To Find New York's Best New Restaurants, Raise Your Gaze

When the 16 or so restaurants and food concepts open at the hugely anticipated Hudson Yards mega complex on Manhattan’s way West Side in 2018, none will be located on the ground floor.

That’s a purposeful move by Related Companies, the developer behind Hudson Yards, and one it has made before. Its previous projects include the Time Warner Center, which put two of New York’s more expensive dining rooms—Per Se and Masa—up on the 4th floor of the 2.8 million-square-foot complex.

Per Se’s chef/owner Thomas Keller will again be cooking up in the air at Hudson Yards (a 28-acre, 17 million-square-foot property, essentially a new neighborhood, if you can wrap your head around that). His upcoming American grill and steakhouse will occupy the 5th and 6th floors, according to Related Urban’s president Kenneth Himmel. The downstairs will be a vast, clubby-feeling bar with snacks, while the 6th floor will feature a 16,000-square-foot restaurant.

Also afforded two stories is a giant, West Side outpost of the Mediterranean seafood destination Milos. Both places will have dedicated outdoor terraces that flank a rooftop garden. Acclaimed Spanish chef José Andrés’s restaurant will be on the 5th floor. Almost everything below that will be retail focused, although one of Keller’s Bouchon take-aways will be on the 2nd floor.

“It’s how we’re getting people back into brick-and-mortar spaces,” says Himmel, about putting restaurants above the stores in Time Warner and now Hudson Yards. Anyway, he adds, “Ground floor real estate is so expensive. It’s hard for most restaurants to sustain that rent.” People will go upstairs, especially if they can see the dining areas, he maintains. “You just have to make sure there’s enough action and energy on the ground floor.” (Himmel told WWD that the projected rents on the first level would be at least double, if not triple, the rents on higher floors.)

Also up a couple escalators is the recently opened Eataly Downtown, encompassing the third floor of Tower 4 at the World Trade Center.

“Rents in New York are insane. And we aren’t afraid to go on an upper floor,” says Alex Saper, chief operation officer of Eataly America, who adds that the only space large enough in the World Trade Center complex was a couple stories above ground. Plus, he estimates the rents were about 50 percent to 60 percent less than for ground floor space. He notes that another advantage of being on upper floors is the view: If you take a break from shopping and snacking, the views of the Hudson River and the new Calatrava Occulus are stunning.

“I’m surprised that people don’t want to go higher with their restaurants,” Saper said over the phone. He anticipates that, in the not-too-distant future, New York will become a more vertical city, like Hong Kong and Tokyo, where you often get in an elevator to get to a restaurant.

While we wait to eat high up at Hudson Yards, consider these places that are ingeniously using upstairs and downstairs spaces around New York for terrific food and cocktails, too.