One of Brooklyn's Most Striking Restaurants Is Closing
Plus, Katz's will open its original dining area after 80 years
Hi there. The weeks before Memorial Day are nonstop with news, with restaurants eager to launch projects ahead of the kickoff to summer. We’ve got a big closing to discuss and a couple of openings for you to check out, as well as an event for ramen fans coming up soon. Thanks for reading. — Melissa McCart, lead editor, Eater Northeast
Ilis is closing in Greenpoint
Ilis — the ambitious Greenpoint restaurant from former Noma co-founder, Mads Refslund — is closing after service on May 28, less than three years after opening with enormous hype and a clam-shell drinking vessel that briefly became one of New York dining’s stranger status symbols.
“The building was sold and we lost the lease,” Refslund wrote in a mass email announcing the closure. “Ilis has been a dream of mine for more than a decade, a place built through curiosity, creativity, and the belief that food can bring people together in meaningful ways.”
When Ilis debuted in 2023 at 150 Green Street near Manhattan Avenue, it arrived with the kind of expectation that tends to follow anyone associated with the (now maligned) Noma. Diners sipped tomato water and clam broth from a flask made of bound clam shells; cooks also played the role of servers who’d ferry courses through the cavernous warehouse dining room.
The room itself was as memorable as the food. Former Eater critic Robert Sietsema, who called Ilis a “great restaurant,” described the space as “mottled with what looks like ancient paint,” with candles leaving “gothic heaps of white wax.” Built-in refrigerators lined one wall beneath racks of drying sunflowers. Staff worked around a stage of kitchen islands, an archipelago around the kitchen hearth.
The restaurant also became the subject of one of Pete Wells’s pans in the New York Times. Wells described the clam flask as “a corset designed for bivalves with a taste for mild kink,” while taking aim at the breathless food media coverage surrounding the opening. Still, he acknowledged, “It’s true that Ilis has served me some of the most memorable dishes I’ve eaten in a long time,” before concluding that the cooking itself was less dramatic than the restaurant’s elaborate “stagecraft.”
Refslund — who was also behind Acme in Noho prior to Ilis — took the review to heart (how could he not?), tweaking the menu and experiences across the restaurant. He introduced Sunday chicken dinners in the bar as well as fancy and unique one-time events, like a promenade tuna tasting.
In the announcement, Refslund says he’s looking for a new space. When I called him Saturday morning, he says he and a group of investors tried to save the building, but they were outbid by a developer who will tear it down to build condos.
Before it closes at the end of the month, the restaurant will be open for dinner Tuesday through Saturday. Refslund says as he looks for a new place to open the restaurant, he will have pop-ups in the future.
A follow-up to the Noortwyck opens in Nolita
Chef Andy Quinn along with co-owner and sommelier Cedric Nicaise — the duo behind the Noortwyck in Greenwich Village — are opening the swanky Oriana in Nolita on Tuesday, May 19 at 174 Mott Street, at Broome Street. Housed in a restored 1890s building, the restaurant will feature a menu built around an open wood-fired grill.
Oriana spans two floors and includes a 7,000-bottle wine cellar, private dining rooms, and a listening lounge lined with vinyl selected by musicians including Rosanne Cash and Rufus Wainwright. The onyx bar faces the street, while the dining room is anchored by an open kitchen and a 25-foot mural from Brooklyn-based artist Tunji Adeniyi-Jones.
Quinn, who was at Eleven Madison Park before opening the Noortwyck in 2022, will cook dishes like turbot with mussels, grilled leeks with gigante beans and taleggio, whole barbecue duck with smoked breast and neck sausage, and a pork chop with black mustard. There’s also a lobster toast with caviar, roasted oysters, and a baked potato loaded with smoked bone marrow.
The drinks continue the fire theme, with cocktails involving squid ink, oak smoke, black tea, and za’atar. Nicaise, another Eleven Madison Park alum, says more than 150 bottles on the list will fall under $100.
A Katz’s throwback has been restored
The iconic Katz’s Delicatessen on the Lower East Side is reopening what they’re calling the Ludlow Room, its original 1916 dining room that hadn’t been available for seating since 1949 — as it had been turned into a fridge before it was converted back to its original purpose. The restored 50-seat space retains its original tin ceilings and period-inspired lighting and will serve as overflow seating and a private dining room, according to a spokesperson. Fifth-generation owner Jake Dell is overseeing the project that will be open to the public later in the season.
The company behind Barclays Center is getting into the restaurant business
Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment, the company behind Barclays Center, announced this week that it has partnered with Casa Tua to open Cucina by Casa Tua at One Hanson Place (at Ashland Place, near Atlantic Avenue) in 2027. The project signals that Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment intends to expand its hospitality business beyond its basketball-and-concert investments. Casa Tua, the sceney celebrity spot from couple Miky and Leticia Grendene, debuted in Miami Beach in 2001. Following an expansion to Aspen and Paris, it opened a new location at the Surrey Hotel on the Upper East Side.
The disciple of a Japanese ramen master is coming to New York
Daisuke Watanabe — a disciple of Shota Iida of Ramen Iida Shoten, who is widely regarded as one of Japan’s most revered ramen masters — is bringing his Tokyo ramen to New York for the first time starting Tuesday, May 12 at the Gallery by Odo in Flatiron. At Ramen Feel in Tokyo (which closed in late February), his bowls would sell out within minutes of opening daily. The residency is in partnership with Marukome, the Japanese fermentation house established in 1854. Three bowls are $25 each: the Marukome collaboration miso, shio, and vegetarian shojin. The residency runs through June 13; reservations at the Gallery by Odo. Book seats for the residency as well as a launch event on May 12.
Yippee!!