Quick Bites: It’s Mother’s Day, so the city’s restaurant news is mostly a brunch-reservation arms race today — Nobu Downtown, Leonetta, Meadowsweet, and Restaurant Yuu all running special menus, with Eataly Downtown turning the day into a family pizza-making event. On the openings side, Jeju Noodle Bar’s long-awaited Nolita expansion at 204 Elizabeth Street continues its run-up to a spring debut. Health Department closures from the past 48 hours remain in the single digits but include a few notable East Side spots.
Mother’s Day Across the Boroughs
Nobu Downtown (195 Broadway, FiDi) is running a Mother’s Day brunch featuring tuna poke, yellowtail, and black cod with miso, with seatings priced at $85 per adult and $38 per child. It’s the splurge option for downtown families willing to commit to a sit-down room.
Leonetta is hosting a Mother’s Day brunch buffet today from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at $65 per person, with wild mushroom and Boursin omelets, salmon en croute, and lavender-spiced donuts on the spread.
Meadowsweet in Williamsburg is doing a three-course Mother’s Day menu at $65 per person, $30 per child.
Restaurant Yuu, the Michelin-starred Williamsburg tasting-menu room, is opening on a Sunday for the first time in its history to run a Mother’s Day French omakase featuring caviar brioche, uni risotto, and abalone pie. Yuu is normally closed on Sundays, so the open day is itself the news.
Eataly Downtown is running a Mother’s Day family pizza-making class and a tiramisu-making class today, layered on top of a chocolate-making class that ran Saturday — the building is functionally a Mother’s Day theme park through the afternoon.
Openings to Watch
Jeju Noodle Bar (Nolita) — 204 Elizabeth Street. Chef Douglas Kim’s Michelin-starred West Village ramyun bar — the first noodle-focused U.S. restaurant to earn a Michelin star, back in 2019 — continues its build-out toward a spring opening in Nolita. New menu items are expected at the second location that won’t be available at the original Greenwich Street spot. Watch this space.
Dame (West Village). The English-classics restaurant from the well-known pop-up returns to the West Village as a full-service restaurant, with fish and chips at the center of the menu. Expected to open in late May or early June.
Health Department Closures
The NYC Department of Health’s running tally for the early-May enforcement window remains in the single digits — five restaurants closed during the week of May 16–23 historically a typical figure, with this past week tracking similarly. Closures continue to be driven by pest infestations, improper food storage, and sanitation violations rather than any single category of operator. The city’s ABCEats lookup tool remains the place to check whether a specific spot you were planning on visiting is open today.
What to Know If You’re Eating Out Today
Mother’s Day is one of the four hardest reservation days of the year in New York (alongside Valentine’s Day, New Year’s Eve, and Restaurant Week’s opening Monday). If you didn’t book by Wednesday, your best bet today is walking into a strong cafe or counter rather than chasing a sit-down — the East Village, the West Village around Carmine Street, and Park Slope’s 5th Avenue corridor all have enough density that something will be open and seatable. Save the prix-fixe brunches for next year.
