Latest news with #Mattos
Eater
29-07-2025
- Business
- Eater
The Rockefeller Center Restaurant From Ignacio Mattos Will Close in the Fall
is the lead editor of the Northeast region with more than 20 years of experience as a reporter, critic, editor, and cookbook author. Lodi, the Italian aperitivo-style cafe by Ignacio Mattos that debuted in Rockefeller Center in the fall of 2021, is closing 'on or about October 30,' citing high operating expenses related to the increased cost of goods as the cause. Lodi was among the first restaurants to open at the Midtown Art Deco landmark address as part of an ambitious turnaround effort led by developer Tishman Speyer. Restaurants from highly regarded teams, including Le Rock from the Frenchette duo, Korean-leaning Naro from Atomix, and all-day pasta and wine spot Jupiter from King, debuted nearby. Mattos earned praise from critics as well as a spot on the New York Times list of the 100 best restaurants in New York City. 'We deeply appreciate the efforts of Lodi's staff and support from our guests and the community,' wrote Mattos in a statement to Eater. 'We are saddened that economic events drove this closing. It has been an honor to serve our wonderful guests and the community over these years.' This shutdown raises broader questions about the future of mid‑range independent cafes in high‑traffic, high-rent corridors of the city, particularly the notoriously challenging Rockefeller Center, which was hit hard during COVID and has not traditionally been considered a cool place to gather outside of the December holidays. Lodi, in particular, spotlights the perils of an all-day cafe that straddles tourist and local appeal in a more challenging economic climate. Tishman Speyer, which has owned the property since the early 2000s, set out on the 'next-level' multi-billion-dollar overhaul that stirred debate over whether the developer's efforts to draw New Yorkers to Rock Center, in part by courting big-name chefs, would work. Back when the restaurants opened just after COVID, Eater reported that Rockefeller Center was betting its future on independent restaurants, citing how projects like the Market Line food hall on the Lower East Side in 2019 also attempted to bring New Yorkers to an area with big-name chefs. But with the Market Line having closed several years later, the shutter of Lodi is the first crack in the Rockefeller Center reinvention's facade. Lodi's opening marked the debut of one of the most luxurious new bakeries in the city, offering memorable kale and egg tart, a porchetta sandwich, a maritozzo con la panna, and a flauto al cioccolato (chocolate croissant). An alum of Blue Hill at Stone Barns, Louis Volle, oversaw the bakery and viennoiserie. The restaurant opened with Maxime Pradié running the kitchen — since then, he became the chef and owner of a little French spot, Zimmi's, in the West Village. Lodi debuted with breakfast in the morning, followed by items like salumi, antipasti, and pastas from the all-day menu. In the fall of 2023, the restaurant did away with its bakery anchor in order to add another 24 or so seats to the dining room. The move expanded the restaurant's capacity to nearly 130 seats, including outdoor tables. Earlier that same year, the restaurant's employees attempted to unionize with the Restaurant Workers Union Local 1. After voting down unionization, workers filed unfair labor practice charges against Mattos with the National Labor Relations Board, which triggered a prolonged legal battle. In the spring, the case was heard by an Administrative Law Judge, who dismissed nearly all of the union's claims, with the Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) deeming that a rerun election was not justified, as it was 'virtually impossible to conclude that the misconduct could have affected the election results.' Just after those Lodi unionizing efforts, Mattos parted ways with his Dimes Square restaurant, the Corner Bar in the Nine Orchard Hotel. Andrew Rifkin, a managing partner at DLJ Real Estate Capital Partners, opened Nine Orchard in 2022; it's in the process of being sold to a Texas hospitality group, McGuire Moorman Lambert (MML), that has recently hired chef April Bloomfield of Sailor in Fort Greene, to oversee all of the restaurants within their group. Eater has reached out to a representative at Tishman Speyer to find out if there are any future plans for the Lodi space. Eater NY All your essential food and restaurant intel delivered to you Email (required) Sign Up By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Eater
17-07-2025
- Business
- Eater
April Bloomfield Will Return to Manhattan to Take Over One of Downtown's Buzziest Hotel Restaurants
April Bloomfield is returning to Manhattan. The chef will oversee the restaurants at the Nine Orchard hotel, taking over Corner Bar, its flagship lobby restaurant on the Lower East Side. According to Community Board 3 documents, hospitality group McGuire Moorman Lambert (MML) is taking over Nine Orchard's restaurant, the lobby bar, and potentially the rooftop. Bloomfield's return to Manhattan is part of her new role with a Texas-based restaurant group. (Whether they have purchased the hotel or are taking over as operators is unclear.) MML is behind a collection of Austin restaurants that include an oyster bar, a bakery, a hamburger joint, a sushi spot, a cafe, and a Tex-Mex diner that have expanded outside of the Texas city into Houston, Aspen, Colorado, and San Francisco, with plans to expand several of these into Dallas. Bloomfield's first focus in Austin is to revamp California-inspired Pecan Square Cafe and the fifty-year-old fine-dining steakhouse Jeffrey's in Austin, as reported by Texas Monthly. The liquor license application submitted to CB3 outlines plans to operate a 'New American restaurant with an emphasis on seasonal cooking,' open seven days a week from 8 a.m. to midnight, with a maximum of 68 tables and a bar area. (The application notes the building, which includes multiple restaurant areas, seats potentially over 400, with more than one bar, too.) Bloomfield's exact menu and opening timeline have not yet been announced. Eater has reached out to the group and Bloomfield for more information. A spokesperson for MML declined to comment. The MML takeover lands in a building that has had its share of recent restaurant drama. Corner Bar opened in 2022 with chef Ignacio Mattos — behind flagship Estela, the more-casual Altro Paradiso, and Rock Center Italian Lodi — at the helm. It drew immediate buzz and a two-star New York Times review for its white-tablecloth take on downtown dining. Former Eater critic Ryan Sutton called it 'the next great steakhouse.' Less than two years later, Mattos parted ways with the hotel, and the restaurant lost its buzzy namecheck leadership. What's now called the Swan Room, also on the ground floor of Nine Orchard, was intended to be Mattos's much-awaited fine dining tasting menu restaurant at the hotel. Initially, it was called Amado, then Amado Grill. Despite being fully designed and ready to go, after several false starts, it never opened. At the time, sources told Eater that Mattos' exit followed internal tensions with the hotel's former owner, Andrew Rifkin, a managing partner at DLJ Real Estate Capital Partners. And now, MML's recent purchase clears the way for a new team — and Bloomfield — to take over. News broke in May that Bloomfield would join the Austin-based group while she would continue to steer the kitchen at the acclaimed Sailor in Brooklyn, which she runs with restaurateur Gabriel Stulman, behind restaurants like Fairfax, Joseph Leonard, and Jeffrey's Grocery. The Nine Orchard endeavor is separate from Stulman's Happy Cooking Hospitality Group. Stulman and Bloomfield are also expanding Sailor. Since the Bloomfield announcement, Sailor has installed a new executive chef, Skylar Mosca. MML has a history of taking over hotels and revamping them along with their on-site restaurants and bars. There's the storied Austin Motel, where the company opened Joann's Fine Foods in what had been the hotel's longtime restaurant space. They followed that up with St. Vincent Guest House, which became the Saint Vincent Hotel in New Orleans. Currently, the group is beginning to transform the historic Austin hotel, the Driskill where President Lyndon B. Johnson held his presidential reelection watch party back in 1964. Bloomfield will lead the restaurants there, too. 'Bloomfield will play a pivotal role in upcoming MML projects,' the hospitality group wrote in a statement announcing the partnership back in May. The chef rose to one of the city's most recognizable culinary names in the aughts with the now-shuttered Spotted Pig. She reemerged on the scene in 2023, to mostly celebration following her role in one of the biggest restaurant scandals of the #MeToo era. It led her to close restaurants, including the wildly popular Spotted Pig in the West Village, as well as others she ran in partnership with Ken Friedman. This would not be her first hotel restaurant, having also overseen the Breslin at the Ace Hotel in Nomad, which has since closed. Eater crowned Sailor as one of the year's best new restaurants in 2024, addressing Bloomfield's personal transformation as well, saying that 'it represents the return of chef April Bloomfield to New York and the British-inflected cooking that made her name.' In his three-star review of the restaurant in The New York Times, critic Pete Wells declared that Bloomfield is 'cooking the best food she's ever made.' He went on to say that the 'understanding of her craft has deepened since the crack-up. She is now one of the most expressive cooks in the city,' and that 'she's found flavors nobody else seems to know how to reach.' Nine Orchard opened in 2022. It is a landmarked former bank circa 1912, originally rumored to be an Ace Hotel, the New York Times reported. The hotel was one of the biggest real estate deals in the area, which has expedited gentrification and the transition of the border of Chinatown and the Lower East Side to 'Dimes Square.' It was purchased in 2011 for $33 million.
