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Tapping into the current market-centric zeitgeist might bestow instant cache on a new restaurant, but we bet Peter Hoffman is having the last laugh: For over 17 years, the Savoy co-owner has been one of its most fervent proponents, making pilgrimages to the Greenmarket to feed his farm-fresh food philosophy. He now brings this approach to the East Village with this cozy urban farmhouse. At Back Forty, Hoffman has conjured a relaxed, tavern-style spot with an equally relaxed menu: Maine shrimp–and–bacon beignets, roasted oyster mushrooms and buttermilk onion rings, plus entrees like rotisserie chicken and grilled Catskill trout. “We wanted to do a more casual restaurant without forsaking well-crafted, well-sourced ingredients,” he says. Even the wine adheres to his locally sourced edict: North Fork wines are bottled specially for the restaurant, whose décor mixes urban and rural with pastoral murals, a pine wood bar and antique farm tools. “It’s gratifying to see how many chefs shop at the farmers’ market and care about that level of quality,” he says. “Seventeen years ago, the number of chefs that shop at the farmers’ market, I could count with one hand. Now, it’s formidable.” 

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East Village restaurants, American traditional and classic restaurants, Seasonal restaurants