Walk Fifth Avenue on a July weekday afternoon and something is missing. The Neue Galerie's bronze doors are shut for the season, the Museum Mile Festival crowds have long since dispersed, and the Met, while crowded, is running the same headline exhibitions it opened in early June. Turn east three avenues and the picture inverts. Third, Second, and First have absorbed nearly every new opening the neighborhood has produced in the last four months, and the calendar between now and Labor Day is denser on the side streets than on the boulevard the neighborhood is best known for.
That is the summer worth paying attention to. The Fifth Avenue institutions are in a holding pattern by design. The eastern avenues are where the neighborhood is actively changing.
The Spring Restaurant Class, Now Settling In
If you missed the flurry of March and April openings, the shortlist is worth knowing by address rather than by category. Every one of these is east of Lexington.
| Restaurant | Address | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Dear Margo | 961 Lexington Ave | Levantine, from restaurateur Dean Pashalis with chef Efraim Naon, opened March 25 |
| Wainwright's Tavern | 1278 Third Ave (at E 73rd) | Jay Wainwright's follow-up to Seamore's in the same footprint |
| Bar Andiamo | 1705 First Ave (bet. 88th and 89th) | Rebrand of Stella & Fly under new ownership |
| Crêpes Choupette | 1590 First Ave | Outdoor crepe window outside AOC East |
| Oyishi Sushi | 172 E 91st St | Carnegie Hill counter, second UES location |
| Sushi Counter | 1310 First Ave | Australian-style hand rolls, fourth NYC outpost |
| Pi Bakery | 1441 First Ave (at E 75th) | Sibling concept to Pi Bakerie, May opening |
| Skinny Louie | Upper East Side | Third citywide location, first uptown |
Notice what is absent from that list: Madison Avenue, Fifth Avenue, and the entire cross-Park corridor between 60th and 79th. The high-rent frontages that define the neighborhood's public image have not been the site of the year's turnover. The Third-to-First avenue band, historically the neighborhood's more casual spine, has done that work almost entirely on its own.
