"For a guy with a foie gras tattoo, you'd think that I would never get tired of it." That's Cody Pruitt, explaining to Eater NY why he and his partner Jacob Cohen closed Libertine and opened something else in the same room. He said he had been "surrounded by duck and butter for the better part of several years." When he took time off, he found himself eating mostly seafood and vegetables.
Libertine's last service was scheduled for May 23. On June 19, Capitaine opened at 684 Greenwich Street, at Christopher Street, as a seafood tavern. It was the first of many openings that have reshaped the West Village dining map since then. Read together, they show a pattern. Chefs who trained in tasting-menu kitchens and Michelin-starred rooms are opening places meant for an ordinary weeknight: a market with a children's fridge, a taqueria, a Thai room that gives you rice for free, and a Daniel Humm restaurant you can drop into at the bar.
Same Rooms, New Menus
Capitaine shows the change clearly. The raw bar has East Coast oysters, shrimp cocktail, chilled razor clams and Jonah crab claws. The caviar sandwich, served on Japanese milk bread toast, nods to the one Grand Central Oyster Bar used to serve. The brown-butter Old Fashioned carried over from Libertine. Wines by the glass are $14 to $21, and brunch runs Saturday and Sunday from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Pruitt and Cohen made a second switch this summer, a few blocks east. On August 27, they turned Chateau Royale at 205 Thompson Street into Floradora. The new menu has mozzarella sticks, French dip sandwiches, burgers and disco fries. The owners told Eater NY they wanted the place to be "more accessible, price-wise, as well as cuisine-wise, and vibe-wise, so we can see our neighbors more often." They also noted that Chateau Royale diners tended to order the burger rather than the pricier Dover sole. Floradora is in Greenwich Village, but its owners said out loud what other kitchens this season have shown with their menus.
A familiar Bleecker Street address changed hands too. Saint Theo's at 340 Bleecker closed on June 28. On September 15, Catch Hospitality Group opened Café Charmant there. Chef Jake Tyler Brodsky's menu includes Iberico Milanese, steak frites, and the tuna Charmant: raw tuna belly with Jimmy Nardello peppers, olives, saffron aioli and chips. Further down the street, at 232 Bleecker at Carmine Street, Santo Taco opened its third location on September 25 in the space Dig left this summer. Owner Santiago Perez co-founded Cosme with Enrique Olvera. The draw at his taqueria is a steak trompo taco: New York strip and sirloin cooked on a spit, sliced onto a tortilla and finished with avocado salsa.
Tasting-Menu Chefs, Daytime Hours
The pattern is clearest when you line up where each chef worked before.
| Place | Address | Chef or operator's background | West Village format |
|---|---|---|---|
| Humm | 435 Hudson St | Daniel Humm and the Eleven Madison Park team | Casual restaurant with dining room, bar and lounge |
| Hommali | 28 Seventh Ave South | Chef Chattchakorn "Benz" Khajornchaisan, formerly of Eleven Madison Park | Contemporary Thai with free jasmine rice |
| H. Valley | 569 Hudson St | Chef Austin Johnson, formerly executive chef of One White Street | Market, bakery and café |
| Calabash | 183 Christopher St | Camari Mick, former executive pastry chef at the Musket Room and Raf's | Daytime bakery, prix fixe dinner on weekends |
| Santo Taco | 232 Bleecker St | Santiago Perez, Cosme co-founder | Taqueria |
Start with H. Valley. It opened fully on September 23 at 569 Hudson Street, at West 11th Street. It comes from Johnson and Eytan Sugarman's Hudson Street Hospitality, the group behind White Horse Tavern. The 2,500-square-foot market stocks prepared dinners, ready-to-cook meats, sauces, pastas and pastries. One fridge is just for children, with mac and cheese, baked fish sticks and turkey meatballs to heat up. Dion's Diet is house-made dog food with Hudson Valley trout, chicken and duck. "The dogs are customers, too," Johnson told Eater. According to Eater, Johnson set hours that let him finish around 8:30 p.m., not the late nights of tasting-menu service. For now, H. Valley is open Wednesday from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m., with limited café seating, and a larger dining program is planned for later this year.
Hommali opened on September 2 at 28 Seventh Avenue South, near Leroy Street. The name refers to hom mali, Thailand's fragrant jasmine rice, and white jasmine rice comes free with every meal. "Rice is something that we have all the time," operations lead Pichalak "Picha" Srigungvarl told Eater. Khajornchaisan makes her own curry pastes. Her northern-style larb is a beef tartare made with dry-aged beef heart and served with a fried tripe cracker. The menu also has a penang curry with beef cheeks and a roselle sorbet topped with fermented rice cream.
Humm opens on October 10, a few blocks south of Hommali on Hudson Street, between Leroy and Morton Streets. Reservations went live on October 1. Eater describes it as a new casual restaurant from the chef who made Eleven Madison Park a three-Michelin-star restaurant. You can sit in the dining room for the full menu, or at the bar or in the lounge, which have smaller menus. The opening menu includes crispy feta with sesame and shallot agrodolce, a chicory and tangerine salad, roasted chicken for two, and a dessert called milk and honey. Produce comes from Magic Farms in Hoosick Falls, New York, which grows only for the restaurants. Pierre Yovanovitch designed the room, which has art by Francesco Clemente and Rashid Johnson.
Calabash, at 183 Christopher Street near Weehawken Street, was announced in early September as a fall opening. Mick, a four-time James Beard Award semifinalist for pastry, plans daytime service Thursday through Sunday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., with a prix fixe dinner on Fridays and Saturdays. She told Eater why she is opening her own place:
"Being in Michelin-starred restaurants, you're cooking somebody else's story. Why wouldn't I want the opportunity to cook mine?"
She is bringing back her beef patty croissant and serving suya steak frites with fries made from ripe plantains. Instead of a liquor list, Calabash will pour fermented drinks and nonalcoholic cocktails in a 30-seat room.
Ambitious Food, Relaxed Rooms
Formal dining hasn't left the neighborhood. Mostly it has moved into rooms that are easier to walk into, and the other September openings show it.
- Galo, 142 West 10th Street near Waverly Place, opened September 15. Chef Nuno Sousa, who has run Leitao on nearby Hudson Street since 2020, serves galo recheado, a Portuguese whole stuffed rooster. Galo says no other New York restaurant serves the dish. The 66-seat adega also has petiscos, pig's ear and razor clam rice, plus more than 100 wines.
- Legion, 140 Charles Street at Greenwich Street, opened September 12 with Charleston and New Orleans cooking. You can order à la carte or choose a $155 tasting menu. The angel biscuits are baked to order and glazed with rose honey, chicken jus and brown butter.
- El Camarón Peludo, 20 Cornelia Street, opened September 16. It comes from the Taqueria Ramirez and Carnitas Ramirez team: Giovanni Cervantes, Tania Apolinar and chef Carlos Barrera. It's a wine bar that serves small seafood dishes, among them sardine tacos, aguachile tostadas and peel-and-eat shrimp.
- Graciela, 81 Greenwich Avenue, opened July 14. Argentine restaurateur Pablo Rivero and brothers Alex and Adam Saper cook steaks and fish over Argentine charcoal and serve ossobuco empanadas.
- Rok Coffee and Tea, 156 Seventh Avenue South at Charles Street, opened in late August as the first New York location of the Los Angeles café. Its matcha comes from Uji, in Kyoto Prefecture.
What the Summer Closed
Some kitchens closed without a new tenant lined up. Cha Cha Tang, Wilson Tang's Hong Kong diner at 10 Downing Street, closed on July 31, and Eater reported no word on what comes next for the space. Dan Kluger's Loring Place at 21 West Eighth Street closed on July 14, and the team cited rising costs. Humm is taking over the former home of En Japanese Brasserie at 435 Hudson, which closed in December 2024 after two decades. Eater's October 2 closings roundup listed no West Village restaurants.
Dates to watch this fall:
- October 10: Humm opens at 435 Hudson Street.
- This fall, date unconfirmed: Calabash at 183 Christopher Street.
- This fall, date unconfirmed: Vodka Bar, from Rakusa Roman, in the former Parcelle Wine space at 72 MacDougal Street.
- Later this year: H. Valley's larger dining program on Hudson Street.
We follow these changes because they shape daily life on each block of the Village, and that matters when we price a townhouse or advise a buyer on which corner suits them. If you'd like to talk about how the new Hudson Street and Seventh Avenue South openings fit with a property you own or are considering nearby, contact The Riccio Zinoman Team.
