Best Western

Illustration: Atsuhiro Saisho

The Upper West Side, conventional wisdom holds, is synonymous with gastronomic mediocrity. On almost every occasion that a notable restaurant has opened in the neighborhood—Ouest, Compass, Nice Matin, Telepan—journalists have rushed to declare a new restaurant boom. But such hype has never come to much—the would-be Upper West Side culinary windfalls have ultimately amounted to whispers. Until now. Call it the great downtown diaspora: This fall, restaurateurs from Soho to Chelsea are heading northwest.

It started in September­—Momoya Amsterdam became the first outpost of its Chelsea predecessor, Momoya. Last month, UWS locations of Soho’s Grandaisy Bakery and Café Blossom, the Chelsea vegan oasis, opened their doors, as did Community Food & Juice, an offshoot of the Clinton Street Baking Company. This week, Danny Abrams debuts an Amsterdam Avenue version of The Mermaid Inn, and Jacques Torres is scheduled to open a chocolate shop nearby (see “Notable openings”). December heralds perhaps the most symbolic arrival of all, when Magnolia Bakery sends 69th Street into a sugar coma.

True, the imminent arrival of the big guns has already attracted press declarations about the neighborhood’s culinary coming of age, version 2007-08: seafood king Ed Brown’s eighty one; Daniel Boulud’s Bar Boulud near Lincoln Center; Tom Valenti’s West Branch; a rumored collaboration between Zak Pelaccio and Jeffrey Chodorow. But the heart of the boom lies not in the sensationalism that comes along with celebrity chefs (and which inevitably dies down). It’s in the previously unthinkable northward migration of established downtown brands, imprinting on the dowdy UWS a cachet rarely associated with neighborhoods above 23rd Street.

But if uptown is becoming the new downtown, culinarily speaking, the boom isn’t following the typical pattern. “Usually, retail follows restaurants,” says DeDe Lahman, the co-owner of Clinton Street Baking Company and Community Food & Juice. “On the Upper West Side, restaurants are following retail.” Lahman is referring to the opening in 2004 of Barneys Co-op. Then Steven Alan. The Upper West has been dusting off its fusty image, attracting a fashionable yet family-oriented demographic that doesn’t feel like schlepping 70 blocks to shop—or get a good meal. “We knew that there was nothing like this up here,” says Café Blossom’s co-owner, Pamela Seri. “A lot of our clientele were going downtown. They’ve been coming in and saying, ‘We desperately needed you.’ ”

Restaurateur Danny Abrams, who has opened several establishments on the Upper West Side (Prohibition, Citrus) in addition to downtown stalwarts like the Harrison and the Red Cat, has watched the scene change significantly over the 20 years he’s lived in the neighborhood. “The same people who went to the bars on Amsterdam Avenue when they were 25 are now 40 and married with high-paying jobs,” he says. That changing market, Abrams says, is in large part what convinced him to go “beyond 23rd Street.”

Steve Abrams, who purchased Magnolia Bakery from Alyssa Torrey last January, echoes his brother’s sentiments. He’s lived on the UWS since 1981, when it­ was the last place you’d hawk pastel cupcakes. But Magnolia uptown will reflect the area’s rising number of young families—there will be a space intended for kids’ parties—and Abrams’s desire to “fill a need” for a good bakery. Monica Von Thun Calderón, who opened the 72nd Street location of Grandaisy Bakery less than a month ago, has found that UWS residents have indeed been receptive to Grandaisy’s presence. “The people who come in are old-time Upper West Siders who are really smart and know food.”

Tom Valenti, whom many restaurateurs point to as a sort of pied piper of the uptown gourmet movement, has mixed emotions about the changing character of his neighborhood. While he’s happy to see more restaurateurs coming uptown, he observes that a shifting clientele has brought the inevitable rising rents, making the neighborhood a bastion for Gaps and Best Buys rather than, Valenti says, “individual operators on a retail basis. It sucks.”

But ultimately, while trendier stores and a changing population may make the Upper West Side more attractive to downtown restaurateurs, some residents remain skeptical as to whether their presence will instantly convert the neighborhood into a culinary oasis, much less convince them to remain north of Columbus Circle on a Friday night. “I love my neighborhood, but if I want a dining-out experience, I’ll leave,” says Sloane Crosley, a writer and publicist who’s lived in the neighborhood for six years. “When I think of eating out on the Upper West Side, I think of Barney Greengrass or Sarabeth’s. I don’t think it’s a dining mecca just yet.”