One of Tribeca’s newest Michelin-starred restaurants is getting ready for a serious new expansion.
L’Abeille is a new French fine-dining restaurant that recently opened up at 412 Greenwich Street. The concept was established by partners Rahul Saito and Howard Chang, two Tribeca natives with a long career in finance. During the pandemic, they hired star chef Mitsu Nagae as their personal chef when indoor dining was impossible, and when the restaurant scene finally came back to life, they decided to partner with Mitsu on a new restaurant of their own design.
In fact, last October we shared the news of L’abeille’s development right here, but the restaurant has grown significantly since first opening up this March. In October 2022, about six months after opening, L’Abeille was awarded its first Michelin star and was praised as “a harmonious union of French cooking with Japanese sensibilities.” Now, less than a year after opening their first restaurant, the team is already gearing up to expand the space with a brand new concept.
According to Tribeca Citizen, Rahul and his team have just acquired the lease for the space next to L’Abeille at 412 Greenwich Street. This space previously housed Wisefish, a popular poke restaurant that sadly closed down during the pandemic. While Wisefish has shuttered both of their locations, the team has indicated that they “hope to return soon”, and fans can follow Wisefish on Instagram for any potential updates in the future.
The location boasts about 3,500 square feet of space and is envisioned as a reservation-only omakase restaurant called Sushi Ichimura. The restaurant is expected to offer two seatings a night for 16 guests each seating. Excitingly, the team has tapped world-renowned chef Eiji Ichimura to run the kitchen. Chef Ichimura has been preparing sushi for over 40 years of his life and made headlines when he earned two Michelin stars for his work at Brushstroke. Chef Ichimura was also behind the popular Uchu restaurant, whose founder is currently in the process of developing a new restaurant – per our reporting.
Chef Ichimura has been running an omakase pop-up at L’Abeille since this Fall, but now the team is making the concept permanent with the acquisition of the Wisefish space. While the team has not yet indicated when they intend to open the new concept to the public, you can follow L’Abeille on Instagram for future updates.
