Dylan's Candy Bar
A semisweet stream for customers to plunge into headfirst like Augustus Gloop is about the only Wonkaesque thing missing from Dylan's Candy Bar, the supersize new candy store across the street from Bloomingdales. (We're guessing it was the astronomical insurance premiums, plus the difficulty of hiring Oompa Loompas these days.) The brainchild of Dylan (daughter of Ralph) Lauren and Jeff Rubin (an FAO Schweetz co-creator), Dylan's is a dentist's nightmare of custom-colored Skittles and M&Ms, a Pez zone where vintage dispensers go for $3,500, and an old-fashioned soda fountain with custom-made ice-cream flavors, from rugelach to Animal Crackers. And if you're determined to take a bath in chocolate, head to the (inedible) Candy Spa, where you'll find Hot Chocolate Bath Salts, Cheeky Chocolate-Milk Bubble Bath, and Crème Brûlée spray cologne -- a fragrance some might find more seductive than Polo.
1011 Third Avenue, at 60th Street
646-735-0078
· Cuisine: Candy

Luce

Sixth Sense: Owners Peter Sclafani, Kristen Hallett and chef Andrew Blackmore-Dobbyn at Luce in Park Slope.

Is Brooklyn's Sixth Avenue the new Fifth Avenue? Well, not quite yet, but Park Slope's newest restaurant, Luce, may do for that lonely, pappardelle-deprived stretch what pioneering Cucina did for the Slope's now-burgeoning boulevard twelve years ago. Owners Kristen Hallett and Peter Sclafani, who opened L'Udo in NoHo seven years ago, have beautifully restored a grimy bodega, excavating its original tin walls and ceiling, buffing its tile floor, and installing a stylish glass-and-oxidized-tin façade. In the kitchen, chef Andrew Blackmore-Dobbyn, formerly chef de cuisine at Savoy, has come up with a casual but intriguing Italian menu emphasizing fresh local ingredients and including Sicilian seafood couscous, guinea hen with pomegranate sauce and ricotta gnocchi, and even a bravely revisionist take on a borough favorite, spaghetti and meatballs -- tiny lamb ones, that is.
411 11th Street, at Sixth Avenue, Brooklyn
718-768-4698
· Cuisine: Italian


roomservicecafe
Cafés in retail stores are nothing new, but finding one that serves Vegemite on toast is. Expat Australians and other devotees of the salty spread will rejoice over its presence at roomservicecafe, the new snack bar at Room Interior Products, a year-old Australian-housewares store in the West Village. The café menu, much like Down Under's ever-evolving cuisine, is a multicultural mélange specializing in Asian-flavored fare like "lettuce cups," individual Boston leaves full of fresh, well-seasoned salads like sweet-chili shrimp or Chinese jerky, served with jasmine rice; and banh mi, a Vietnamese sausage-and-pâté sandwich. Uncommonly delicious pastries come from local specialists like Panya, a Japanese bakery in the East Village, and Café Porto, a Portuguese bakery in Yonkers. No kangaroo, though -- maybe it's stuck at Customs.
435 Hudson Street
212-847-8488, ext. 111
· Cuisine: International Café

Notable Closings
Though not a comprehensive listing, here are a few dining spots that have bid adieu...
Bar Odeon (Luckily, its progenitor, The Odeon is still alive and well)
136 W. Broadway
Clementine
1 Fifth Avenue, at 8th Street
Virot
52 E. 41st Street, at The Dylan Hotel
Peacock Alley
301 Park Avenue, at The Waldorf-Astoria Hotel
Meigas
350 Hudson Street
Q Bar
267 W. 4th Street