“Close and reconcept” is increasingly becoming the restaurant word of the year— the term for when a place wants to make a clean break with what it is (one that merely overhauling the menu wouldn’t accomplish), but at the same time, wants you to know that it didn’t flop and had a good run. The latest place to go this route is One Sixtyblue, best known, perhaps, as the Michael Jordan restaurant that wasn’t called Michael Jordan’s something. The upscale, resolutely not-sports-themed restaurant was seen as a reliable fine dining location over 14 years under opening chef Martial Noguier (now of Bistronomic) and current chef Michael McDonald. But with so much glitzy new activity on the Randolph Street corridor from people like Graham Bowles and Curtis Duffy, a pioneer risks being overlooked. And so Cornerstone Restaurant Group, the owners of the restaurant (who recently opened that Jordan-branded steakhouse), are closing it after service this Saturday, with plans to open something new in the space in the spring. No word on whether the new place will include McDonald, the private dining space with its own entrance that allowed Jordan and pals to hang out undisturbed by fans, or— our favorite side of One Sixtyblue— the garden plots built in unused sections of the parking lot where McDonald grew herbs and veggies for the restaurant’s use.
