Sen Sakana May Actually Open After Three Years and an Additional $2M

Three years in the making, Peruvian and Japanese mash-up Sen Sakana may finally be ready to debut. The tri-level, 185-seat cavernous space from Allan Wartski (Astoria’s Christos Steakhouse, Edison Ballroom) has been majorly delayed because of issues with city permitting, a process that has added $2 million in opening costs, the New York Times reports today.

The Nikkei restaurant —specializing in cuisine from Japanese workers who immigrated to Peru in the late 1800s — is a partnership between chefs Mina Newman (Christos Steak House) for the Peruvian portion and Taku Nagai (Ootoya) for the Japanese side. A not-final version of the menu online — in full below — shows dishes like pork sausage with baby potatoes, miso mustard, and salsa verde, as well as yaki soba saltado de mariscos with shrimp, clams, mussels, shishito, cilantro, and bonito flakes.

Throughout the delay, Wartski has been paying rent, manager salaries, insurance, and public relations fees, something that has been made possible because of income from his other two businesses. Kitchen staff hired for Sen Sakana has been working at his other restaurants, while servers have been hired and let go three separate times. It’s all added up to a steep price tag of $7 million — two million more than originally budgeted, all because of the delays.

Sen Sakana is now finally holding friends and family and waiting for the city’s go-ahead. Stay tuned for more.

• For This Restaurant, Fusing Two Cuisines Was the Easy Part [NYT]
• Sen Sakana [Official Site]