Celebrated Chef Marcus Samuelsson Is Opening a Massive New Restaurant in Chelsea

Chef and restaurateur Marcus Samuelsson, perhaps best known as the man behind Harlem’s celebrated Red Rooster, is getting ready to debut his newest restaurant. He is set to open a sprawling, 5,000-square-foot establishment at the base of the Starrett-Lehigh building, which takes up an entire city block along West 26th and 27th Streets, between Eleventh and Twelfth Avenues.

The restaurant will be located on the ground floor of the building at the corner of West 26th Street and Eleventh Avenue, and will have an entrance both at the street level and one for tenants inside the building, according to a spokesperson for the building’s landlord RXR Realty. There’s no opening date yet, but the restaurant is scheduled to welcome its first diners later this year, according to the spokesperson.

Photo by Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images

Details for the new restaurant are scarce at the moment but the spokesperson for RXR said in an email to Eater that it “will be inspired by Samuelsson’s ‘Swediopian’ roots, and will serve as a cultural immersion spot for building tenants and the general public.” Samuelsson was born in Ethiopia and raised in Sweden. Eater has reached out to the Marcus Samuelsson Group, the restaurant group that runs Samuelsson’s establishments, for more details on the project.

The restaurant will be accompanied by a separate food hall, also on the ground floor, spanning 13,000 square feet, and operated by the Chicago-based hospitality group 16” on Center. Vendors for that food hall haven’t been announced yet, but it also set to open alongside Samuelsson’s restaurant later this year.

Aside from Red Rooster, Samuelsson’s restaurant group also operates New American restaurant Marcus B&P, in Newark, New Jersey, and the rooftop bar Marcus at Nohu, in Weehawken, New Jersey. Previously, he also ran the chicken-focussed Streetbird, which closed in 2018, and was also planning a restaurant in Greenpoint, though that project is not moving forward anymore, a spokesperson for the restaurant group tells Eater. The Marcus Samuelsson Group operates a dozen restaurants across the globe including in Sweden, the U.K., and the U.S.

Disclosure: Marcus Samuelsson is host of No Passport Required, a show produced by PBS and Eater.