Community Board 8 held its Street Life Committee meeting on Tuesday evening. Restaurant owners and their reps attended via Zoom in order to further their liquor license applications, and we learned about five new spots opening on the Upper East Side.
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Zurutto Ramen is planning to open a new location at 244 East 79th Street between Second and Third avenues (previously home to Sojourn), and it is aiming to be more than a quick noodle stop. There will be two bars inside — a service bar and an omakase sushi bar — across roughly 1,800 square feet on the ground floor and another 1,400 in the basement, with seven tables, 27 seats and 24 bar seats, all under a 75-person capacity. Proposed hours run from 11 a.m. to 1 a.m. The operator behind it, Chef Lily Chen, brings more than two decades of experience and already runs three other establishments around the city.Two of the neighborhood’s Italian spaces are changing hands.
At 1716 Second Avenue (between 89th and 90th streets), a new restaurant called Doria will be taking over San Mateo. The team behind Doria is SA Hospitality Group, also known for Felice, Sant Ambroeus and Casa Lever. They told the committee they plan to do the Northern Italian cooking they know best, with background music, no dancing and what they described as reasonable hours.
Meanwhile, at 1431 First Avenue (between East 74th and East 75th streets), the Gnocchi House Bar is set to become La Colina, a quiet Italian restaurant with 23 tables, 62 chairs and a small seven-seat bar, open 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. seven days a week. Its owner, Adrian Kercuku, has run da Adriano at 1198 First Avenue (between 64th and 65th streets) since 2023.
Kalo Greek Restaurant is opening at 1007 Lexington Avenue (between East 72nd and East 73rd Streets). Plans call for 18 tables, 38 seats and an eight-seat bar, with hours of 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday and until midnight on Fridays and Saturdays. The owners already operate several other spots, including two Water and Wheat locations and Kukla in Astoria. This space was previously home to Ikinari Steak.
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Sushi Genkai will be opening at 445 East 78th Street (between First and York avenues). The restaurant’s legal representative described the space as a compact room with a single large table and 14 counter seats, and said the owner also owns a restaurant at 1143 First Avenue (which would be Sushi Seki).Daily Sprouts at 163 East 92nd Street (between Third and Lexington avenues) is looking to grow up. Owner Svetlana Martynova opened the healthy breakfast-and-lunch cafe five months ago and now wants to add dinner service, along with a wine, beer and cider license, plus community programming like poetry readings, board games and trivia nights. In keeping with the concept, she plans a short list of biodynamic, sulfite-free wines and kombucha-based ciders.
