Upper East Side’s Café Boulud Won’t Be Reopening Anytime Soon

Daniel Boulud has broken his silence on his famed Upper East Side restaurant Café Boulud, which has remained closed since the start of the pandemic. Boulud will keep both the cafe and the cocktail bar Les Pleiades — both located inside the Surrey hotel, at the corner of East 76th Street and Madison Avenue — temporarily shuttered while that hotel remains closed.

The hotel’s management company, Denihan Hospitality Group, is currently in bankruptcy proceedings, and has since lost control of the property. While Boulud’s lease allows him to operate the restaurant independently at the property, he is choosing to keep his establishments there shuttered — at least for now.

“It was very unfortunate that the Denihan Group lost the lease and it has all been in litigation,” says Boulud, who has been in the space for 27 years, first operating it as the original location for his Michelin-starred restaurant Daniel, and then as Café Boulud.

The chef says he is in no rush to reopen the restaurant given the current restrictions on indoor dining and says he’s confident any new management company that takes over the hotel will want him to remain in place.

Since its closure in March this year following the pandemic-related shutdown on indoor dining, Café Boulud has temporarily relocated to the Berkshires, in Massachusetts. It’s been operating out of the Blantyre hotel in Lenox and will remain there through February 2021.

Meanwhile back in New York, Boulud’s Bar Boulud and Épicerie Boulud remain open, as does fine dining spot Daniel, which was among the first high-end NYC spots to reopen for indoor dining on September 30.