Empire Building

Table-Turning: Blogger Ben Leventhal Becomes Restaurateur

Photo: Melissa Hom

Buried in the middle of Eater’s report on last night’s Community Board 2 meeting (in which three restaurants proposed for Todd English’s Great Jones hotel, Oliver Todd, met fierce resistance) is news that Eater founder (and current NBC.com managing editor) Ben Leventhal will be opening a restaurant with Charles owner Cobi Levy. The Charles owner told the CB he hopes the venture, at 170 Mercer, will be “at least a New York Times two-star,” and his chef will be a Morimoto Philadelphia and Sushi Yasuda alum. So, wait a minute, not only is Leventhal teaming up with departed Citysearch restaurant editor Mr. Cutlets to launch Ozersky.tv (no content there yet, but Leventhal owns the domain name), but he’s becoming a restaurateur?

Sure, food writer St. John Frizell opened Fort Defiance, but this is different: a blogger who has earned the wrath of many a chef and restaurateur crossing over into operations. The Levy-Levy team-up is definitely going to be interesting. In any case, Levy has clearly forgiven Eater for declaring Charles a “shitshow” and “a deflated restaurant, a would-be hotspot that had a narrow window to make its mark and failed to do so.”

Delicatessen Owner Takes The Lion Club, Community Blocks Todd English [Eater]

Table-Turning: Blogger Ben Leventhal Becomes Restaurateur