What's New For Fall: Eats

A smorgasbord of new restaurants usher in a new season.

- Troy Segal

AUTUMN IN NEW YORK. As the weather gets crisper, appetites often get sharper. Luckily, a host of recent arrivals on the local dining scene stand ready to cater to them.

DOWNTOWN 

Chanson is a spanking-white resto whose British chef produces French pastries for breakfast and artisanal-bread sandwiches for lunch. You can have any of those for afternoon tea as well, plus scones and cakes. Carrying the patisserie party into the night, a downstairs dessert bar with cocktails is slated to open September 7.

Nearby is another prime spot for carboloading: &pizza, where the black-and-white decor, punctuated by linear LED ceiling lights and exposed steel columns, is as jumpin’ as the sound track (sometimes spun by live DJs). Tossing out the traditional triangular slice, &pizza produces oblongslices (or entire pies), every element of which is customizable, from the dough to the sauce to the toppings; there are set versions, too, like the sweet-and-spicy American Honey. Assembled before your eyes at the counter, your pizza slides into an oven and emerges two minutes later.

As the name implies, it’s all about the bubbly at Air’s Champagne Parlor in the West Village, a cozy, colorful living room that’s all plush furnishings, marble-topped tables and glowing chandeliers (shaped like blown bubbles). The menu boasts over 120 varieties of sparkling wines along with bubbly-based cocktails. To go with: sumptuous nibbles, such as cheese and charcuterie plates, lobster salad or caviar dramatically presented under a smoky glass dome.