Photo: Youngna Park
Diner’s Journal reports that Soho survivor Zoë will close at the end of the week after almost eighteen years. “It’s no longer a bastion of the art world the way it was,” says Stephen Laffredo, who owns the restaurant with his wife, Thalia. “We can only tweak the concept so far.” When Hal Rubenstein reviewed the restaurant in 2001, he noted a refreshing lack of Sex and the City scenesterism (you know, the type that would eventually inhabit Delicatessen nearby), and wrote, “Is it sad that familiar food and uncomplicated surroundings can feel so fresh and new? Should Zoë have closed and reopened under another name to capitalize on its reinvigoration? Can oh-so-fine but unfabulous survive? Geez, I hope so.” Well, it did. For a while.
