10 NEW UPPER WEST SIDE RESTAURANTS OPENING SOON
Numerous restaurants are getting set to open on the Upper West Side in the next few months. From Mexican to Indian to Italian to Spanish tapas, there are quite a few exciting spots ready to take your order. Check them out in the map above and read about them below:
Corvo Bianco: This Northern Italian restaurant is expected to open in the former home of Calle Ocho on 81st Street and Columbus Avenue in October. The menu is expected to feature lots of seafood, as well as plenty of pastas. The restaurant is also expected to have two bars and an upper level with a skylight.
El Mitote: A Mexican restaurant owned by the people behind Rigoletto Pizza and Cafe Frida should open any day now on Columbus Avenue and 69th Street next to Magnolia Bakery (Rigoletto used to be there but is moving to 72nd Street). Mexican sandwiches called tortas will be on the menu, as well as salads, guacamole, margaritas and beer.
The Smith: The long-awaited replacement for Sushi a Go-Go and Josephina is expected to open at 1900 Broadway (63rd Street) in October. The Smith, a gastropub, has a location downtown that’s popular with NYU students. This one (pictured at left) could become a go-to destination for people eating before and after Lincoln Center events. Here’s the menu at the East Village location.
Curry King: A new Indian restaurant is set to open shortly on Columbus Avenue between 106th and 107th Streets in the former home of Chinese restaurant Golden Garden.
Casa Pomona: A new tapas restaurant is set to open on Columbus between 84th and 85th Streets. Sid Gupta, who was behind Pappardella and the Village Pourhouse, is one of the owners, along with Marion Maur. Chef Jodi Bernhard plans to introduce Upper West Siders to real paella (apparently you’re not supposed to mix meat and fish), along with frilled Spanish black sausage and other delicacies. The opening date hasn’t been finalized, but a spokesperson told us they’re now aiming for late September.
Cocina Economica: Recipe, the small “new American” restaurant at 452 Amsterdam Avenue (at 82nd), is closing, making way for Recipe’s owners to open a “home-style Mexican food by Pedro Hernandez Perez, who was the sous-chef at the Banks’s Land Thai Kitchen a couple of doors away.”
Dakota Bar: Jennifer Klein is opening a new bar and restaurant a couple of blocks away from Wine & Roses, the wine bar she still part-owns but no longer manages. Klein will serve all sorts of drinks at the new spot, as well as an “eclectic” menu. “The Dakota Bar will blend a whimsical, chic, and romantic decor with upbeat music and unpretentious Upper West Side spirit and class,” says the website. Dakota Bar could open as soon as next month on the corner of 72nd and Columbus (the former home of Earthen Oven).
Cafe Tallulah: A new wine bar (under construction, at right) is expected to open in the long-vacant former home of Penang on the corner of 71st Street and Columbus. Owner Greg Hunt used to run Amsterdam Billiards, a favorite Jerry Seinfeld hangout. The menu will be French and the atmosphere will be “sophisticated,” we hear. Expect an impressive drinks list. Word is it could open in October, but with all the construction they’re doing, I wouldn’t be surprised if it gets pushed back.
Red Farm: The innovative Chinese restaurant is expected to open soon at 77th Street and Broadway in the former home of Fatty Crab. Chef Joe Ng was called “one of New York’s greatest Chinese chefs” by the New York Times, and the lines at the restaurant’s West Village location are simply ridiculous. But can the restaurant make it on the notoriously picky (and sometimes hype-averse) Upper West Side?
American Table Cafe and Bar by Marcus Samuelsson: This new self-serve cafe is set to open in place of at65 cafe Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, possibly this month. Samuelsson, who is best known for his Harlem restaurant Red Rooster, opened a pop-up shop called Global Street Food in Alice Tully Hall at last year’s Fashion Week. “American Table Cafe and Bar by Marcus Samuelsson will offer dishes that celebrate the diversity of American cuisine, drawing on influences and regions from across the country,” Lincoln Center tells us.
We’ll keep you updated about these and other openings, and if you see or hear anything be sure to email us at info at westsiderag dot com.
yawnnnnnnn
Recipe closing is so depressing – great place!
Interesting to note that NONE of them are opening in the war zone formerly known as the West 90s.
Thank you Gale and Rosenthal for destroying our area.
I agree with JWM – Recipe was one of the best on the West Side. Not that big a place, and it was always crowded when I was there. I wonder why it couldn’t make it. Hopefully it’ll pop up somewhere else on the UWS.