If you enjoy getting a table out on the street when the weather’s nice, we have some bad news for you: New York City, like Tokyo before it, is becoming a place where the top restaurants are only found somewhere in the sky. Indeed, when the West Side’s Hudson Yards complex opens in 2018, over a dozen restaurants will be featured and none will be on at ground level. “Ground floor real estate is so expensive,” high-end property developer Kenneth Himmel recently told Bloomberg. “It’s hard for most restaurants to sustain that rent.”
Himmel isn’t exaggerating, as he’s estimated that the rent would be at least double on the ground as opposed to up a floor or two. Alex Saper, chief operations officer of Eataly America, also confirms that they cut their World Trade Center complex rent in half just by moving on up.
The result is more and more eateries are going aerial, even when their reputation seemingly would allow them to be located any place they’d desire. It’s why celebrated chef Thomas Keller was happy to put his Per Se on the fourth floor of the Time Warner Center. Indeed, his new American grill and steakhouse will be on the 5th and 6th floors at Hudson Yards.
Kate Krader reports for Bloomberg on this trend. (She also notes some places have chosen to go down, like underground omakase hotspot Akashi.) To read more, click here. Below, take a look back at the opening of one the first of the elite restaurants in the sky, Keller’s Per Se.
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