Milk Street Cafe Soft Opens For Previews, Offers Up A Diverse Menu

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Last night, Boston-based restaurant and catering company, Milk Street Cafe, hosted a private preview event at their soon-to-be opened New York City location in the Trump Building at 40 Wall Street. Unlike their Boston outpost, the Manhattan space will introduce a brand new concept for the company: a 23,000 square foot ‘food hall’ featuring a high-end selection of gourmet cuisine. Think "Eataly," but instead of Italian specialty counters, the food will be international in scope.

Thanks to a 15,000 square foot kitchen, all food will be freshly prepared on-site daily for each of the various food stations, which will include: a barista station, made-to-order breakfasts, made-from-scratch breads, desserts and pastries, pasta bar, Asian specialties, sushi bar, two create-your-own salad bars (one vegetarian, one not), homemade soups, a grill, a rotisserie and a carving station. The diverse menu is the brainchild of Executive Chef, Steven Mettle.

According to the restaurant's owner, Marc Epstein, it's all about the customer experience at Milk Street. Keeping that in mind, the space will introduce all kinds of innovations such as Produce Soak Sinks (they will be the first in NYC to install a sophisticated whirlpool system for cleaning fruits and vegetables), Flat Technology tables (making it the first NYC restaurant to use this new invention from Australia), Line Busters (a hand held checkout system to speed-up the payment process for those using credit cards), and a website that will allow customers to sort by dietary needs (ie: if a customer is vegan, it will automatically eliminate all non-vegan items from the menu).

At the preview event, guests were treated to guided-tours of the space, interviews with the owner, as well as select hors d'oeuvres based off of the menu like brushetta and risotto, fresh sushi and sashimi, and specialty dessert smoothies like strawberry-banana, vanilla bean, and mocha espresso.

On June 23rd, Milk Street Cafe Food Hall will hold a grand opening event for the public from 10am-11am, including the ringing of the "opening bell" and complimentary coffee and cookies.