In what was the opulent interiors of 10 Corso Como will soon be the Howard Hughes Corporation’s Lawn Club, a destination play space with games like cornhole, bocce and croquet — and what I assume will be yards of Astroturf. (While Corso Como was not my style, I just can’t believe all that tile and glass and gilt is being torn out and replaced with plywood courts. Though the HHC folks did tell me that they are salvaging some of the furniture and all of the wall art and other art throughout the store.) And Wylie Dufresne, a James Beard award winner for best chef in NYC, and Josh Eden, who had Shorty’s .32 in Soho, will take over the restaurant portion.

The space is 20,000 and will expand outside in the summer months. It’s expected to open this fall.

What Dufresne and Eden do with the menu has not been revealed, but I’m hoping its donuts.

Dufresne was the sous chef at Jean Georges before he opened his own restaurants: wd~50 at 50 Clinton Street opened in 2003 and closed in 2014; Alder in the East Village opened in 2013 and closed in 2015. He’s had lots of accolades, including stars in the Michelin city guide and in 2006, New York Magazine’s Adam Platt placed wd-50 fourth in his list of the city’s 101 best restaurants.

In 2017 he opened Du’s Donuts (his grandfather had a donut shop in his native Rhode Island) at the William Vale hotel in Williamsburg; the shop and the wholesale operation were closed for covid, but they may have started up again? It was Du’s donuts at La Colombe on Church and Black Fox Coffee at 70 Pine.