12 Crucial Facts About Bourdain Market

Anthony Bourdain's gargantuan Manhattan market is starting to take shape. Here are some updates, gleaned from a new Times article on the project:

1) As rumored, Bourdain and his partners are indeed taking over the mezzanine space inside Chelsea's Pier 57 development — AKA the Superpier.

2) At 155,000 square feet, this will likely be New York's largest food hall.

3) In addition to prepared food stalls staffed by vendors from around the world, Bourdain Market will also have meat and fish butcher counters. One of those stalls will be operated by the team from Sydney, Australia's famed Victor Churchill butcher shop.

4) The space will also feature a large sit-down restaurant with an area that will overlook the main section of the hall. The team has not picked an operator for this restaurant yet.

5) New York hitmakers Ken Friedman and April Bloomfield — of The Spotted Pig, The Breslin, and The John Dory Oyster Bar — will run two of the prepared food stalls.

6) Sabina Bandera, the operator of the La Guerrerense tostada cart in Ensenada, Mexico, has already signed on for the market, and so has the team from Singapore's Geylang Claypot Rice.

7) Eric Ripert introduced Bourdain to his main partner on this project, retail entrepreneur Stephen Werther. Shake Shack's former chief executive David Swinghamer is also a partner, and the team has tapped UrbanSpace Vanderbilt mastermind Eldon Scott to be the market's manager. A hawker stall expert by the name of K F Seetoh is also part of the team.

8) Bourdain Market will be open late. "Think of an Asian night market," Bourdain notes. "Eating and drinking at midnight."

9) The market might also host karaoke and film screenings.

10) Bourdain Market is still about two years away from opening.

11) The design titans at Roman & Williams are creating the space.  The market will cost about $60 million to put together, when all is said and done.

12) Tony B. has a very specific vibe in mind: "It will be all transparent and authentic...not sterile, but chaotic in a good way, with hawkers and vendors and places to eat. Where in this city can you have that?"