Openings

Gilt Bar To Open Kotsu Ramen. Hey, Isn’t That The Name of…

Gilt Bar, not Katsu or Kotsu.
Gilt Bar, not Katsu or Kotsu.

Once in a while there will be a little ethnic place in a neighborhood that just happens to have the same name as a better-known downtown place, and it’s just a curio: we ate recently at a Grace, whose cuisine is Ghanaian rather than Achatzian, and you could eat at a completely different place called Taza three days a week. Then there’s a brand new place opening with a name that is homophonically, if not orthographically, identical to an existing place of renown. That’s what’s happening with Brendan Sodikoff’s latest restaurant announcement, a ramen joint in the basement of Gilt Bar. Given the hotness of ramen and the likelihood that it will draw lines which will find themselves inside Gilt Bar and tempted to order drinks, it’s a natural next move for Sodikoff, proprietor of a French restaurant, a diner, a doughnut shop, a steak joint, and a bar— so far. The only problem is… the name, Kotsu Ramen. Kotsu is not exactly the same name as Katsu, the much-beloved neighborhood sushi spot on Peterson routinely cited as one of the top two or three for raw fish in the city. But still, it’s awfully close for a place making the same ethnicity (Japanese) if not the same genre of food, and if nothing else it’s unnecessarily confusing, at least to twentysomethings who’ve heard there’s a great Japanese place called Katsu… and think they’ll find sushi underneath the sceney scene of Gilt Bar. [Eater]

Gilt Bar To Open Kotsu Ramen. Hey, Isn’t That The Name of…