You may have heard of Cobi Levy. He was the front man at the Charles, an exclusive little restaurant that he ran with the chef John DeLucie in the kitchen. (There was no Charles involved.) Frank Bruni, when he was sitting in the soft leather seat that The Times issues to the newspaper’s restaurant critic, had a blast blasting it, in a zero-star review that ran almost two years ago exactly and is worth rereading today.
Sam Sifton is the restaurant critic of The Times.
Now Mr. Levy is back, with Niko in the old Honmura An space. I have reviewed the restaurant, and it’s O.K.: a solid party scene of a restaurant with food for the sort of people who enjoy a dance on the line between art and fashion, who see no functional difference between on duty and off. Tuna for all! Tokyo fried chicken! More gruner! In SoHo in 2011, there is certainly a place for this.
Refreshingly, the restaurant is not a total repudiation of Honmura An. (Which was once seen, let us remember, as a repudiation of its own, at least when Ruth Reichl gave it three stars in The Times in 1993. For more on what happened afterward, check out Dwight Garner, writing then for Salon.) Niko is louder and younger, to be sure, but at least the space retains some of Honmura An’s airy, loft-like charm. It is nice to go there early, and to look out at the tall windows over Mercer Street and to eat octopus.
Would you go to such a place for dinner? Read the review and let us know your thoughts, in the comments below.
