#How the NYC restaurant scene defied the pandemic

For New York City’s restaurants, the future is mostly the past – and that’s a good thing.

The pandemic has not “changed everything” — despite outdoor seating, no-contact menus and earlier eating hours — as many predicted it would. The overlooked, underappreciated, mind-boggling – and happy — truth about the city’s restaurants is how little has changed. There are differences, of course, but there is no new, game-changing paradigm.

Tens of thousands of virus-related deaths, two crippling lockdowns, an exodus of residents and the collapse of tourism and business travel have left the local restaurant industry bloodied, sure. But it’s hardly been a knockout, and New Yorkers’ hunger for eating out and making merry remains stronger than ever.

Except for the obvious, perhaps permanent, alfresco phenomenon, the restaurant scene’s contours remarkably resemble those of 2019. This is cause to celebrate because, for all the faults, Gotham’s gustatory pleasures overall can’t be topped by any city in the world. Nor can the economic benefits the business provides to all involved in it.

For starters, our kingpin, big-empire owners are the same ones as before — among them, Stephen Starr, Danny Meyer, Simon Oren, Major Food Group (The Grill, Dirty French), Andrew Carmellini’s NoHo Hospitality Group (Locanda Verde, the new Carne Mare) and Stillman Restaurant Group.

Our top toques — such as Eric Ripert, Daniel Boulud, Tom Colicchio, Jean-Georges Vongerichten, David Chang and Daniel Humm — came through the nightmare mostly intact and rule the roost anew.

Our formerly favorite cuisine classes remain the favorites: steakhouses, Italian, modern-American, Japanese and French. The cuisines that were gaining the heaviest traction before March 2020 — Korean and Israeli — continue to grow in popularity with big openings such as Dagon on the Upper West Side and Jua in the Flatiron.

The outer-boroughs sprawl of lower-priced, esoteric offshoots of global cuisines, as lovingly chronicled by Eater.com and other sites, rolls on. We have birria-style tacos in Long Island City and Greenpoint, Hainanese chicken in downtown Flushing, Tibetan momo in Jackson Heights, Thai drinking snacks in Bushwick, and, in the “only in New York” league, Caribbean-tinted ramen in the Bronx’s Little Italy.

Despite concern about the end of fine dining, luxury is doing well, from the new Saga, where a meal 63 stories above Wall Street starts at $285, to the now vegan Eleven Madison Park to Boulud’s Midtown hot spot Le Pavillon.

Yes, hundreds of places closed for good, and we’ll miss Aquagrill, Esca, Chinatown’s Jing Fong, Brooklyn Heights’ Queen, 21 Club and many others. (It’s worth noting that several regrettable closings had causes other than the pandemic, such as Café Boulud for real estate reasons, and Delmonico’s due to a partner feud.)

But new places by the score are bravely taking the plunge to replace them. Since indoor dining was restored in February, debuts have included posh-Indian Sona, ultra-lux Le Pavillon, revived Southern-American classic Gage & Tollner, Japanese-influenced Cantonese Cha Kee, omakase-heaven Saishin (on the Gansevoort Hotel rooftop, no less), Peruvian-themed Contento, Turkish-tinted Greek Iris and just-launched, Southeast-Asian fantasy Wau.

There’s irrepressible energy at every price point. Elegant London import Hawksmoor on Park Avenue South spearheads a wave of steakhouse openings. Banh Vietnamese Shop House on the Upper West Side graduated from outdoor pop-up to sit-down dining room. Mo’s General in Williamsburg is the latest entry in the “new and original” pizza field. 

And there’s much more on the horizon: a major Italian-influenced place, Ci Siamo, in the Manhattan West complex — Danny Meyer’s first fine-dining restaurant in three years. A third edition on Midtown Sixth Avenue of Avra, the shining star of the Greek seafood boom. A new restaurant, Dowlings, at the Carlyle Hotel. A new dining room at Restaurant Daniel.

Does all this sound like a doleful, mortally wounded restaurant industry limping into the future? Hardly.

In fact, the major difference between 2019 and today affects owners more than customers: the well-reported labor shortage. It’s the main reason why so many restaurants that opened for dinner months ago have yet to open for lunch. There just aren’t enough cooks and servers to cover both shifts.

But that crisis might be on the wane. Several owners told me they already see an uptick in job-takers since federal unemployment benefits ended this month.

Sure, all the good news could come crashing down again if a more lethal, more transmissible Godzilla virus strain were to come along. But the trends in New York City do not show that. For now, let’s understand and enjoy what we have: the world’s best restaurant scene that endured its season in hell and came through it gloriously reborn.