One of NYC’s Most Interesting Vegan Restaurants Is Expanding to Williamsburg

East Village fine dining vegan restaurant Avant Garden is making its way to Williamsburg. The critical hit is taking over 188 Havemeyer St., between South Third and Fourth streets, the space where whiskey bar Post Office recently closed after eight years in the neighborhood.

Set to open this summer, the new Avant Garden will feature a menu helmed by chef Tony Mongeluzzi, who has been cooking at the Manhattan flagship for the past year and a half and will remain the executive chef there as well. The menu for Williamsburg will offer the same fine dining approaches to vegan food as the East Village outpost but will primarily feature dishes unique to the Williamsburg location.

It will also get into the bottled cocktail game with a program overseen by OTB owner and beverage director Alla Lapushchik. There will also be a natural wine list. Eater NY has reached out to the restaurant for more details about the menu.

Restaurateur and cocktail bar hitmaker Ravi DeRossi opened the original Avant Garden in East Village in 2015, and it became one of very few vegan fine dining restaurants in the city. He’s been talking about expanding it and has long been an advocate for going animal-free in restaurants as a way to help the environment, telling Eater in 2016 that “If we’re going to do something to help this planet, it needs to start.”

The restaurant received a glowing review in the New Yorker’s “Tables For Two” column shortly after it opened, when it was still under the direction of chef Andrew D’Ambrosi. DeRossi previously talked about taking over a space in Williamsburg on Manhattan Avenue, but that has yet to materialize.

DeRossi’s East Village cocktail empire includes Mother of Pearl, Mayahuel, Amor Y Amargo, and Cienfuegos. While most of his restaurants and bars are in Manhattan, he does have a growing presence in Brooklyn. The Brooklyn outpost of his Latin seafood spot Desnuda is also located in Williamsburg, and last December, he opened pop-up bar El Puente in Carroll Gardens to raise money for hurricane relief in Puerto Rico.

Williamsburg’s Avant Garden is set to open in early summer. Stay tuned for updates.