Italian restaurant Nonna at 85th street and Columbus Avenue closed last week as the owners transformed it into a new restaurant: A.G. Bistro.
The new restaurant will serve “hearty rustic food,” a manager told us, with various French and Spanish dishes on the menu. It will have a soft launch on Monday, but may not offer full seatings immediately. We’ll post the menu when we receive it (or if you walk by next week and see the menu, send us a photo of it!).
An employee told us that Nonna had been around for about a decade. Ruth, one of our tipsters said she loved the meatballs there and the reasonable prices.
AG Bistro is another new concept from “The Restaurant Group,” the company behind Upper West Side restaurants like AG Kitchen on Columbus and 72nd and Amigos on 112th.
The AG in AG Bistro and AG Kitchen stands for chef Alex Garcia, a Cuban immigrant who specializes in Nuevo Latino cuisine.
Correction: The AG in AG Bistro apparently stands for “All Good.” Updated story here.
Thanks to Ruth, Carmelita and Jessica for the tips.
This is awful news. Nonna was me and my wife’s go-to Italian place for years. Unpretentious unlike Celeste or Gennaro. Sad, sad day….
Indeed, bad news! Nonna had amazing mussels with white clams sauce. Plus, AG Kitchen on Columbus between 72 and 73 (replaced City Grill) is also an Alex Garcia restaurant and has been consistently bad since opening.
Very disappointing. I’ve enjoyed eating at (or ordering in from) Nonna for years and years. A solid (if not spectacular) Italian restaurant that in many ways exceeded most of the other Italian restaurants in the neighborhood. Reliable and reasonably priced. The cold antipasti plate was particularly good, and somewhat unique–it is not matched by anything else nearby.