The Public Theater has a new reason to arrive early and stay late. The Astor, a tavern from chef Andrew Carmellini and his NoHo Hospitality partners, has opened inside the theater’s 425 Lafayette Street home, replacing the former Library restaurant with a room designed to look as though it has been there for decades.
That is not an accidental effect. Designer Serge Becker has filled the restaurant with dark wood, red banquettes, theater memorabilia and portraits tied to the Public’s history. The idea is old New York without turning the room into a theme park: a downtown tavern attached to a working theater rather than a restaurant borrowing theatrical décor.
The partnership itself has history. Carmellini’s group and the Public have worked together since Joe’s Pub opened in 1998. The Astor extends that relationship into a full restaurant, with a 70-seat dining room and a 52-seat mezzanine. A second location of Bar Torino, the group’s cafe and bar concept, is also opening in the building.
Chef Angel Monge is working with Carmellini on a menu built around American tavern food. Early dishes include “Devilish Eggs,” steak Diane and a French mushroom dip with au jus. The bar, overseen by Darryl Chan, leans toward New York standards such as martinis, Manhattans and Bijous, while Josh Nadel handles the wine program.
The location makes the restaurant more interesting than another downtown opening. The Public is one of the city’s busiest cultural buildings, with multiple theaters, Joe’s Pub and a steady flow of performers and audiences. On crowded nights, more than a thousand people can pass through the complex. A restaurant here does not need to manufacture an audience. It needs to become useful to one that already exists.
The Astor is open daily from 5 to 11 p.m., putting it squarely in the pre- and post-show window. That matters in a part of downtown where dinner and theater can otherwise feel like separate appointments. The restaurant’s strongest idea may simply be that the evening should continue under one roof.
There is also something fitting about the Public leaning into its building rather than treating food service as an amenity tucked off to the side. Joseph Papp founded the institution around the notion that theater should belong to the city. A crowded tavern downstairs is a less lofty expression of the same instinct: people coming together before a performance, arguing about it afterward, or dropping in without seeing a show at all.
The result is an opening worth watching because it is trying to restore a particular New York rhythm rather than invent a new one. Dinner, drinks and performance used to overlap naturally in the city’s theater districts. The Astor is betting that they still can.
The Public Theater has current performance information, and The Astor has restaurant details and reservations.
