“No, but we’ve been hearing that question a lot.”
I’ve been in Mac Bar all of two minutes when I witness this exchange between the counter girl and the guy ahead of me in line.
Mac Bar has been open for about three weeks, so it’s no surprise that questions of its comfort food predecessor keep popping up. Sarita’s Mac and Cheese aka S’mac opened 2006, was the sole dedicated-dealer for mac and cheese until the arrival of Mac Bar. Located on Prince Street between Lafayette and Mulberry Streets, Mac Bar is a situated a little over a mile or a 15 minute walk from S’Mac in the East Village. With both comfort food joints residing east of Broadway and South of 14 street, is Downtown big enough for two mac and cheese joints? Or is this all too close for comfort….food?
I set out to find the better bowl of mac and cheese, a Mac and Cheese Smackdown if you please.
Giving preference to seniority I went to S’Mac first. East 12th street, between 1st and 2nd avenues, is predominately residential. A few restaurants bookend the block but sleepy walkups fill out the middle. S’mac’s windows face an elementary school and its playground. Quiet as it is, the block feels like a neighborhood and S’mac is its well-worn comfort food joint.
The All American, the weapon of choice for this duel, is traditionally a blend of American and Cheddar Cheeses. Unfortunately I could not identify nor taste either in my bubbling skillet of macaroni and….butter, maybe. The noodles were the right balance on the firm- tender continuum; the cheese (?) sauce was shallow and faint. Sadly there was more cheese crowning the dish than what should’ve been holding the elbows together.
Wrapping up the second half of my mac and “alleged” cheese I hit the road. A brief walk lands me on the doorstop of Mac Bar. Mac Bar is a blip on this commercial strip; flanked by the boutique bookstore McNally Jackson and trendy restaurant Delicatessen, the latter a relative of sorts as they share management. Inside the cheese-yellow interior is plush to lacquer to S’mac’s kitsch and worn-out wood. Shaped like a curvy L or a maybe a shallow J, the space feels more like a neon alleyway than a storefront. Mac Bar comes off as the type of place where one would name drop, as one older Upper Eastside-esque woman did: “Is Tony here today?” she asked.
I order the same American and Cheddar mac, dubbed the Classic here. I’m accidentally given someone else’s order of the Carbonara. The counter invites me to keep it while I await my correct order. The Carbonara has a parmagiano sauce with bits of pancetta, dotted with green peas and drizzled with confetti-like shreds of basil. It’s a lovely bowl of mac-creativity that leaves residual spicy kick after the creaminess has settled. But that’s neither here nor there, as the matter I’ve come to resolve is the All American.
I finally get my Classic and the aroma of crisped cheese and well, more cheese waft from the aluminum container. Their mix of Cheddar and American has yielded a remarkably velvety sauce. My noodles could’ve taken a few more minutes in boiling water but the rich, pleasantly-dense cheese sauce picked up where the elbow noodles fell short. This mac and cheese literally, and figuratively, warmed my insides as it went down (and that’s saying a lot since this was technically my third bowl in two hours). 
While it wasn’t the hands-down best mac and cheese I’ve ever had, it definitely put the smackdown on S’mac. At least it did for the guy in front of me, as he pranced out still chatting on his phone his last few words floated out behind him:
“So, there’s this place called Mac Bar. We HAVE to go!”
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