State of the Union
Steak, Lobster and Leather in Little Italy

The weather: cold and miserable.

And you: couldn’t be happier.

It’s time to run out and find a roaring fire and someone to get cozy with.

Better yet: those roaring fires sometimes have pork, mussels and other soul-warming delights virtually streaming out of them. This is one of those times.

Enter Urban Union, a new Little Italy farmhouse, opening next week for intimate dates and sprawling dinner parties—or basically any occasion where whole lobsters, oysters, a glass of good wine and Manhattans gilded with leather-infused bitters are seriously needed.

You’ll be greeted at the warm and rustic space (there’s a barn-wood-planked bar) by both a bartender and an oyster shucker—always a promising start. You and your date can linger inches in front of the brick oven sipping champagne, nibbling wood-roasted head-on shrimp or savoring those Manhattans—the closest you’ll come to drinking whiskey while smoking a cigar outside of your famed ventriloquism act.

When you’re hosting a group, however, you’ll probably want the chef’s table. You and your cohorts will take over that old welding bench in the center of the room and engage in a six-course dinner. But it’s entirely the chef’s whim: roasted bone marrow, braised pork-cheek ravioli, Pacific snapper crudo, crispy squid with piquillo peppers, or sticky date pudding.

Everyone loves a sticky date.