One of Japan’s Top Sake Producers Now Has a Brewery in New York

Asahi Shuzo, a major Japanese sake producer, now has a location in New York. The company behind the popular sake brand Dassai opened a 55,000-square-foot brewery near the Culinary Institute of America (CIA), in Hyde Park, New York, over the weekend. The $80 million facility includes a brewery, tasting room, and a rice polishing facility. It’s also collaborating with the CIA on classes about sake. Asahi Shuzo was established in 1948; the company says it started at a brewery in the 1700s in southern Japan.

A Manhattan comeback for chef John DeLucie

John DeLucie is back in the kitchen almost a decade after his restaurant empire went up in smoke. The chef and partner, who cooked at the Waverly Inn and the Lion, has opened Ambra in the West Village (569 Hudson Street, at West 11th Street). The Italian menu is straightforward: clam linguine, short rib ragu, and margherita pizza. DeLucie was once a partner at five restaurants under Crown Group Hospitality. The company collapsed in 2015 after his partner Sean Largotta was investigated for using investor money to cover legal fees from his divorce, among other personal expenses. The same year, Crown Group was ordered to pay $575,000 to waiters who won a class-action suit at one of its restaurants.

An Oaxaca restaurant is taking over the HiHi Room

When the HiHi Room announced it would close last month, co-owner Eric Finkelstein said the team had found someone to take over the space but declined to share the owner. Signage on the Cobble Hill restaurant this week reveals that the new operator is Ruta Oaxaca, an Oaxacan restaurant in Astoria. The business is known for its wide selection of moles and Eater’s critic calls it one of the city’s essential Mexican restaurants.

Signs are up at the new Eataly in Soho

The new Eataly in Soho looks like it’s closer to opening. The company has signs up on the corner space at 200 Lafayette Street, at Broome Street, Tribeca Citizen reports. Eataly signed on the 18,000-square-foot space last October; an opening date was never announced. The Italian market opened its original location in Flatiron in 2010 and expanded with a second grocer in Fidi in 2016. The Soho outpost is the company’s third location.