Chef Joël Robuchon Plans Return to Manhattan

French chef Joël Robuchon is once again in the process of opening a Manhattan restaurant, Flo Fab reports. L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon —  the chef’s highly regarded tasting counter restaurant which also has outposts in Paris, Las Vegas, and Taipei — was open for six years inside the Four Seasons hotel in Midtown before closing in 2012. Two years later, the chef announced plans to reopen the restaurant in a sprawling space inside Brookfield Place. When the Battery Park City deal fell through in December 2015, a rep for Robuchon told Eater that negotiations were already underway for another NYC location, with plans for a fall 2016 opening.

According to Flo Fab, Robuchon has now signed a lease for two floors of a Midtown condominium that's currently under construction at 100 East 53rd Street — on the same block as the Seagram Buildining and (currently) the Four Seasons. The chef has plans to open an outpost of his concept Joël Robuchon Restaurant, as well as a French market and pastry shop on the ground floor. A rep tells Eater that the L’Atelier New York project is still in the works. No word yet on when either project will make its debut. Stay tuned for more details as they become available.

note: An earlier version of this post indicated that L'Atelier would be the new Midtown restaurant.