Headliner
Electric Lemon
A number of the restaurants at Hudson Yards have views of the river, but none offer the sweep of this new 24th-floor terraced dining room. It’s part of the flagship restaurant in the new Equinox Hotel. Despite its name, which seems to nod to psychedelic, acid-dropping counterculture, it’s part of a clean-living fitness organization and has a fresh, local approach to food. The chef, Kyle Knall, a native of Birmingham, Ala., worked at Gramercy Tavern and the now-closed Maysville. With Sean Joseph, a partner in Maysville, he also opened Kenton’s in New Orleans, which closed last year. Now Mr. Knall is with Starr Restaurants, which runs food and drink service for the Equinox. Hay-roasted oysters, beef tartare, black bass with a salsa verde, roasted trout with “green things from the garden,” and grilled and braised lamb with roasted eggplant, cumin and sumac, are some of the dishes to be savored at tables in the sleek dining room or on the expansive terrace. (Opens Thursday)
Equinox Hotel, 33 Hudson Yards (11th Avenue and 33rd Street), 212-812-9202, electriclemonnyc.com.
Opening
Luthun
The chefs Nahid Ahmed and Arjuna Bull are bringing their high-end global experience from places like Lespinasse, the Fat Duck in England, and El Bulli in Spain to their East Village spot. It will serve five-course tasting menus, one of which is vegetarian, and a 10-course chef’s menu. Monkfish with green curry, veal neck with anchovies and mushrooms, curried celery root, and frozen yogurt with berries are a few of the dishes on offer.
432 East 13th Street (First Avenue), 646-454-9484, luthun.com.
Coco J’Adore
This charming French spot with brick trim, velvet upholstery and playful accents serves classics like escargots, bone marrow, frog legs, filet mignon and moules marinières. It is owned by Mario Carta, who is an owner of Pardon My French in the East Village.
1 Little West 12th Street (Ninth Avenue), 212-464-7222, cocorestaurantnyc.com.
Estuary
This airy glass-enclosed brasserie, at the shiny new marina on the edge of the East River in Brooklyn Bridge Park, is run by François Payard, who is the culinary director. The chef in charge is Danny Brown, whose Queens restaurant, Danny Brown Wine Bar & Kitchen, was awarded a Michelin star. Mr. Brown’s menu features savory tarts, flatbreads, salads, sandwiches, a raw bar selection and main courses like roast chicken, eggplant ravioli and seared salmon. Olivier Flosse, an experienced sommelier, oversees the beverages. Ebb & Flow, a sandwich shop with baked goods by Mr. Payard, is next door to the restaurant.
One15 Brooklyn Marina, One Brooklyn Bridge Park, 159 Bridge Park Drive (Pier 5), Brooklyn Heights, 718-521-6744, extension 1, estuarybrooklyn.com.
Paloma at Hotel Hendricks
This will be the chef PJ Calapa’s foray into pan-Latin cuisine. The chef, a native of Brownsville, Tex., who worked for Altamarea Group and left to open Scampi in the Flatiron district, plans to feature a combination of Mexican, Argentine and Peruvian specialties at this restaurant. It occupies most of the lobby in the new Hotel Hendricks near Bryant Park, and will offer chile-rubbed short ribs, Peruvian chicken with rice, and Argentine beef carpaccio, as well as a number of tacos and skewers. (Friday)
Hotel Hendricks, 25 West 38th Street, 646-933-9040, hotelhendricksny.com.
Tenho Ramen
The specialty at this outpost of a ramen restaurant in Fukuoka, in southern Japan, is yobimodoshi, a process of making tonkotsu broth. The method calls for adding to what’s left in the soup pot from the day before, like an ever-simmering stockpot. In addition to ramen, there are grilled skewers of American Wagyu beef, vegetables wrapped in pork belly, and even skewered cheese.
542 Third Avenue (36th Street), 646-781-9025, tenhoramen.com.
Sant Ambroeus Coffee Bar
An elegant new ground-floor cafe with Murano glass details in the Sotheby’s headquarters is serving assorted coffee drinks, wine, cocktails and light food like cauliflower steak, salads and desserts. (Thursday)
Sotheby’s, 1334 York Avenue (71st Street), santambroeus.com.
Rockefeller Center
The complex’s South Plaza at 49th Street is now a daytime pop-up of Queens Night Market in Flushing Meadows Corona Park. A handful of vendors from the market are on hand, Mondays through Thursdays from noon to 8 p.m., through Aug. 15. They include Burmese Bites for stuffed flatbreads, Brooklyn Dumpling’s Polish pierogies, Primos Variedades selling tacos al pastor, and Hong Kong Street Food’s soy sauce noodles. At the same time, a pop-up of City Winery, which is closing its SoHo flagship on Wednesday, now occupies the North Plaza, at 51st Street, daily from 11 a.m. until midnight, serving wines, Montauk Brewing Company beers and light food.
rockefellercenter.com, citywinery.com.
Mastercard Priceless
Through early January at Spring Studios, a work space and photo studio in TriBeCa, you can travel to Japan and Zanzibar, among other destinations, without leaving New York. As part of an installation recreating striking restaurants through the Mastercard Priceless program, here diners can sit at a bar that looks exactly like Lyaness, an innovative London watering hole known for custom-designed drinks, complete with views of St. Paul’s Cathedral ($50 for two drinks). They can also have a 15-course sushi omakase ($395) at a line-by-line copy of Teruzushi in Kitakyushu, Japan, from the chef and owner Takayoshi Watanabe, who closed the restaurant for the duration of the residency. Or they can enjoy a six-course tasting menu ($135) at The Rock, a small restaurant at water’s edge in Zanzibar, off Tanzania, where the view shows water lapping at the shore complete with the sounds and smells of the ocean. The roof has also been converted into a market run by the chef JJ Johnson, where drinks and small plates ($60 for one drink and two plates) are served. Starting July 31, reservations can be made at priceless.com/restaurant.
Spring Studios, 6 St. John’s Place (Beach Street), priceless.com/restaurant.
Chefs on the Move
Tomás Kalika
This Buenos Aires chef, known for modern Jewish cooking at his restaurant Mishiguene (muh-shu-guh-nuh, Yiddish for “crazy”), is next in line to take over the kitchen of Intersect by Lexus, which opened last winter with a program of global rotating guest chefs.
Daniel Kleinhandler
This pastry chef who was working at Daniel Boulud’s restaurants, notably Boulud Sud, is now at Charlie Palmer’s Aureole.
Closed
Metta
This Fort Greene, Brooklyn, restaurant known for wood-fired cooking and an effort to be carbon neutral has closed.
Gabriel’s Bar and Restaurant and Sapphire
This popular Italian restaurant, a Columbus Circle fixture of nearly 30 years, closed last week. Its building, at the corner of 60th Street and Broadway, is coming down to make way for a condominium tower, said the restaurant’s owner, Gabriel Aiello, in a phone recording. He called the situation “bittersweet,” but it has a happy ending: The restaurant will relocate to 40 Central Park South, near Avenue of the Americas, he said. The developers of the 60th Street site also forced the closing of Sapphire, the long-established Indian restaurant around the corner at 1845 Broadway. It, too, found a new home nearby, at 2012 Broadway (68th Street), and there are plans to reopen it in early September.
