New York’s dining landscape is shifting again this spring and summer, with a cluster of openings that share a common thread: operators with deep institutional pedigrees stepping out on their own or returning to the city after extended absences. From a midtown jazz supper club to a Korean-American bistro backed by one of the world’s most acclaimed hospitality groups, the newest arrivals are redefining what a night out in the city looks and sounds like heading into summer 2026.
The Pocket Revives Midtown’s Jazz Supper Club Tradition
Midtown’s theater district has not had a full-service jazz supper club of this scale in years, and The Pocket is filling that gap with both ambition and specificity. The 170-seat venue opened June 1 inside the Muse New York hotel at 130 West 46th Street, founded by Grant Gardner and Martin Porter, whose combined résumés span Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Jazz Standard, the Blue Note, TAO, and the Danny Meyer and Michelin-starred restaurant operations that have shaped the city’s hospitality landscape over the past two decades.
The room itself reflects the scope of the project: green leather banquettes, cherry wood millwork, and a layout designed around sightlines to the stage rather than around table count. The menu draws from four American culinary cities — New York, Chicago, Kansas City, and New Orleans — and includes broiled oysters, prime rib, deep-dish lasagna, barbecue nuts, and a martini program built for a crowd that plans to stay through the late set. Nightly programming features Grammy-winning and internationally touring artists across jazz, soul, hip hop, and Latin music, with residencies from established performers anchoring the calendar. Showtimes begin at 5:30 p.m. most evenings, and seating is first-come, first-served, with dinner service running before the music starts.
The Pocket is positioning itself as more than a place to hear music. Gardner and Porter are betting that the city still has an appetite for the kind of evening where the meal, the room, and the performance are treated as parts of a single experience — a format that defined midtown nightlife decades ago but had largely disappeared.
Somssi Brings Michelin-Grade Craft to Greenwich Village
At 79 MacDougal Street, Somssi (pronounced “sohm-shi”) opened in early June as the debut concept from Ahris Kim, who spent years as the director of operations at NA:EUN Hospitality, the group behind two-Michelin-starred Atomix, Atoboy, and NARO. Kim developed the restaurant in partnership with NA:EUN founders Junghyun “JP” Park and Ellia Park, and the kitchen is led by an executive sous chef who previously cooked at both Atomix and NARO.
The name — from the Korean word 솜씨, meaning skill shaped through instinct and experience — signals the restaurant’s approach. Rather than replicating the tasting-menu format that made Atomix one of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants, Somssi operates as a 50-seat neighborhood bistro with an à la carte menu of shareable plates. Dishes draw from both Asian and European techniques: kimchi ragu linguine, Korean BBQ beef tongue, strip steak with stir-fried peppers, and Korean-style mutton chop. The beverage program includes a curated wine list, sake, cider, and what the team calls “little beverages” — cocktails starting at $9, designed to lower the barrier to a casual weeknight visit.
The room matches the cooking’s ethos of warmth over formality. Design collaborator Margaret Muza sourced vintage items throughout the space, from cordial glasses to bundt cake pans repurposed as wall sconces. Muza’s mother made the lace curtains by hand from vintage fabrics she had collected over the years. Brick walls, natural wood, and a long green leather banquette complete a space that Kim has described as feeling like “your unique, quirky aunt’s home.”
Oriana Puts Fire at the Center of Nolita’s Dining Scene
Chef Andy Quinn and sommelier Cedric Nicaise — who met while working under Daniel Humm at Eleven Madison Park, where they spent a combined 15 years — opened Oriana on May 28 at the corner of Broome and Mott Streets in Nolita. The pair previously built a following with their West Village restaurant The Noortwyck, but Oriana represents what Quinn has called “a much more ambitious project.”
That ambition centers on the custom grill and live coals anchoring the open kitchen. Roughly 90 percent of the menu is touched by flame in some form, from coal-fired oysters and grilled dover sole with paprika-laced deviled butter to a frequently sold-out whole barbecue duck served with a Carolina Gold-inspired barbecue sauce and neck sausage made from the legs and offal. The wine program is equally expansive, with plans for a 7,000-bottle cellar focused on Old World producers.
The 174 Mott Street space seats guests among dark wood, brown leather, and warm lighting, with a roaring fire visible from most tables. Desserts include a house “bee sting cake” that has already drawn early attention. Reservations are available on Resy, but the whole duck requires a preorder when booking.
Bar Rocco Marks DiSpirito’s Midtown Homecoming
James Beard Award-winning chef Rocco DiSpirito returned to full-time New York restaurant operations in March with Bar Rocco, a 108-seat Italian American brasserie on the second floor of the Kimpton Era Midtown New York hotel at 32 West 48th Street, overlooking Rockefeller Center. The opening is DiSpirito’s first brick-and-mortar restaurant in roughly six years, following a stretch of television projects, books, and pop-ups.
The menu blends heritage-driven Italian American dishes with greenmarket ingredients, featuring Mama’s Meatballs, Oysters “Rocco-Feller” served warm with guanciale and herbal broth, Sunday Gravy Lasagna, and Paccheri Pesto Rosso with Argentine red shrimp. Bar Rocco is the first of four dining concepts at the hotel, which will also include Amasa, a Latin steakhouse, and Jade Rabbit, a rooftop izakaya. The restaurant is open daily from 6:30 a.m. to 11 p.m.
