Bao guy’s crazy new Bia Garden place on Orchard Street is cool. They only serve beer in buckets of six; it’s kind of genius.

Not-Even-New Restaurant (soon-to-open favorite):
Leventhal: The Breslin and Pulino’s, where they’re going to soft-open with breakfast.
Steele: I’m really excited about Travertine on Kenmare Street.

Hidden Gem:
Leventhal: Le Bilboquet for Cajun chicken.
Steele: My favorite steakhouse in Manhattan, and I can’t go often enough, is Strip House. There’s a tableside porterhouse for two that’s spectacular.

First-Date Location:
Leventhal: Upstairs at Bouley.
Steele: Frankie’s 17 on Clinton Street.

Power Breakfast:
Leventhal: The Balth.
Steele:Balthazar.

Power Lunch:
Leventhal: I don’t really lunch.
Steele: Five Points.

Most Comfy Restaurant Seat:
Leventhal: The Four Seasons: Mies van der Rohe’s Brno chair.

Street Cart:
Leventhal: No.
Steele: No. I don’t do street carts. Oh, no, wait a second, I’m going right now. The Mud Truck on Astor Place. I’m here right now because the only person who wanted coffee [in the office] was Leventhal.

Late-Night Snack:
Leventhal: Pizza turkey burger from Waverly Restaurant on Sixth Avenue.
Steele: Corn chips and salsa.

Maître D':
Leventhal: Arnold at Minetta Tavern
Steele: Robert at Lure.

Bar Keep:
Leventhal: Steele will sort that one out.
Steele: The dude who does Sunday brunch at Schiller’s. I wish I knew his name.

Dish You Wish Would Make a Comeback:
Leventhal: Tortoni.

Ingredients:
Leventhal: Cavatelli, brussels sprouts, basil, spaetzle.
Steele: I love red pepper flakes.

Provisions:
Leventhal: My refrigerator and pantry are totally empty right now except for a bottle of Betts & Scholl Chronique Grenache 2005 and, from his publicist, David Ortiz’s new Big Papi hot sauce.
Steele: I drink an enormous amount of 2 percent milk; there’s usually a six-pack of Budweiser in my refrigerator too.

Producers:
Steele: I do most of my cooking in Maine during the summer, and the Portland farmers’ markets are a huge source of joy for me.

Food Critic:
Leventhal: Alan Richman.
Steele: Steve Cuozzo.

Eater.com’s Secret Weapon:
Leventhal: Various restaurateurs who are out to get each other and shall remain nameless.
Steele: Kate Krader — the center of the New York food universe.

Cookbook:
Leventhal: “On The Line,” by Eric Ripert. And I just used Francis Mallmann’s “Seven Fires” to make my own spaetzle, and it wasn’t a disaster.
Steele: Mark Bittman‘s “How to Cook Everything.”

Untapped Food City:
Leventhal: We’re launching Eater Portland, and I think that’s untapped. I don’t know it well enough yet, but it’s clearly about to have a moment.
Steele: Providence, R.I., where I went to college.

Current Gadget Obsession:
Leventhal: My new Illy X7 espresso machine. It’s life-changing.
Steele: This summer I got obsessed with the idea of buying a telescope, so that’s going to be my next purchase.

Uniform:
Leventhal: It’s Seize-sur-Vingt shirts; Diesel biker jeans; I’m wearing Varvatos boots these days; and I’ve worn the same Panerai Luminor GMT for 10 years. Also the Gap is making really well-cut shirts these days.
Steele: A pair of Earnest Sewn jeans and some sort of anywhere-from-mildly-to-completely-outlandish shirt. Paul Smith’s a favorite.

Retail Standby:
Leventhal: J. Crew
Steele: I like the SoHo men’s store Sean. I go to Paul Smith in SoHo a lot.

Groomer:
Leventhal: Dominick at Joseph Martin. He is a genius. Also, Mike Bayani at Equinox Greenwich Avenue, my trainer, is another genius.
Steele: Dominick. Thanks to Leventhal for getting me hooked on that.

Soles:
Leventhal: I find myself coming back to Prada drivers. Also, my Air Levy 08s (Nike iD) have proved somewhat durable.
Steele: I don’t love any shoes. Well, I guess you could say, for sneakers, I love New Balance.

Momentary Style Obsessions:
Leventhal: Monograms on casual shirts.
Steele: I’m so not the person who has a momentary style obsession.

Music:
Leventhal: I’m strangely drawn to “Somebody’s Watching Me,” from Rockwell. It’s the song from the Geico commercial, but the original is a great track. Also, still listening to that “Leonard Cohen Live From the Beacon” show podcast, and Stevie Wonder’s version of “We Can Work It Out.”
Steele: I don’t have anything clever to say about what I’m listening to now. But, you know, back in the day I wrote a book about Phish, so I went to the reunion shows this summer. Had a total blast.

Favorite Concert:
Leventhal: The Concert for New York right after 9/11 was pretty epic. I worked on it and watched most of it from the stage. Little-known fact: I was holding the cue cards for when John Cusack intro-ed the Who.
Steele: Phish, Madison Square Garden, New Year’s 1995.

Film:
Leventhal: I’ve watched Roman Polanski’s “Ninth Gate” again recently and enjoyed it.
Steele: “The 25th Hour” by Spike Lee. It’s my favorite New York movie; it’s the best thing anyone’s done on post-9/11 artistically, and I don’t know how he did it — it was only a year later.

Reading Material — Blogs:
Leventhal: The G Manifesto is like “The Office” for new-world gangsters. It’s a must-read blog these days.
Steele: Deadspin, the Gawker sports blog, is an absolute vital daily read right now.

Reading Material — Tomes:
Leventhal: I’m interviewing Frank Bruni at the Food & Wine festival in New York this week, so I’ve been reading a lot of critics’ memoirs. Ruth Reichl’s and Jay Rainer’s are both very different and good.
Steele: I loved Dexter Filkins’s “Forever War.”

Museum or Work of Art:
Leventhal: There’s a really cool exhibit right now at the Transit Museum’s Gallery Annex in Grand Central on the various capital improvements going on underground in New York City. Also, anything Alexander Calder ever did.
Steele: The community I grew up in, where I go in Maine, is where Winslow Homer painted. I love his big oil paintings like “The Gulf Stream” (1899). I think the Musee D’Orsay is great.

Repeat Destination:
Leventhal: Paris. Is that too down the middle? I really like all the semi-private dining tables, where you call the chef and give him three hours’ notice. They’re top secret, though.
Steele: I lived in Paris, and like everybody else who’s gotten used to being there, I always want to go back. Istanbul — I’ve been twice and find myself drawn back there. Hungary and Budapest, I spent time there when I was working at Gawker. It’s like a smaller, more awesome, emerging Paris in some ways.

New Destination:
Leventhal: I was just there briefly, but I need to go back and really explore Tel Aviv.
Steele: Patagonia. I’m trying to find a way to go there for New Year’s; Buenos Aires, too.

Restaurant Worth Traveling To:
Leventhal: Dave’s Grill in Montauk. It’s all about the lobster pasta and the lobster roll. The secret of Dave’s is that they only use claw meat.
Steele: I love Pizzeria Mozza in Los Angeles.

Neighbors:
Steele: There’s a guy named Kevin who owns Tiny’s Giant Sandwich Shop across the street from Schiller’s, and he gives me the best neighborhood gossip. I get a lot of Curbed.com information from him. I live above the bar Verlaine, and the four dudes who run that bar are salt-of-the-earth, great guys. They restart my water heater.

Guilty Pleasure:
Leventhal: My Loro Piana cashmere trench; doggy day care at the Paw Stop on Murray Street for my Shiba Inu, Jane; Marvis Aqua Mint toothpaste; vintage Rolex Milsub watches.
Steele: The TV show “Survivor.”