Brotherly love and competition are heating up two kitchens on the Upper West Side.
Food Network star Alex Garcia of popular AG Kitchen will be welcoming his brother, chef Rene Garcia, to the ’hood. Both Cuban-born chefs cook with a Mexican twist.
Rene, formerly of Verde Latin in North Carolina, will helm Zen Taco, a new Asian-Latin fusion taco shop, at 522 Columbus Ave.
Both AG Kitchen and Zen Taco are part of The Restaurant Group, run by Jeremy Wladis, who partially crowdsourced Zen Taco by getting 50 people to invest $3,000 each. It was a way, Wladis said, to give neighbors a chance to take a bite out of the restaurant business while having a stake in the neighborhood eatery’s success.
Zen Taco is adjacent to Good Enough to Eat, which is also part of The Restaurant Group and an Upper West Side institution still generating weekend line-ups after 36 years.
Zen Taco will seat 80 inside plus 29 on its seasonal patio. The menu offers Asian and Latin versions of wings and nachos as well as a signature platter with queso, salsa, chips, guacamole, fried wontons, duck sauce and mustard sauce.
WE HEAR . . .
that Kathleen Turner, Meryl Streep, Christie Brinkley, Liam Neeson, and chef Daniel Boulud, were some of the star power at Citymeals on Wheels’ 31st annual Power Lunch for Women, which raised more than $1 million to provide nearly 136,000 meals for the home-bound elderly.
Rosanna Scotto emceed the Rainbow Room event, attended by co-founder Gael Greene, Jon and Lizzie Tisch and real estate lobbyist Suri Kasirer.
Nick Valenti, a Citymeals board member and CEO of Patina Restaurant Group, was honored, as was Tren’ness Woods-Black, who heads Sylvia’s restaurant, and longtime volunteer Heava Lawrence-Challenger.