New Food Excitement in the Tiny Art Haven of Marfa, Texas

Residents of Marfa, Texas (and its throngs of visitors) have a lot to look forward to in 2008, when its Ballroom Drive-In is slated to open. Josh Siegel, a film and media curator from New York City's Museum of Modern Art, has organized the initial film series for the open-air theater; in the works is a concession stand selling barbecue and empanadas. Tom Rapp and Toshifumi Sakihara are two other New Yorkers about to make their mark in the tiny west Texas town. Once the co-chefs at Etats-Unis and the Bar@Etats-Unis in NYC's Upper East Side, they're planning on opening another (tiny) Marfa spot by the end of 2007. "We took an off-the-cuff weekend trip to see Donald Judd's work," said Rapp, of his and Sakihara's first visit to Marfa in 2004. "Now we’re renovating a turn-of-the-20th-century adobe house located smack in the center of town." Expect the same types of dishes served in the NYC spots —worldly with a touch of Mexican—though now in a more fitting locale.