A fancy new coffee shop and restaurant and a new eatery at Lincoln Center are opening as another spot near Columbia closes.
Box Kite, a coffee shop and restaurant with its first location on St. Mark’s Place, will open at 128 West 72nd street, the New York Post reported. It’s not immediately clear if it will be opening in the small space that once housed jewelry store Meehee and then briefly held a barber shop, or into the space currently occupied by Lime Leaf restaurant, a Thai spot. They’re both technically at 128. Given that they serve food, I’d guess it will replace Lime Leaf.
Update: Box Kite tells us they’ll be moving into the former barber shop, not Lime Leaf. (We should have confirmed this beforehand instead of speculating.) The cafe will be a simple coffee shop with pastries, and won’t include a tasting menu like the one in the Village. A small coffee at Box Kite costs $2.50, says the owner, Cora.
Box Kite has an $85 tasting menu and some very fancy coffee. According to the Village Voice: “At Box Kite, a minimalist St. Marks Place café that opened in December, customers ogle the custom navy-and-wood Synesso Hydra brewing system and sip on ‘Unicorns’ — iced-coffee cocktails made with barrel-aged maple syrup and smoked sea salt…Lengthy recitations of components accompany dish presentations, but because the chefs obsessively tweak recipes, even they have difficulty running through the list of ingredients and techniques. Those beets receive a coating of bee pollen, Angostura bitters, nigella and coriander seeds, fermented huckleberries, and gel made from cape gooseberries, a tart Scandinavian fruit. The gel reappears atop a goat’s milk caramel petit four at meal’s end.”
Broker Rafe Evans tells the Post that 72nd street between Broadway and Columbus “has been starved for good food and has been a bastion of mediocrity,” which is pretty damn harsh. That block has Gray’s Papaya. Don’t be messin’ with my Gray’s Papaya!
Lincoln Center Kitchen will open inside Avery Fisher Hall on September 16, serving “classic American fare with dishes like: Wild Mushroom Popovers, Crispy Baby Chicken, Jumbo Lump Crab Cakes, Bacon Blue Mac & Cheese and Bell & Evans Chicken Pot Pie.”
It appears to be geared to people seeing shows at Lincoln Center. “The restaurant will be open Tuesday through Saturday, 5pm until 11pm. Lunch is served on Fridays and Saturdays if there is a matinee show at Lincoln Center.”
Vareli, the Mediterranean restaurant and wine bar on 111th street and Broadway, has closed. The restaurant had tried to go upscale last year, changing its name to Domain, but that lasted just a few months before it morphed back to Vareli. Unfortunately, neither transformation appears to have worked.
$85 tasting menu? And how much if we actually eat there?. What we need are good, mid-riced restaurants not overpriced pretentious restaurants.
How do you know it’s pretentious if it has yet to open?
Why don’t you give them a chance first before judging?
The UWS is almost all mid-priced eateries…
McDonalds is affordable and close by on 71st & B’way.
Great. Another place I can’t afford to go to.
Eat next door at Limeleaf! (pictured in photo)
It’s delicious, affordable,& friendly!
Yup – agreed! Good luck to Box Kite but I hope Lime Leaf sticks around. Delicious, affordable, friendly is right!
Across 72nd Street, Aroma Espresso Bar is a great place for a coffee and good, casual Mediterranean style food… though Aroma doesn’t have white tablecloths or $85 tasting menus, it still somehow manages to be pretty great.
Totally agree–Aroma is great!
Lime Leaf! Really one of the last affordable, friendly neighborhood places in the west 70s. If it goes, then I go!
I had the same initial reaction. Lime Leaf?!?! NO!!!! if Lime Leaf closes, that does it – I’m moving to Connecticut. :). It’s not the finest Thai food in the world, it’s just my favorite delivery Thai on the UWS.
Happy to see Box Kite come in, and the unicorn cocktails sound like they could be tasty. But jeez, what a swipe that broker took at a thriving block packed with small businesses and intriguing architecture. I just quickly list my personal top 5: Jackrabbit Sports, Zenyasa Yoga, Juice Generation, Lime Leaf, Tip Top Shoes… I could go on all day.
Lime Leaf is NOT BEING REPLACED….. Might just be the coffee shop opening in the space next door…. when are people going to get the information correct…. you almost gave me a panic attack…. I love the food at Limeleaf and often eat there…. Please be considerate and follow up before you publish…. Thanks
Little by little the Upper West Side is turning into Orlando: A place for visitors but not the people who actually live there (although if you leave it to the developers the only people left living here will be billionaires).
Mike, I see a posting of the opening and closing of non chain restaurants. Not Orlando-esque at all , but thanks for your opinion.
FYI, New York City has 70 billionaires. not sure if they can fill up the UWS, nor would they want to. Personally, I wish we had more, they are the ones who pay for all stuff that makes the city run.
The East Village Box Kite was a coffee shop. THEN they added a chef’s counter with a tasting menu for dinner, which was hugely acclaimed. The chefs are now planning to open their own restaurant somewhere, so according to eater.com, the UWS version will not include the tasting menu. So relax. It’s basically a nice coffee shop.
Box Kite sounds like a precious piece of work. Funny that it would settle on 72nd between Broadway/Columbus,one of the most run-down unappealing places on the UWS. It’s where restaurants go to die. (Remember Penang? And Rigoletto’s?)
I sure hope it doesn’t replace Lime Leaf. LL is one of the last affordable places in the West 70s! And LL is exponentially better than our sole surviving Chinese place.
True, Aroma is great — but it is PRICEY!
$7 + tax for toast and scrambled egg scraps?
I’ll be very sad if Lime Leaf closes. They once delivered something to me within 7 minutes of me placing the order on Seamless.
According to Eater, Corvo Bianco is reopening with a new chef.
https://ny.eater.com/archives/2014/09/scott_bryan_leaves_bacchanal_to_reopen_corvo_bianco.php
WSR – Not very responsible to just speculate on whether a place might be closing. I called Lime Leaf and was told they’re not going anywhere. Also, looking at the photo, the small space next door is visibly being renovated, and the Post article says Box Kite will be small, so all signs point to Lime Leaf sticking around and Box Kite opening next-door.
Finally, as another commenter notes, Eater has reported that this will just be a cafe, not a tasting menu venue.
Good point, and we tend to be more thorough. We’ve reached out to Box Kite to clarify. Avi
Lime Leaf is not leaving. Box Kite has taken the empty store.
Aroma salads are better and fresher than ANY salad place in the neighborhood… they run about $12, while the sandwiches tend to be a bit too ‘bready’. I go there for the salads and coffee at least two or three times a week.
I really miss Rigolettos. The other neighborhood pizza parlors can’t compare. And I’m not a fan of what replaced it.
I guess it is some kind of an achievement that the newish Chinese place on W 72nd has a ‘C’ rating. Can you imagine that? A “C”!!! Come back, China Fun & Hunan Park!!!!
Seven’s is also a very good restaurant on this block. Good and affordable Turkish cuisine in a pleasant and quiet ambiance.
Vareli should have stuck with its original chef/menu–it was fantastic! Never ate at Domain and sorry to see Vareli go…
Very sorry to hear about Vareli. Loved Domain as well but welcomed back Vareli. They always appeared to be doing well, so I’m surprised. Will miss their fab grilled octopus.