NYC restaurants ditch pricey chef’s tasting menus as inflation-hammered diners seek cheaper options
Inflation-battered diners are putting aside less time and money for extravagant chefs’ tasting menus – leading many Big Apple restaurants to ditch the pricey concept in favor of a la carte options that can be shared, Side Dish has learned.
Industry insiders say new restaurants are not launching tasting menus, and many who do have them already are “downsizing” the price point and the time it takes to enjoy — or endure — them.
“The price of tasting menus has become astronomical, thanks to inflation, the price of goods and staffing costs,” restaurant consultant Donny Evans told Side Dish.
“People, even wealthy people, talk more openly about the cost of going out to dinner and the tasting menu exacerbates the whole price point.”
Restaurateur Jeff Katz has witnessed the shift firsthand.
Last year, he shuttered Italian eatery Al Coro, which offered different tasting menu options at the former Del Posto space – despite the talents of celebrated chef Melissa Rodriguez earning the restaurant two Michelin stars.
A seven-course tasting menu cost $265 per person, with an additional $165 for wine pairings, while a five-course option was $210, plus another $115 for wine.
“We closed Al Coro because it wasn’t working.” Katz told Side Dish. “People want to share their food.”
Al Coro wasn’t the only casualty of the changing attitudes. Marea, the upscale Italian eatery on Central Park South, ended their lunch and dinner tasting menus in 2022.
Other high-end restaurants like Eleven Madison Park and Le Bernardin — famed for their tasting menus that cost $365 and $225, respectively — now offer a la carte options, albeit at the bar, for EMP and in the lounge for Le Bernardin.
For example. the lounge menu at the French mainstay offers a $48 lobster roll and a reasonably priced salmon entree for $28.
“I personally think that the tasting menu will be a thing of the past. People don’t want to pay $200 or $250 a person. It seems a little much — and they want more choice on what they eat when they go out to dine,” Evans said.
Katz and Rodriguez are now collaborating on a new restaurant, Crane Club, which opens next week at the iconic Del Posto location in the shadow of the High Line at 85 Tenth Ave.
It’s an address that Rodriguez knows well.
In 2011, she was hired by Del Posto, where she first worked with Katz, who was the general manager.
The Italian fine-dining restaurant reached cult-like status under Chef Mario Batali, until he crumbled under an avalanche of sexual harassment and assault allegations that forced him to exit in 2016.
While Rodriguez declined to talk about working in Batali’s toxic workplace — “it was a long time ago,” she says — she describes her own kitchen as a very different space.
“I have a very inclusive workplace and I always have,” she told Side Dish. “A lot of my job is mentoring and providing a workplace where people want to be and want to come to.”
Del Posto went under in 2021. That’s when Rodriguez and Katz — along with Katz’s former business partner, the late Chef James Kent — teamed up and acquired the space.
Katz and Rodriguez opened three different restaurants at the cavernous location: Al Coro, the wood-fired pizza joint Mel’s and a subterranean cocktail bar known as Discolo.
Mel’s was the only one still standing before they partnered for the first time with Tao Group Hospitality to open Crane Club.
“We opened Mel’s almost three years ago. We had such a fun time with it, and we were often at Al Coro, bringing things to Mel’s kitchen to cook, so it feels like a natural progression to make food [at Crane Club] that’s more elevated than just the pizza and vegetables at Mel’s,” Katz said.
While Crane Club will occupy the same space as Al Coro and Del Posto, it will be physically smaller and more intimate. A redesign has trimmed the space from 24,000 square feet to around 18,000 square feet. It features 35 tables in the restaurant, 12 seats at the bar and three private rooms of 14 people each.
The centerpiece is a live-fire, 12-foot Mibrasa grill, custom designed by Rodriguez, for a menu showcasing grilled vegetables, meats and seafood, along with a 1,000-bottle wine list.
Dishes include wood-grilled Dover sole, dry-aged Frenched bone-in filet mignon, along with grilled, marinated mushrooms, a tableside raw bar service, and pastas like a savory sfogliatelle, with fontina, a white truffle arancini and Maine uni dressed with a shellfish vinaigrette topped with caviar. Desserts feature a banana layer cake with guava sorbet and a chocolate vienetta — Chef Georgia Wodder’s take on the “freezer aisle favorite.”
The bar program will be overseen by Chris Lemperle, who opened Crown Shy and Overstory with Katz
Katz emphasized that the a la carte menu is meant to be shared.
“Food, like fashion and music trends, go through cycles,” Katz said.
“In New York, the dining public isn’t super interested in long-tasting menus at the whim of chefs. People want to eat what they want to eat.”
We hear: Once named the West Coast “wine therapist to the stars,” Christian Navarro has now opened his own place, midnight by navarro’s, inside the Mastercard Midnight Theatre at 75 Manhattan West Plaza.
Navarro is the former president of Wally’s, a top wine shop in Beverly Hills. He has now partnered with Oak View Group, a global venue, entertainment and sports company, to introduce fine wines, cuisine and luxury experiences across OVG’s global holdings.
A street-level wine bar serves a late-afternoon and evening menu, along with a restaurant and bar upstairs featuring seasonal cuisine. Helmed by Chef Ryan Kluver, the menu, which changes seasonally, is elevated American comfort food — cheese and charcuterie boards, caviar service, homemade pasta, prime steaks, and a Wagyu burger, along with more than 75 wines by the glass from around the world that are all temperature controlled.
After dining, head to the adjacent theater, where Navarro has tapped Lady Gaga‘s musical director Brian Newman, a Grammy Award-winning trumpeter and vocalist, who is also musical director for the Pinky Ring by Bruno Mars, as its artist in residence. After a soft-opening this summer, midnight theatre has officially launched this fall with a selection of great live performances and shows, like Brian Newman After Dark, where Newman performs contemporary songs and classics with his partner, renowned burlesque star Angie Pontani, along with a 10-piece orchestra.
