The news that the SoHo location of Souen is closing at the end of January has triggered strong responses — from me as well. That’s because the macrobiotic restaurant has Last Dodo status, and its demise hits upon a few key New York obsessions: real estate, food and people’s obsessions with their bodies. Oh, and money.
It’s not about mourning SoHo. That neighborhood died decades ago. But the nearly 50-year-old Souen was an archaeological display of first-generation SoHo-loft life. Its dowdy, handmade Zen décor had never been fluffed or updated. Neither had some of the customers, gray-haired artists of varying levels of success, wearing designer Japanese clothes from the ’80s that today’s Etsy trawlers would kill for. Real artists! In SoHo! Eating the same thing they’ve been ordering for decades! (See also: Omen on nearby Thompson Street.)
It’s irritating to think that the Souen space was sold for more than $2 million and is being rented to the same restaurateur who turned the shuttered Honmura An (an exquisite soba restaurant on Mercer Street that was, in some ways, a much more rarefied Souen) into a short-lived sushi place for banker bros. This is all part of the moneyed juggernaut that has transformed New York restaurants into highly designed “experiences” and “concepts.”
In a city packed with cool, calculated spaces, it was nice to have one last place where you could put down your ratty tote bag and be in a room you weren’t compelled to Instagram. I wasn’t alone: In recent years, I’ve seen a new generation of stylish young creatives become unironic regulars.
I’ve been eating at Souen since I moved to New York in 1992. My first husband, who was macrobiotic, introduced me to the humid, steamed-squash-and-seaweed-broth scent of Souen and Angelica Kitchen (R.I.P.) at the same time I was homing in on my favorite slice joint. With its seitan cutlets in beet sauce, non-yeasted spelt bread and sides of okabe sauce, the menu seemed to be written in another language.
But I settled on a dinner order and stuck to it. For decades: Half-and-half soup (miso plus the soup of the day), a macrobiotic plate with extra carrot dressing, twig tea and, for dessert, a kanten parfait. When I worked in SoHo in the ’90s, my weekly splurge was the sautéed maze rice with salmon and a walnut cookie with a jam dot.
Over the years, as I began writing about restaurants, Souen was where I recalibrated. After a long eating trip, I would go there or order in. (I went to the now-closed Union Square location for a stretch, but to me the food wasn’t as good.)
I confess that I didn’t go as much while I was married to my second husband, an incredible cook who hated the place. How good could a plate of naked steamed vegetables, brown rice, seaweed and beans be, he wondered? And why would I pay $9.25 for it — $10.25 with the extra sauce? There are currently some hilarious tweets on the subject, and I agree: We should all know how to cook rice and steam vegetables. But at Souen, those simple elements have always been just so in a way that I’ve never been able to perfect. Nothing is ever mushy; it still has bite — vitality — to it.
I came across video of a veteran Souen employee who misted up when she spoke of the care the kitchen takes: “Where else are you finding people making really natural food?” she asked. “These people soak the beans overnight, you know?
“I’m going to cry,” she sniffed. “Soaking the seaweed overnight, like Japanese grandma-style.”
In addition to observing the SoHo art dinosaurs, I always enjoyed model-spotting at Souen. Because, on another level, this is a restaurant for people who hate not only restaurants, but food as well. Or who are at war with it. Who are so conscious of every. Single. Thing. They put into their bodies. For them, it’s a relief to go to a restaurant that doesn’t use salt or dairy or meat, where everything is vegan and gluten-free, and you can control your order to the nth degree. Anyone who wants sauce for their monkish macro plate has to ask for it. (Granted, the menu also has tempura, stir-fries and noodles. I think people order them?)
[Read Mimi Sheraton’s 1981 review of Souen.]
And yet, while there is a certain joylessness to some of the food, there is always an emotional warmth that comes through on the plate. It’s a warmth that I’m just not feeling at so many of the concepts — excuse me, restaurants — around town.
In the end, this is a real-estate story: The co-op board purchased the space from the longtime owner’s family after his death and reportedly wanted to raise the rent from $10,000 to around $30,000. And actually, $30,000 a month is low for such prime downtown real estate: A space that had long housed a staple NoHo restaurant was asking $50,000 a month over the summer. It’s still on the market, but hey, this is New York in 2019: The right concept will come along.
When it does, I’ll be getting my glasses steamed up at Souen’s East Village location. Until it becomes a Sweetgreen.
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