Are you digging the new Tavern logo? Such debonaire sheep.
After postponing the opening date several times, Tavern on the Green is now ready to start serving food, and has started taking reservations. The doors of the restaurant on 67th street just inside Central Park will open on April 24, just four years and four months after the old Tavern closed for good on Dec. 31 2009.
Grubstreet posted the menu today, and we’ve posted it below.
Owner Jim Caiola told the Daily News that the old sparkly Tavern is gone.
“There’s zero garish about this version, and much more Old New York,” he said of the restaurant’s new design, which include a dark wood tavern, a dining area with open kitchen and the more elegant South Wing. “It’s also very bucolic – we tried to make you feel one with the park.”
The restaurant’s renovation reportedly cost $17 million. Restaurant Business magazine described the project and the look of the new restaurant:
The interior now sports a 3,400-square-foot kitchen that opens to the bar, plus two more seating areas: that glassed-in central section and a south room for private parties and a la carte dining. Caiola and Salama hired Chef Katy Sparks, former owner of Quilty’s in New York City and a pioneer in the seasonal cooking movement, to create an ingredient-driven menu with an urban farmhouse vibe.
Leather-top tables in three colors—brown in the bar, off-white in the central room, green in the private dining room—define the eating areas. Dark wood parquet floors, mahogany on the bar and wood wainscoting on walls add warmth. A takeout window accommodates picnickers in Central Park.
The new owners were delayed because the building was in much worse shape than they’d expected. “They figured they could build out the space and open in five months, but didn’t count on city workers still being onsite. Nor did they expect the chimney to fall down, pipes to burst or a wall to crumble.”
Since reservations started last week, the restaurant has gotten a ton of calls — and it’s already filled up all 600 reservations for its Mother’s Day brunch, according to the New York Post.
Tavern even got a phone number with its initials in it: 212-877-TOTG (8684). Check out the website here.
Don’t even start on the menu or the prices. It is what it is. They need be good or they will be gone. And if they are good, then all power to them – this must’ve been a nightmare to launch.
Aside from the prices, the menu isn’t particularly vegetarian friendly. There are a lot of vegetarians in New York and most restaurants are more accommodating than this. Also, they seem to be straining to be different, or at least sound that way, rather than focusing on good food.
You need to check again.
There several vegetarian options.
Also, you, have your own option.
I think this is a thrilling moment for New Yorkers. I can’t wait to go there.