The Aviary and the Office — the luxury cocktail bars from famed Chicago-based restaurant group Alinea that received mixed reviews in New York — are permanently shutting down.
Alinea co-founder and restaurateur Nick Kokonas confirms the news with Eater, noting that decision was not related to the pandemic. The two bars, which were located inside the high-end Mandarin Oriental hotel at Columbus Circle, were already scheduled to shut down on April 15, a decision made before the COVID-19 crisis, Kokonas says.
After the novel coronavirus crisis hit, the Mandarin Oriental decided to close the bars early, along with the rest of the hotel after the city banned non-essential business operations. The hotel temporarily closed on March 26, with an expected reopening date of June 1, according to information posted on the hotel’s website.
According to a NY Department of Labor layoff notice, the hotel laid off 50 employees on March 27.
As the city closed down, the Mandarin Oriental began moving to wipe the bars from its amenity offerings. The Aviary and the Office are no longer listed on the hotel’s list of food and beverage offered in the space, and the bars’ reservation page has been renamed to the Lounge at the Mandarin Oriental.
The hotel did not respond to requests for comment for this story. Kokonas declined to provide further details on the closure but says that the hotel would be introducing new businesses in the space “in due course.”
Before the bars launched in 2017, they were hailed as one of the year’s most exciting openings in the city, offering a way for New Yorkers to tap into Alinea’s other-worldly creations that put the award-winning Chicago restaurant on the map. There were New York-specific options like the Wake and Bake, an Old-Fashioned served inside a plastic bag filled with everything bagel-scented air. The Office, a speakeasy-type bar accessed by walking through the Aviary, offered slightly more traditional cocktails. Aviary is already a destination in Chicago, and in New York, the space came along with sweeping views of Central Park.
But the bars didn’t land with critics once they were up and running. Eater critic Ryan Sutton criticized the Aviary for lacking Alinea’s boundary-pushing ideas, while New York Times critic Pete Wells found some of the more interactive cocktails to be overwrought. New York magazine critic Adam Platt appreciated the theatrics but panned the “uniformly sweet” taste of some of the drinks.
The closings mean that the renowned Alinea will no longer have a presence in NYC, at least for some time. Kokonas says he wants the the group to open a business in the city again one day, but “obviously all such plans are in flux given what’s going on.”
The city has been shut down until at least May 15 during the ongoing coronavirus crisis, and restaurants and bars will likely have to follow stringent health precautions in the slow process of reopening.