NEW YORK— One particular new restaurant in the Lower East Side is anticipating the arrival of a rather unusual centerpiece—an actual piece of a Greenland glacier.
But it’s not just any piece, it’s a 4,000 lb monolith of basal-ice.
Basal-ice is found deep within the glacier’s base. It takes tens of thousands of years to formulate, which gives it a distinct hue of blue.
The restaurant hopes to preserve the ice block for the next few centuries, specifically “488 years if possible,” its website states.
Preserve24, which opened in early May, is an avant-garde restaurant that hopes to raise awareness to environmental issues while serving food.
One issue they would like to remind consumers of is the rapid melting of ice sheets.
“Much of humanity has conditioned itself to have a severely short attention span and a near-s1ghted view of goals, dreams, and the human relationship to Planet Earth,” Preserve24 states on its website. Their ice sheet “contains the potential to raise awareness to the issue of world wide glacial melt as well as exemplify the mindset of change necessary to build a sustainable future.”
The ice will be brought back after a scientific expedition to Greenland in March 2014, afterward this rare piece of natural resource will be available for viewing at the restaurant. The ice will remain frozen through solar energy.
In case we have forgotten, Preserve24 is actually a restaurant.
The menu is reasonably priced, and they have a delightful brunch menu with items such as Rum Toast with fresh berries, banana, and upstate maple syrup ($14).
You can also get a lobster benedict with cheddar biscuit, chive, tomato, topped with hollandaise sauce for $20.
Other intriguing dishes include spring lamb with fava beans, peas, mint, pearl onions and carrots ($29); ravioli stuffed with fresh ricotta, basil, runny egg yolk, brown butter and crispy pancetta ($19); and fire-roasted oysters with herb and garlic butter ($15).
Happy Hours are 5pm-8pm from Monday-Friday, with $ 3 draft beer; $6 wine; and $1 oysters.
They modern restaurant serves in a 111-year-old tenement building that was once a kosher butcher shop.
Preserve 24 is located at the intersection of Houston & Allen on the Lower East Side.
