The restaurant tucked inside the Public Theater is getting a reset: The Astor opens on Tuesday, September 15, at 425 Lafayette Street, at Astor Place in Noho. The revamped spot replaces the theater’s previous restaurant, the Library, with a new wood-paneled
dining room and bar inspired by the taverns and supper clubs of old New York. The team is also opening a new snacky cafe, Bar Torino in the building, a second location following the one in Hudson Yards.
The openings build on a partnership that began in 1998, when Serge Becker, Josh Pickard, Paul Salmon, and Kevin Abbott launched Joe’s Pub alongside the theater. That collaboration later expanded to include Noho Hospitality partners Luke Ostrom and Andrew Carmellini. For the Astor and Bar Torino, longtime operators Jersey Katz and Michelle Cunha join as managing partners. The restaurants are being developed in partnership with the Public Theater, led by artistic director Oskar Eustis and executive director Patrick Willingham.
The Astor arrives as theaters and cultural institutions around New York are paying more attention to where people go before and after the show. Restaurants, like the newly opened Zoli next to contemporary art destination Amant in East Williamsburg, are increasingly being integrated into theaters, museums, and other arts spaces around the city. Last year, Wild Cherry opened alongside the revived Cherry Lane Theatre in the West Village. At the Public, the idea is to make the restaurant feel less like an amenity and more like an essential aspect of the evening.
“There’s this desperate need and desire in society right now to be together in a way that the arts bring you together,” Kevin Abbott, managing partner of Joe’s Pub and the Astor, tells Eater.
Traditionally, Abbott says, audiences enter a theater, “it gets dark, you watch the show, then everybody leaves.” The restaurant gives people somewhere to extend that experience. The renovation adds a 52-seat mezzanine overlooking the theater’s lobby, in addition to 70 seats in the dining room, 20 at the bar, and a 12-seat lounge. On a busy night, with the Public’s theaters and Joe’s Pub operating at once, more than a thousand people can move through the building.
Angel Monge is running the kitchen with chef and partner Carmellini, whose restaurants includeLocanda Verde, the Dutch, Lafayette, Bar Primi, and Cafe Carmellini. The menu looks back to what the team describes as a golden age of New York dining, with familiar American dishes among “parlor snacks” ($14 to $23), “savories” ($18 to $25), entrees ($25 to $65), and accompaniments. There are chips and dip, “Devilish” eggs, clams casino, and steak Diane, alongside pigs in Wellington with bourbon mustard, and a French mushroom dip served with au jus.
The nostalgia extends to the drinks. Bar director Darryl Chan has built a list around classic New York cocktails, including the “From the Ice Box” section of very cold martinis, Manhattans, and Bijous. The Charlie Chaplin riffs on the pre-Prohibition cocktail created at the Waldorf Astoria and named for the silent-film star. Josh Nadel oversees the wine list.
Artist Andre Carrilho created a mural wrapping the island bar that depicts writers whose work has helped shape the Public. His portraits in the dining room depict founder Joseph Papp and artistic directors JoAnne Akalaitis, George C. Wolfe, and Oskar Eustis.
For the design, Becker wanted the Astor to feel as though it had been part of the theater for decades. Red banquettes, white tablecloths, wood paneling, lamps, photographs, posters, letters, playbills, and artifacts from the theater’s history fill the space. He has spent decades shaping downtown New York nightlife and restaurants, with projects including La Esquina, and Miss Lily’s.
“What [Becker] wanted to do was create a space that felt like it belonged,” Abbott says, “that felt layered and representative of the different generations that have come through this 100-plus year-old building.”
