Upper East Side New Restaurants Fall 2026: A Guide to Openings

Between Labor Day and the first weekend of October, the Upper East Side gained a Korean restaurant on East 64th Street, a Thai kitchen at 77th, a coffee roaster at 66th, a fried-chicken chain's first Manhattan location at 68th, and a French bistro back on York Avenue. All of them sit on or within a block of First Avenue. Over the same weeks, three storefronts between East 80th and 83rd on Second Avenue changed hands or closed. If you live here, this fall's new places to eat are a few blocks east of where the recent turnover has been.

First Avenue, South to North

The First Avenue openings are spread over about fifteen blocks, and most of them took over spaces that had a long-running tenant before.

Bon Ga has the most history behind its address. It replaced Bayon, the Michelin-recognized Cambodian restaurant that Eater reports closed this summer after 45 years. The new menu centers on bulgogi and seafood pancakes. The dining room has ten tables, and the open-air seating out back holds 26, which makes the yard bigger than the room on mild October nights.

Ob Uan, at 77th, organizes its specials by region of Thailand. Khao soy gai and somtum gai yang come from the north, and gaeng pu, a crab curry, comes from the southern province of Surat Thani. It is a block from Jean Claude, which came back to the neighborhood at 1481 York after a two-year absence. Owner Kamel Moumeni also runs the bistro's East 59th Street location. Between them, the corner of 77th and First and the York Avenue blocks just north now have two new dinner options within one short walk.

The newcomers at the south end are more casual. Coffee Project New York is a locally founded roaster with eight NYC-area outlets. James D. Wang, its managing partner, runs the 66th Street shop. Two blocks north, Zaxbys opened its first Manhattan location and its second in the city. Franchisee Norman Yu owns and operates it.

The Side-Street Openings Came From Teams Already Here

The First Avenue cluster explains where the new restaurants opened. The side streets explain who opened them. Two of the most interesting dinner additions this fall come from operators who already run a place in the neighborhood.

Kuriya, a soba shop, opened Sept. 6 at 219 East 85th Street, between Second and Third avenues. It comes from the team behind Suki Desu, the neighborhood rice-bowl restaurant. Six blocks north, La Sardine opened Sept. 9 at 1614 Third Avenue, at East 91st Street. It is a wine bar built around seafood, and its team also runs Bar Vivant and Alison, a neighborhood wine bar with other locations in East Harlem and the East Village.

The same week, a few blocks past the usual northern edge of the neighborhood, chef Lana Lagomarsini opened Creola at 1261 Park Avenue, between East 97th and 98th streets. It is a 14-seat tasting-menu restaurant focused on the cooking of the Black diaspora. Fourteen seats will matter more than the address when you try to book.

The rest of the fall's openings came from national chains. Jersey Mike's opened its first Upper East Side shop Sept. 9 at 1111 Lexington Avenue, between East 77th and 78th streets. Zaxbys is the other. Taken together, the season was built by neighborhood teams adding a second concept, a local roaster adding another shop, a bistro coming back, and two chains entering. Eastside Feed's and Eater's reporting doesn't show a wave of downtown groups moving uptown.

Second Avenue Between 80th and 83rd Is Mid-Turnover

Second Avenue is where the opening dates are still unsettled. Three storefronts within about three blocks of each other changed status within a few weeks.

1. 1556 Second Avenue, at East 81st Street. Adria, a coastal Italian restaurant, closed in mid-September after two years. Its owner said he was looking into relocating somewhere in the neighborhood. Bluestone Lane has been reported as the space's next tenant. Its existing Upper East Side café is at 1085 Fifth Avenue, and no opening date has been announced for the Second Avenue location.
2. 1543 Second Avenue, between East 80th and 81st. Chip City closed every one of its stores on Oct. 2, including this cookie shop.
3. 1589 Second Avenue, between East 82nd and 83rd. Caffe Buon Gusto is turning the former Osteria Nando into a second Upper East Side location with a sports-bar-style format. Owner Nando Ghorchian said it would open "very soon." No opening had been confirmed as of this weekend.

On these blocks, nothing new is open yet, and nothing is open where Adria and Chip City were. The two tenants announced so far are a café chain that already has a neighborhood location and a familiar local Italian name with a new format. Both are expected. Neither has a date. If you live in the low 80s off Second, your new places to eat this month are a short walk away: Kuriya on 85th, or Ob Uan and Jean Claude three avenues east.

What Fills In Next, by Date

The pipeline is also concentrated in specific places and continues well into 2027. Here it is in order of announced timing, with each date as firm as its source made it.

• Oct. 6: The Hungarian-culture foundation Tulipán is scheduled to present to Community Board 8 on its plans for a townhouse at 1065 Madison Avenue, between East 80th and 81st streets. The plans include a public restaurant and gallery, a designer shop, and residencies for artists and chefs. The opening target is spring 2027.
• Late October: BloomBar Café et Fleurs plans its first Manhattan shop, a café and lifestyle boutique, at 1226 Third Avenue, at East 71st Street. Founders Heleyne and Ronnie Tamir also run locations in New Jersey and Brooklyn. No exact day has been set.
• Thanksgiving week, tentatively: Pepe & Vera at 1712 First Avenue, near East 89th Street. Caterina Pepe will lead the kitchen and Wilson Vera the dining room.
• No date announced: Golden Age Hospitality, the group behind Le Dive, has taken over the former Donohue's Steak House at 845 Lexington Avenue, near East 64th Street. Donohue's closed June 19. The same group debuted Saint-Denis in Soho on Sept. 22.
• Second half of 2027: Happier Grocery signed a lease for the former City Cinemas at 210 East 86th Street, between Second and Third avenues. It will be the brand's second store in the city.

Pepe & Vera adds another restaurant to First Avenue. The Donohue's takeover is the most closely watched dining address on Lexington this fall, and Tulipán and Happier Grocery are the Madison Avenue and 86th Street projects most likely to change how people use those blocks. None of them will be open in time to change October dinner plans.

The East Side Walk Is Partly Back

For people already living east of First, the reason to walk to the water is half restored. In a July 8 release, the City Council reported that Speaker Julie Menin had announced the reopening of the 71st Street pedestrian ramp the day before, after a closure that began in July 2025. The work is part of a Hospital for Special Surgery project with NYC Parks and NYCEDC. It covers seawall improvements, repairs to a sinkhole near the base of the East 78th Street ramp, new pavers, landscaping, and fitness equipment. HSS's project page, which carries no date, says the section from 72nd to 78th Street remains closed during active construction and that the work is expected to be finished by October 2026. The Council's July release said the 78th Street pedestrian bridge would close starting that month, and none of the material gathered for this post confirms that it has reopened.

The Council has described a continuous esplanade from East 53rd to East 114th Street in late 2026. NYC Parks also lists separate projects along the river that are still under construction, including one between 96th and 125th streets with an August 2027 projected completion. For now, the dependable route between the First Avenue openings and the river is the 71st Street ramp.

For an indoor plan on a rainy weekend, Taryn Simon's interactive exhibition "Father Country I Do Love You" opened in the Guggenheim rotunda on Sept. 18 and runs through March 14, 2027.

Changes at street level, like which avenue is gaining tenants and which corner is between them, affect co-op and condo owners long before they appear in any sales data. If you own on the East Side and want to understand how the blocks around your building are changing as you think about timing, The Globalist Group can walk through it with you. Work With Us.