Gitana Resides at Cuisine en Locale As Bread & Salt Readies Juliet

Over the weekend, Josh Lewin and Katrina Jazayeri of Bread & Salt Hospitality announced that as their team continues to ready the former Sherman Cafe space in Union Square for their new concept, Juliet, they will create a temporary concept at Cuisine en Locale called Gitana.

Starting with friends and family this week during lunch hours, Gitana — "gypsy" — will offer Spanish tapas from Thursday - Sunday through mid-July. Beginning next week on June 25, lunch and dinner will be served from 11 a.m. - 11 p.m. Thursday - Saturday, with a Sunday brunch menu available from 10 a.m. - 3 p.m. Breakfast could also be a possibility, according to a post on Facebook. The residency will run through July 19.

"We wanted to get back to work," Lewin said. "It's a lot of work to build the restaurant, a lot of construction, a lot of things I don't get to be personally involved with, but we didn't just want to sit around. We wanted to serve you, and this is how we're going to do it."

For the past couple years, he and Jazayeri have used one-off events to explore different cuisines and "things we love, and today, that's the cuisine of Spain." The duo recently took a trip to Seville and Barcelona, and Gitana's menu is inspired by that.

Think seafood, vegetables, and especially, jamon. Serrano, Mangalica, and Iberico hams will anchor charcuterie plates, and the meat will also be featured in lunchtime sandwiches and small plates at dinner, like a jamon croquette with herb salad and aioli. Other dishes may include Andalusian-style fried anchovies; razor clams with sour orange and cherry; patatas bravas with russet potato, chorizo, and hot sauce; and warm olives with pickled vegetables.

Bread & Salt launched a Kickstarter campaign to help raise money to open Juliet, and the fundraiser is in its final day today with about $7,000 still to raise.