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Recalling West Broadway’s ‘Cru’ & Its Outstanding Duck Confit, Cellar Door Caesars

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by Andrew Morrison | There are a lot of restaurants that have closed that I wish were still around. From Gastropod, Fuel, Aurora Bistro, and “C” to Boneta, Monsoon, and Lumiere, the list is long, and somewhere near the top of it is Cru. The wine-forward eatery at 1459 Broadway closed in June of 2013, but memories of its famed “Cellar Door Caesar” and amazing duck confit linger long. Its kitchen saw the talented likes of chefs Tim Evans, Alana Peckham, and Dana Reinhardt over the years, and the service was invariably tight without being tight-ass (in 2004, it came in at #3 on enRoute’s Best New Restaurants in Canada list). Note that owner Mark Taylor is still very much in the game. The same casual, capable, vino-versed sensibility that defined Cru is still totally on point at Taylor’s nearby, Italian-themed Siena restaurant on West 12th (I heartily recommend the bruschetta and linguine con vongole).

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