June 5, 2017 By Christian Murray
The Chocolate Factory Theater is celebrating its twelfth year hosting the annual Taste of LIC Tuesday, which will be taking place for the first time at Kaufman Astoria Studios.
The event has been held on the waterfront at Gantry Plaza State Park for the past eight years but organizers said the location has changed to accommodate those chefs looking to cook with open flames and where there is greater access to electricity.
The Taste will take place on the studios’ outdoor film lot on 36th Street between 34th and 35th avenues.
Sheila Lewandowski, the executive director of the Chocolate Factory, said that many chefs want to cook on site so they can showcase the quality of their food. At Kaufman Astoria there are less restrictions than at the park.
“It’s also good to change things up a little,” Lewandowski said.
The event, which started in 2005 with a dozen vendors inside the Chocolate Factory theater space, will bring more than 40 local restaurants, markets, eateries, bars and breweries to the new venue.
Advance tickets are still available and attendees will be able to purchase them at the event.
VIP tickets cost $150, providing ticketholders with three hours to sample food from 5:30 pm to 8:30 pm. General admission costs $65, with ticketholders given two hours of noshing from 6:30 pm to 8:30pm.
General admission tickets purchased at the door will be $75.
Proceeds benefit the Chocolate Factory’s 2017-18 performance season.
This year’s event will feature many high-end Long Island City restaurants as well as several Astoria restaurants.
Long Island City restaurants include M. Wells Steakhouse, Casa Enrique, Blend on the Water, Kavala Estiatorio and Crabhouse LIC.
Astoria restaurants include Kurry Qulture, Zenon Taverna, Warique and The Thirsty Koala.
For tickets, click here
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7 Comments
They are also holding the LIC Summit, where business and political leaders discuss the future of LIC at the same location.
As I said in my previous posts, the line between Astoria and LIC is blurry and this neighborhood has more in common with traditional LIC than with the mostly residential Astoria.
How can they have the Taste of LIC in Astoria? Just doesn’t make sense.
Wish this was actually IN LIC.
Just as with all neighborhoods of NYC there is a very blurry line between LIC and Astoria.
Hop on a city bike and you are there in 5 minutes.
I personally can’t wait, a lot of good cooking going on around here.
Dealbreaker for me. I get home at 6:30. By the time I changed and biked over, the thing would be half over. Or pay $15 for a cab. Lot more realistic on a weeknight when I could walk there.
What are you talking about? There is no blurry line between the two areas. Five minutes my ass.
The Noguchi Museum which is a couple blocks north says on it’s website that it is in Long Island City. Studio Square event space is a half block away. Is Hunter’s Point Long Island City?
The new location for taste of LIC is in a neighborhood that was formerly mostly industrial that is seeing large amounts of new mid-rise and (relatively) high-rise residential construction. Much more like LIC than Astoria, except there is still some affordable housing in older housing stock as you move north. I guess the only real affordable housing in YOUR version of LIC is Queensbridge Houses.
Astoria doesn’t really have the Astoria neighborhood feel for another block or two past the studios.
We can argue all day but from someone who has been in the area since before the Citigroup tower was built, the line between these neighborhoods is blurry.
Sure, 5 minutes is hard from Gantry Park but if you can’t CitiBike from the Citigroup area to this location in around 5 minutes, you probably shouldn’t be eating any more anyway.