The term New York, when applied to food, is meant to refer to the best. It's as if New Yorkers are the nation's designated tasters, much as is the case with Londoners and Parisians in the main European restaurant hubs.
And yes, people in the capital cities tend to be a demanding bunch, as is also true for entertainment in the widest amount of areas.
Six of New York's Scandinavian Chefs photographed on Manhattan's Lower West side. Once home to an industry that has all but disappeared today, this is where the trucks arrived from the main slaughterhouses of the Midwest, usually in the middle of the night, loaded with animal carcasses to be butchered and distributed. Like the Fulton fish market, which was relocated a few years ago, property in the area has become all-too expensive, and the industrial and quasi-red light district is rapidly losing its original color to become yet another tourist's mecca, with fancy restaurants and bars on every corner.
"Modern-continental Scandinavian," albeit with a touch of the traditional and not so few home land specialties on their respective menus, these restaurants have a few distant cousins in the nation's most experimental culinary corner, California. The state considered birth place of the "fusion cuisine" is home to Gustaf Anders restaurant in Santa Ana.