Quick Bites: If you blinked, you missed it — this week added a 32,000-square-foot waterfront seafood room on Governors Island, a third Skinny Louie counter on the Upper East Side, and a sustainability-driven tasting menu in Murray Hill. The Health Department had a quieter day across the boroughs. Here’s the May 21 snapshot.
Still riding this week’s opening wave
Six Coasts by Smorgasburg (Soissons Landing, Governors Island). Smorgasburg’s first full-scale, sit-down restaurant opened May 9 at the island’s ferry landing, taking over 32,000 square feet of waterfront previously occupied by Island Oyster. The menu is built around six coastal identities of North and South America — Nova Scotia, Baja, Bahia and beyond — with a Pan-American seafood lineup and a bar program to match the harbor views of Lower Manhattan. It’s a seasonal, ferry-out destination, so plan around the schedule.
Skinny Louie (1565 Second Avenue, Upper East Side). The Miami-born smash burger spot opened its third NYC location on May 8 in the former Agora Turkish Restaurant space between 81st and 82nd. The menu is deliberately short: a classic, a cheeseburger, an applewood bacon version, fries, milkshakes, and the off-menu “Very Best Burger” with cheese, truffle mayo and jalapeño relish. Co-founders Gonzalo Rubino and Matias Palloni launched the brand in Wynwood in 2023; UES joins NoMad and West Village in the NYC rotation.
Oyatte (125 East 39th Street, Murray Hill). Chef Hasung Lee’s first fine-dining restaurant is open with an eight-course tasting menu built around a single upstate farm (Crown Daisy Farm). The bet is on hyper-seasonal sourcing as the through-line of the whole meal rather than a marketing line on the menu.
Sendo (43 West 8th Street, Greenwich Village). Budget omakase from chef Tsuyoshi Takahashi (formerly Sushi Noz). Edo-era-style nigiri and handrolls, with omakase sets starting around $34 — one of the more accessible counter experiences to land downtown this spring.
Love Thy Neighbor (55 Christopher Street, West Village). Shigefumi Kabashima and chef Elias Popa’s Japanese-NYC hybrid bar and restaurant is open with tapas, sandos, and shareable plates, plus reinterpreted highballs and martinis. A neighborhood-bar energy with a precise drinks program.
Lonnies (112 Bond Street, Boerum Hill). Opened May 20 from the Ingas Bar team — Sean Rembold and Caron Callahan — with chicken under a brick, a daily prime rib special, burgers, and Basque cheesecake in an Art Deco-leaning room. The Boerum Hill answer to a Brooklyn Heights favorite.
Closings
The Health Department had a quieter day on May 21. Year-to-date in 2026, eight Manhattan restaurants have been shut down by the city over sanitary violations — a tally that has continued climbing through the spring. No new permanent closures crossed the wire today; the bigger story this week was on the opening side.
Borough snapshot
Manhattan: Two new sit-down rooms (Oyatte in Murray Hill, Sendo in the Village), a smash-burger counter (Skinny Louie on the UES), and a bar-forward spot in the West Village (Love Thy Neighbor).
Brooklyn: Lonnies headlines in Boerum Hill. The borough’s opening pace has been strong all month — if you’ve been tracking Bond Street, this is the corner to watch.
Beyond the boroughs: Governors Island finally has a marquee year-round-feeling seafood destination in Six Coasts. The ferry adds friction; the harbor view earns it back.
What we’re watching
Brooklyn Bridge Park’s Caribbean-leaning bar served from a former fireboat is the next big waterfront story to land. We’ll update when the doors are official.
Tip a friend? Send us a spot you think we missed. We update this beat every weekday.
