Sayonara, Matsugen

February 28, 2011 Restaurant/Bar News

A word from someone who just dined at Matsugen, Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s “soba cuisine” restaurant in 66 Leonard: Saturday will be its final day. I called and it was confirmed. No word on what will happen to the attractive space. The person I talked to said they only found out today. (Photo courtesy Eat the City.)

3/2: Eater and Fork in the Road have updates. The restaurant is saying “the restaurant is closing because JGV’s contract with the Matsushita brothers is up and most of their Japanese based chefs’ visas are going to expire.” I’m not buying it: Matsugen was rarely busy, and that’s one big restaurant with, presumably, quite a bit of overhead.

 
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5 Comments

  1. d stein
    March 1, 2011 • 8:03 am

    Jean Georges is 0 for 2 in that space. First 66, now this. Too bad.

  2. Marc Shepherd
    March 1, 2011 • 10:52 am

    The space isn’t all that attractive, which is one of its many problems.

  3. Erik Torkells
    March 1, 2011 • 1:43 pm

    I grew to like the room, having been underwhelmed when it was 66—the minimalism made more sense for a Japanese restaurant, for sure. I found the food hit and miss—some was excellent, some tossed off. The big question (besides what’ll happen to the space) is whether this bodes one way or another for the myriad other high-end Japanese restaurants in the neighborhood, including Rosanjin and David Bouley’s yet-to-open Boji.

  4. Bob Zito
    March 4, 2011 • 10:00 am

    One trick pony. If you were there once, you were there 1,000 times. Beautiful space. Hope they can rent it in this economy.

  5. Liat
    March 6, 2011 • 4:04 pm

    we ate there during hte restaurent week special and it was both delicious and busy (it was a Sunday night)
    Sorry to see it go.