Arnon Magal reached out to offer up some details about Gotan, the café that he and three partners are opening in the former Pécan space.

Of prime interest: Magal is a co-founder of Little Collins, a café on Lexington (between 55th and 56th). “You can get great coffee in New York now,” he said. “I could probably mention seven to ten companies that do specialty coffee, third-wave execution. But none of them do great food. We try to distinguish ourselves by delivering both at a very high quality. That’s what we did at Little Collins and we have received a great response. Little Collins is only 750 square feet and we easily serve 700 to 800 people per day.”

He and his partners in Gotan (only one of whom is involved with Little Collins) had been looking for another space for over a year, and they hadn’t really considered a residential neighborhood until Pécan became available. It was too good to pass up. Gotan will be different from its half-sibling: “Little Collins is an Australian coffee shop and Gotan is a New York one.” As for the name…. “It has absolutely no meaning. I do love Gotan Project, and we tried to find a name with no meaning so we can assign meaning to the name. It sounds a little Spanish, a little French, a little American—a bit of everything. And I like that no one knows how to pronounce it.” It’s goh-tahn.

The coffee is Counter Culture and the menu will consist of sandwiches and salads made to order, as well as soups. A brief sample menu:

• Turkey confit sandwich with apples and crunchy mustard seeds
• Smoked brisket sandwich with horseradish and cranberries
• House-cured salmon and caper mascarpone
• Yogurt pound cake with almonds and rhubarb compote
• Bacon, lettuce, avocado, and tomato sandwich. (“All of our cured meats are from Kiszka in Greenpoint. You could literally grill this bacon. And it has none of the fake taste of processed bacon.”)
• Avocado and feta on whole grain with pea shoots
• Smoked whitefish on open-face bialy with everything bagel seasoning
• Beet and sautéed greens with cured lemon yogurt dressing
• House-baked biscuits with organic, free-range chive scramble and cheese

If everything goes to plan, Gotan will open its doors on December 7 or 8.