A Michelin-Starred NYC Restaurant Team Expands, and More March Openings to Know

If you’re so lucky as to end up in St. Louis this month, there’s a new sushi spot from the family behind another storied sushi restaurant that’s been open for over 21 years. Here, you'll get your fill of dry-aged fish and Wagyu beef. And if you’re in New York’s Koreatown, make your way to Seoul Salon for soju-based cocktails and contemporary Korean food to pair. 

There are a lot of new restaurants that opened in the past month, but these seven stand out. The places we can’t stop thinking about included a Miami spot from a celebrated chef cooking her familial Peruvian recipes, along with an upstate New York home for the flavors of Jalisco, and a venue for hearty regional Greek food in Boston. Keep reading to find out if any of them are open near you. 

This list, organized alphabetically by state, includes both restaurants we’ve tried and ones we’ve added to our bucket lists.

Portuguese snacks and sherry from buzzy LA restaurateurs 

Barra Santos
1215 Cypress Ave, Los Angeles
Opened March 24

Should you find yourself in need of a piri-piri chicken fix in Los Angeles, Barra Santos is now open in Cypress Park. The new restaurant comes from the Last Word Hospitality team, responsible for the beloved seafood spot Found Oyster. With Barra Santos, co-owner and Portugal native Mike Santos wants to evoke the bars and restaurants of the coastal city of Lisbon. There’s a snack-focused menu with dishes like buttered sardine toast and head-on prawns from chef-partner Melissa López (previously of LA’s Bestia and New York’s Barbuto), plus a beverage program from Last Word’s wine director Evelyn Goreshnik that spans sherry, port, and Madeira. The space centers around a bar with blue-and-white hand-painted tiles reminiscent of Lisbon. Next door, the team will soon open Shin’s Pizza, a neighborhood slice shop. 

Standout dishes: Head-on Prawns; Bacalao Fritters; Piri-Piri Chicken; Brothy Clams & Linguiça; Almond Cake

A love letter to Peruvian food from a celebrated Miami chef

Maty’s
3255 NE 1st Ave, Miami
Opened March 13

At Maty’s, chef Valerie Chang is cooking the traditional Peruvian food of her childhood. Maty’s is deeply personal for Chang—it’s an homage to the recipes of her paternal grandmother Marta, nicknamed Maty. While the new casual midtown Miami spot is Chang’s first project as sole executive chef and owner, it’s still a team effort with her brother and father, Nando and Papa Chang. Together, they own beloved Nikkei spot Itamae and sushi bar B-Side. The menu at Maty’s features foods Chang grew up eating in the northern Peruvian city of Chiclayo, with dishes like a Wagyu oxtail saltado and black grouper ceviche. Just as the restaurant honors Chang’s grandmothers and their cooking, there is a women-led team in both the kitchen and the dining room.

Standout dishes: Black Grouper Ceviche; Camarones Asados; Arroz con Pato; Chita Asada (whole roasted dorade)

Regional Greek food comes to the Boston area

Bar Vlaha
1653 Beacon St, Brookline, MA
Opened March 23

If you're all about small plates, Bar Vlaha in Brookline, a town near Boston, might not be for you. But if you want to share with friends and family and dig into hearty plates of beef cheek, slow-roasted lamb, and more, this restaurant is most definitely up your alley. The new spot from Xenia Greek Hospitality, the team behind Boston Greek restaurants like Krasi and Greco, is the first restaurant in the US to celebrate the food of the Vlachs, an ethnic group of nomadic shepherds in northern and central Greece. The menu is filled with dishes meant to be shared, like wild boar shoulder, savory stuffed pitas, and hearty salads. And the menu is vast—you could order a few dishes from each section and barely skim the surface. There’s an entire page alone filled with assorted cheeses made with sheep’s, cow’s, and goat milks. 

Standout dishes: Alevropita (feta pie);  Agriogourouno (wild boar shoulder); Moschari Me Damaskina (beef cheeks); Arni Stin Souvla (slow-roasted lamb leg); Galatopita (ruffled milk pie)

Sushi is a family affair at this new St. Louis spot

Sado
5201 Shaw Ave, St. Louis
Opened March 28

The Bognar family trio behind Sado are no strangers to the sushi scene in St. Louis. More than 21 years ago, Ann and Mike Bognar opened Nippon Tei, one of the first sushi restaurants in the city, in which their son, Nick Bognar, chef and co-owner of Sado, got his culinary start. After training at acclaimed Japanese spots like Austin’s Uchiko, Nick opened his own Southeast Asian restaurant iNDO, where he earned a James Beard semifinalist nomination. Now, the Bognars are opening Sado with a focus on dry-aged fish and Wagyu beef. The menu is divided between cool and hot dishes, with offerings like black-tea-cured kanpachi and binchōtan-grilled dry-aged kinmedai (golden eye snapper) with green curry. In the fall, Nippon Tei’s doors will close to allow the family to focus their efforts on Sado.

Standout dishes: Black-Tea-Cured Kanpachi; Binchōtan-Grilled Dry-Aged Kinmedai; Unagi Kabayaki

A taste of Jalisco in the Hudson Valley

Casa Susanna
810 Co Rd 23B, Leeds, NY
Opened March 16

As if New Yorkers needed another reason to flee the concrete jungle for the idyll of the Catskills, Casa Susanna, chef Efrén Hernández’s celebration of Mexican cuisine, has arrived. The restaurant sits in the tavern-style lobby of Camptown, a new 50-room hotel at the foot of the Catskill Mountains. The project comes from the team behind Rivertown Lodge in nearby Hudson. At Casa Susanna, Hernández, formerly of downtown New York hot spots MIMI and Babs, is pairing his family recipes from the western region of Jalisco—celebrated for its vibrant seafood and its heartier meat dishes like birria—with the bounty of the Hudson Valley. The menu features tortillas made in-house and bold dishes like a blood sausage tamal and grilled whole porgy al pastor with fennel curtido. If the lodge setting or the on-site greenhouse-grown cocktail garnishes haven’t convinced you to depart the city for dinner, perhaps the alfresco patio dining will. 

Standout dishes: Blood Sausage Tamal; Wood-Fire Roasted Veal Sweetbreads; Grilled Whole Porgy al Pastor

Seoul’s drinking culture arrives in New York

Seoul Salon
28 W 33rd St, New York
Opened March 28

Seoul Salon brings the culture of the Korean sooljib—a place to drink and unwind—to a two-story space in New York’s Koreatown that once housed a karaoke hot spot. The restaurant is a partnership between Hand Hospitality, the group behind beloved Korean spots Her name is Han and Jua, and NA:EUN Hospitality, the husband-wife team of Ellia and Junghyun “JP” Park, who brought us well-established restaurants Atomix, Atoboy, and Naro. Jiyoon Baek has crafted a drinks menu that centers around the traditional Korean spirit of soju. Chef Byeongsoo Yu, who joins from Atoboy, has created a menu to complement it. There is a section for raw seafood like striped jack and frisée salad, small plates like crispy anchovy pasta, jeon (or savory pancakes), twigim (fried dishes), large plates like braised beef heel shank, plus rice and soups.

Standout dishes: Striped Jack & Frisée Salad; Crispy Anchovy Pasta; Wagyu & Egg Pancake; Mala Pork Belly; Spicy Octopus Over Rice

Austin pizza veterans launch a new neighborhood hangout—with soft-serve

Allday Pizza
3111 W 35th St, Austin, TX
Opened March 1

The experience at Austin’s new Allday Pizza is wonderfully simple—you sit on the outdoor patio and order a slice of super thin, thoughtfully topped pies, followed up by a cup of soft-serve, and then pop over to the neighboring Flo’s Wine Bar & Bottle Shop. The pizzas, available by the slice or the whole 16-inch pie, span from sweet sausage with ricotta cream and Calabrian honey to “pep & pepp” with peperoncini and pepperoni. Non-pizza items include salads, meatballs, and soft-serve gelato, which you can get drizzled with olive oil and that same hot honey. Allday comes from Townsend Smith and Daniel Sorg, founders of pizza trailer Sammataro, and this Tarrytown outpost is one of two locations that the duo is working on. The second will debut next to their upcoming East Austin bar Day Dreamer, which they’ll open alongside Austin restaurant owners including Arjav Ezekiel of Birdie’s, one of Bon Appétit’s Best New Restaurants of 2022. 

Standout dishes: Assorted slices (House Cheese, Sweet Sausage); Sweet Cream Gelato with Toppings