Fall's hottest new restaurants
Where to eat this season, Seahorse, Othership sauna, Buddy Buddy, Kellogg’s Diner, Hellbender, Sodi & Williams at The Met, Dimonville, MORE
RESTAURANTS • First Person
Sea change
Just after its 5p opening last Wednesday night, I claimed one of the few empty seats at the vibrant central bar of the reborn W Union Square’s new restaurant, Seahorse. Sunlight poured in through slats on the west- and south-facing windows, drenching the room in a dreamy autumnal late-afternoon glow. Waiting for a friend, I watched the light chase itself across the bar into the adjacent dining room, which was also about to come alive.
Around the turn of the century, this restaurant space housed Olives, the first New York City restaurant from Boston wunderkind chef Todd English. Believe me when I tell you: in its early years, Olives was a cool power center that balanced the perennially hot Blue Water Grill on Union Square’s west side. Olives shuttered in 2014, Blue Water Grill in 2019, and with the loss of Coffee Shop around the same time, Union Square itself lost its luster as a dining (and drinking) destination.
Seahorse changes that. It’s impossible not to think of Soho classic Lure Fishbar when stepping inside, and not just because they both put seafood at the center of the menu and share longtime restaurateur John McDonald as owner and impresario. But the restaurants are not twins.
There’s no sushi at Seahorse, for one, though a sizable oyster bar, clad in blue tiles that evoke mermaid scales, anchors the far side of the bright, airy dining room. There’s also that sunlight, which helps give the room — crowned by a whimsical seafaring mural — a light, airy feel, distinct from Lure’s below-deck vibes.
At a preview dinner at Seahorse a few weeks earlier, I went deep on chef John Villa’s relatively straightforward menu, starting with a platter of Kumamoto, Oishii, and Beau Soleil oysters, proffered with individualized relishes for each. A trio of crudos were served simply and properly with salt and abundant olive oil, while Skull Island prawns, drenched in Calabrian chili, brought the heat. Main courses upped the wow factor, with seared tuna au poivre (accompanied by perfect McDonald’s-style french fries) and Dover sole, a platonic ideal of the dish, artfully filleted at a tableside cart and doused in Meuniere. (The turf options include roasted duck a l’orange and Amish farm chicken.)
Back at the bar last week with my just-arrived friend, sipping a house white Negroni and eating a bar snack of Maine lobster on brioche toast — an open-faced lobster roll, delightful — I couldn’t help but feel that New York City needed this once-vibrant corner of the city to come back to life. Yes, there’s a passageway at the back of the bar into the W hotel lobby. And yes, hotel guests make up part of the clientele (shoutout to the two women from Seattle sitting next to us at the bar watching the ALDS on their iPad).
But Seahorse is also an instantly cool new New York City destination, for a power dinner or just a quick drink, right where we always needed it. –Lockhart Steele
→ Seahorse (Union Square) • 201 Park Ave S • Sun-Thu 5-10p, Fri-Sat 5-1030p, breakfast and lunch service debut later this month • Reserve.
RESTAURANTS • The Nines
Restaurant Rush, fall 2025
9 hot openings for the season. Additions or subtractions? Hit reply or found@foundny.com.
