http://thespottedpig.com/
Many of the restaurants I wanted to visit were well planned out in advance. I had done my research back in Australia and knew which Michelin starred restaurants I wanted to visit and had them squared away and booked nice and early.
The Spotted Pig is a restaurant that I stumbled upon by accident. We had just moved to the Chelsea area after spending some time in Little Italy and were just exploring the local area (well, it was a bit of a hike the first day), and found ourselves walking through the West Village. The West Village is quite different from much of Manhattan in that the streets are a little less planned and a bit chaotic. There are lots of little side streets to explore and it was down one of these that we stumbled upon The Spotted Pig.
The West Village is a great spot and has so many hip places to look at and visit. Known as 'Little Bohemia' from 1916, the West Village is the centre of the bohemian lifestyle on the West Side and has lots of classical artist's lofts. There is the re-instituted High Line (converted from an elevated railroad track to people's space) which connects this historic district to the art galleries of Chelsea and beyond. The West Village is also home to many of New York's rich and famous and as a consequence property values are astronomical. There are also lots of great restaurants and dining spots, like The Spotted Pig.
The only clue that it was a restaurant was a little pig above the door and apart from that, it looked just like any other semi industrial building (all-be-it a moss covered building). We had walked past it without realising it was a restaurant and then curiosity got the better of me, so SC and I walked back to the building and had a peek inside. Wow, talk about a surprise, this looked just like an 'Ye Olde English Pub' inside and was packed. I made a mental note to investigate this further and then come back for dinner.
