Chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten to Expand Restaurant Empire with New Lease at 425 Park Ave

By: Colin Truamonde

Famed chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten has sealed a deal to open another 14,000 square-foot restaurant at 425 Park Ave in Midtown Manhattan.

As reported by the NY Post, the new deal includes a main dining level on the mezzanine of the tower with a “dramatic” 1,000 square-foot show kitchen, a cocktail lounge with a 45-foot high ceiling and a 24-foot long painting by Larry Poons. The restaurant will also be designed by Britain’s Norman Foster, as was the tower. The restaurant is slated to open in late 2023.

L&L Holding Company’s new glassy office tower at 425 Park Ave on East 56th Street has been searching for a world class restaurant for its ground floor.  The new office tower, which boasts 670,000 square feet of commercial space, is already 85% leased to top-tier office tenants, with Citadel taking on a whopping 415,000 square feet at the top of the tower.  L&L was first founded in 2000 by developer David W. Levinson and co-founder Robert T. Lapidus, and they dreamed up $1 billion super tower a decade ago.  L & L tapped Pritzker Prize winner Lord Norman Foster of Foster Partners as the architect for the full-block tower.  “425 Park Avenue will set new standards for workplace design and provide an enduring landmark that is both of its time and timeless,” Lord Norman Foster said regarding the glass tower.

Tenants at the tower are reportedly paying up to $300 per square foot, which is among the highest office rents in history. The 47-story tower boasts a 45-foot-high lobby; two “diagrid” floors with ceilings up to 38 feet; super speed elevators which run at 1,200 feet per minute; and a double-height club floor for tenants only. It will be the city’s first WELL-certified building, lauded for several health, wellness and environment-friendly features.

As per the Post, a deal was in the making with Eleven Madison Park chef Daniel Humm for the restaurant there, but last winter Levinson booted Humm when the chef insisted on making it an all-vegan place.  “It was a no-brainer not to have a vegan restaurant at 425 Park,” Levinson had told the Post. Then talks began with Vongerichten, as early as March.   Chef Vongerichten will also run the tower’s tenants-only food and beverage program which will be in the Diagrid Club—which is a full-floor amenity center, named after the building’s diagrid-shaped steel frame.

Vongerichten also recently expanded his line of restaurants, opening an oversized Tin Building food-and-restaurant complex in the South Street Seaport District. The chef also got a boost when Howard Hughes Corp., which operates the Seaport complex, recently purchased a 25 percent stake in Jean-Georges Restaurants group, JGR. The company also bought an option to purchase another 20 percent of the company. Vongerichten’s other local places include flagship Jean-Georges, Nougatine, The Fulton at the Seaport, ABC Kitchen, Jo-Jo and The Mark.

Vongerichten commented to say: “We share [with L&L and Foster] a like-minded ethos: sustainability and preserving energy … this is going to be the healthiest building in the city in all senses of the word.”