In Its 15th Year, Marc Forgione’s Namesake Restaurant Reopens for Farewell Tour

Longtime Manhattan chef, Marc Forgione, has reopened his namesake Tribeca restaurant he rolled out in 2008 with business partner Christopher Blumlo, at 134 Reade Street, near Hudson Street, on April 21 following a three-month shutter. It will only stay reopened for a brief goodbye tour of sorts, with a menu of classics ahead of closing the restaurant over the summer due to a rent hike.

He’ll move Restaurant Marc Forgione nearby, housed in what had been Danube, and later, Brushstroke, at 30 Hudson Street, near Reade Street — on track to open around July. Once the new location opens, the old digs will close.

“It was a surprise we had to close in the first place,” says Forgione, but the rent hike was too much to bear, having more than doubled since he first opened. This original location shuttered through the pandemic, reopened, then closed for three months for essential kitchen repairs.

Since opening his first spot, a menu of New American dishes with nods international cuisines, Forgione has partnered in the Laotian Tribeca restaurant Khe-Yo with chef and partner Soulayphet Schwader; taken over Frank DeCarlo’s Peasant in Nolita; and relaunched One Fifth, the storied restaurant before Mario Batali opened and closed Otto in the Greenwich Village location. Forgione is the son of Larry Forgione, who opened An American Place in the ’80s, with whom he reopened One Fifth.

Evan Sung/Restaurant Marc Forgione

Evan Sung/Restaurant Marc Forgione

The reopening of Marc Forgione is accompanied by a menu of his classics. “When we were closed, I had time to reflect,” he says. There were “too many dishes” to put together a tasting menu, so it’s a collection of a la carte dishes, with five to six snacks, as well as a handful of appetizers, entrees, and desserts. He says bestsellers like halibut en croute, chicken under a brick, and chili lobster define his cooking. Of the latter, a riff on Singaporean chili crab, he says, “this is a dish we’ve sort of become known for, but it didn’t become wildly popular until Sam Sifton, then the restaurant critic for the New York Times, wrote his review of the restaurant, devoting a whole paragraph to chili lobster.”

As for his reopening Marc Forgione after the three months of repairs, he says, “Most smart people would have let the place just fade away. I just couldn’t not send the place off in the right way. It has so many memories and has opened so many doors for me.”

Evan Sung/Restaurant Marc Forgione