It's Jean-Georges' Biggest Year Yet

The chef is opening restaurants in Philadelphia, Monaco, Kyoto -- and a 50,000 square-foot NYC food hall

Broken Palate is partnering with Kittch, the first live-streaming community for the food-obsessed officially debuting later this month. We're kicking things off with a handful of conversations from the South Beach Wine and Food Festival, in which chefs and restaurateurs talk about what’s up next and what they’re excited about right now. Check out our channel on Kittch for more.


First, up, we have the Manhattan-based Jean-Georges Vongerichten, who discusses a ton of things: what to eat at his Miami restaurant, Matador Room, in the Miami Beach Edition Hotel; where he eats in Miami; and the New York-to-Miami migration. In addition, March marks the 25th anniversary of his namesake New York restaurant, Jean-Georges, coming up on March 17, just after his 65th birthday.

Jean-Georges has a lot on his plate for 2022, with “sixteen or seventeen” projects in the works. First, his team is steering the reopening of the Philadelphia location of Jean-Georges on March 10 after a two-year pandemic closure — with a new chef from Germany, Cornelia Suhr. The chef has been with the restaurant group for about a year and previously worked with Alain Ducasse and Alain Verzeroli. “She’s fantastic,” Vongerichten says.

Then in April, Jean-Georges will open the restaurant that’s part of the Ryokan-style hotel in Kyoto, Japan from The Connaught Hotel Group: The Tadao Ando-designed Shinmonzen, a super-exclusive destination with only nine rooms; the restaurant is equally as intimate. In addition to Jean-Georges cooking, it will often feature food from a special guest: “We made a commitment with a monk from the temple next door cooking vegetarian monk food for guests at a table for 10,” he says.

In May, Jean-Georges is opening a restaurant in the Maybourne Riviera in Monaco: “it’s an old hotel from the ‘50s: It’s a beautiful little place,” he says. It also features restaurants helmed by a trio of the world’s best chefs. In addition to Jean-Georges, there’s Mauro Colagreco of Mirazur, who landed the 2019 top spot in the World’s 50 Best Restaurants, as Japanese chef Hiro Sato with a restaurant featuring his world-renowned sushi.

Over the summer in Manhattan’s Tin Building Marketplace, formerly Fulton Fish Market at Pier 17, Jean-Georges will open “our biggest project ever,” an over 50,000 square-foot food hall/food market, which he describes as a blend between Harrods London and Eataly; buildout started eight years ago.

In just three months, it’ll be open to the public, with a food market as well as 12 venues. He cites fast-casual counters for eggs, patisserie, tacos, and beer as well sit-down restaurants such as Fulton Seafood Company; T Brasserie; kaiseki-inspired Shikku; the plant-based Seeds and Weeds; The Frenchman’s Dough for pizza and pasta, and a Chinese restaurant, House of the Red Pearl. Of the project, Jean-Georges says he’s “nervous, scared, and excited at the same time.”

“This was our wish list for last year,” he says, and it’s happening in 2022.

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Melissa McCart