Noodle Bar as it exists right now is bursting at the seams. Not just with people waiting for a stool (sorry about the waits, but there’s good news ahead for you) but with water, electricity, everything. We need to do 200 fewer covers a day for that place to be operating comfortably. To do that, we need to take out a bunch of seats and control the number of people who eat there, which means taking reservations (or maybe taking reservations: part of the frustration with people blabbing about restaurants that don’t exist yet is that the restaurants don’t exist yet, so hard and fast policies are not in place.)
We have absolutely no aspiration to make it into a “fine dining” restaurant, but we’re shortchanging our baby, our spiritual home, by running it too hard right now. No mas.
At Momofuku Ko, we’ll showcase everybody’s cooking, to make it work as a collaborative kitchen.
Interesting if I say so myself. Noodle Bar fans need not worry, as it will be relocated in a bigger space one block uptown. David Chang is pretty sweet for putting up a fake "sports bar" menu in the space that will hold the new Noodle Bar.
Of course, Chef Chang doesn't want people talking about this place. I'll leave that up to you guys to decide.
