Daily Provisions - Union Square
The maple cruller costs $4.95 and Katherine Lewin rates it the best donut in the city.1 The Lumberjack builds a bacon, egg and cheese inside one for $12.50. The kitchen all of it comes out of is Union Square Cafe's, next door.
Why go
Danny Meyer's group put the counter beside Union Square Cafe, and the house dates its whole fine-casual idea to that kitchen.3 Lewin's line on the sandwiches is that each one feels like the platonic ideal of its category,
and she picks out the roast beef with muenster and horseradish as one we wish would teach a master class to all other roast beef sandwiches.
1 The room is two small counters and two small tables. Tips are already in the prices and the counter takes no cash.
Order this / avoid
- Order: the maple cruller, $4.95. Then the bacon, egg and cheese at $9.50, of which Lewin writes:
Approach with caution. You will miss this while eating all other BECs afterwards.
1 - Order, the outlier: the Lumberjack, $12.50, a bacon, egg and cheese built inside the maple cruller.
- Order, if you want fish: the Goldilox, $15, smoked salmon with cucumber and red onion on an everything croissant.
- Avoid: arriving expecting to sit down and work. Two counters, two tables.
What locals & experts say
- Katherine Lewin, The Infatuation:
there's the Daily Provisions cruller, which is officially the best donut in the city. We are more confident about this statement than most other things in life.
1 - Lewin on the sandwiches:
Every sandwich at Daily Provisions feels like the platonic ideal of its category - from a bacon, egg, & cheese so good that at $7 it actually feels like you're stealing something.
That $7 is her price and the counter now charges $9.50.1
Good to know
- Booking: none. Counter service, cashless, tip included in the price.1
Verdict
should-visit — Lewin is specific dish by dish, which is what makes her usable: she names the bacon egg and cheese, the grilled cheese, the rotisserie chicken and the roast beef, and says what each one does. Her review carries no date on the page, and her $7 sandwich now costs $9.50 on the operator's own menu, so her prices have aged out and her judgments have not been revisited by anyone. The shared kitchen with Union Square Cafe is the operator's own claim and it explains where the cooking comes from. The room seats almost nobody, which she counts, so the practical half of the page is hers too.