.JPG)
All products featured on Bon Appétit are independently selected by our editors. However, we may receive compensation from retailers and/or from purchases of products through these links.
Chef Nick Wong spent nearly two decades in high-end kitchens, including Ssäm Bar and Gramercy Tavern in New York, and Incanto in San Francisco, contributing to other chefs’ visions. Now he’s gearing up to open Agnes and Sherman, his first solo venture. At the modern Asian American diner in Houston, he’ll serve honey pecan shrimp toast and scallion waffles with sambal honey butter. “I’ve seen my peers open their own places in their 20s and 30s, seen the rise and fall of restaurant empires, and seen some of the most talented wunderkinds leave the industry,” Wong says. “But I know there was no other path for me to walk, no accelerated timeline for me to follow.”
Along with Agnes and Sherman, our 10 most anticipated spring openings include a new Italian restaurant from one of Brooklyn’s most beloved restaurant teams and a follow-up to Nashville’s Kisser, the dreamy tea house that landed on our list of the Best New Restaurants of 2024.
This list is organized alphabetically by city. The opening dates below are subject to change, so check restaurant websites and Instagram accounts for updates.
Le Calamar
Austin, TX
Opening: May
The Korean American wine bar Underdog closed at the beginning of March after two years of service, but it was not the end for owners Claudia Lee and Richard Hargreave, who are gearing up for the space’s next chapter: Le Calamar, a French bistro with a Texan point of view. The duo will work with one of Hargreave’s longtime colleagues and friends, chef Casey Wall, who most recently spent 15 years cooking in Melbourne, Australia, at spots like Bar Liberty and Above Board. A restaurant representative tells Bon Appétit that Wall is working on a menu filled with fanciful dishes like a stuffed chicken wing, a play on a classic French bistro salad with brisket standing in for lardons, and grilled trout with brown butter salsa macha. Le Calamar will serve low-intervention wines with an emphasis on French, Mexican, and even some Texan varieties.
I Cavallini
Brooklyn, NY
Opening: May
For almost a decade, Four Horsemen has sustained a ferocious following for its precise and creative small plates, airy interior, and interesting natural wines. The one-Michelin-starred restaurant and wine bar in Williamsburg, backed by LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy, still requires a Resy notification on most nights to snag one of the few precious tables. I Cavallini, the team’s much-hyped follow-up, is double the size, with around 70 seats and backyard seating, and a menu that leans Italian with a focus on seasonal ingredients. The restaurant will expand on the Four Horsemen’s natural wine offerings, too, with cocktails and beefed-up bar seating.
Kizaki
Denver, CO
Opening: April
It’s been 41 years since brothers Toshi and Yasu Kizaki debuted Sushi Den on Denver’s South Pearl Street. They have since opened Izakaya Den, Ototo, and Temaki Den, each project further cementing the duo as a culinary institution in the Mile High City. Now Toshi is branching off with his first solo venture just a few blocks from Sushi Den. The focus at Kizaki is on the Edomae tradition of curing, searing, and dry-aging fish rather than exclusively serving raw preparations. The 20-course omakase will change seasonally and feature ingredients that Toshi forages locally. An unagi chawanmushi on the opening menu will transition in the Fall to a matsutake chawanmushi with mushrooms foraged in nearby Boulder, Colorado.
Agnes and Sherman
Houston, TX
Opening: April
Nick Wong plans to breathe new life into diner classics at Agnes and Sherman. Think chicken-fried beef shank with bo kho gravy and Taiwanese disco fries with pork gravy, pickled mustard greens, and mozzarella. Wong is known in Houston for his tenure as executive chef at the now closed UB Preserv, where he sharpened his skills serving inspired Viet-Cajun dishes. Dishes on the debut menu will include tteokbokki with beef ragù and collard greens with smoked turkey neck.
Lucia
Los Angeles, CA
Opening: May
Adrian Forte has accomplished a lot. In 2020, he was a semifinalist on Top Chef Canada. He’s the author of the Afro-Caribbean cookbook Yawd, which came out in 2022, and was the culinary director for Turks and Caicos’s Emara Estate until late 2024. The Jamaican-born chef’s next project is Lucia, an Afro-Caribbean restaurant in LA’s Fairfax District, from restaurateur Sam Jordan. Jordan worked with LA-based hospitality design firm Preen Inc. to transform the former historic bank space into a 118-seat dining room with shell-inspired booths, lavish textiles, and a white terrazzo bar. The swanky space is all in service to Forte’s modern Caribbean cooking, with a menu set to include oxtail pepperpot, jerk-seasoned rib-eye steak, and saltfish and fig croquettes.
Yeobo, Darling
Menlo Park, CA
Opening: May
A powerhouse culinary duo is gearing up for their next chapter with Yeobo, Darling. The married chefs Meichih and Michael Kim built their careers in high-caliber kitchens, including Per Se in New York and Benu and SPQR in San Francisco, and received a Michelin star for their Korean fine dining restaurant Maum in Palo Alto before going casual with Bao Bei in Los Altos. Yeobo, Darling falls somewhere in the middle. Diners will order from an à la carte menu featuring lasagna inspired by lu rou fan (Taiwanese braised pork over rice), a chilled dish consisting of thin wheat-based noodles dressed with perilla oil and a pine nut milk, and pork collar with banchan. The team from Bar Mood in Taipei is taking the lead on nonalcoholic and low-ABV drinks, and master sommelier Kyungmoon Kim has put together a list of wines and sools to accompany the menu.
Babychan
Nashville, TN
Opening: May
Husband-wife team Brian Lea and Leina Horii received just about every accolade possible for Kisser, their destination-worthy Japanese café in East Nashville—including a spot on our list of the Best New Restaurants of 2024. Next from the culinary stars comes Babychan, a café taking inspiration from both Japan and France. This restaurant will more prominently feature bakery items, with a takeaway counter for onigiri, yuzu cream puffs, and egg sandwiches, according to Horii. The all-day restaurant will serve comforting breakfast and lunch options such as thick slabs of French toast with Horii’s house-made Japanese milk bread and rice omelets topped with spicy cod roe. Horii’s memories of her grandparents’ home in Tokyo influence Babychan’s design, from the dark wood paneling to the vintage juice glasses her grandmother collected throughout the ’60s and ’70s.
Chateau Royale
New York, NY
Opening: May
New York is locked in a love affair with French restaurants that shows no signs of faltering. But since this boom began, few bistros have garnered the fandom of West Village’s Libertine, the corner restaurant that opened in 2023 with a 20-inch butter mountain balanced in the kitchen and trout roe-topped oeufs mayo on nearly every table. Owner Cody Pruitt is gearing up to debut Chateau Royale in Greenwich Village in a bi-level townhouse. Pruitt will pay homage to iconic restaurants like the now closed La Grenouille and Lutèce, both in design and menu. On the ground floor is a cocktail lounge with burgundy leather booths and a red marble bar, and on the second, a 50-seat dining room with velvet banquettes and dim lighting. A representative of the restaurant says the menu will include takes on classic dishes like escargots a la Bourguignonne and sea bass with caviar sauce, paired with an all-French wine list and tableside cocktail service.
The Kingsway
New Orleans, LA
Opening: April
Arvinder and Pardeep Vilkhu are beloved in New Orleans for their Indian restaurant Saffron, where local influences shape a menu featuring curried seafood gumbo and korma-sauced Gulf shrimp. Their new restaurant, The Kingsway, which will open across the street, is a family affair. Ashwin Vilkhu, the couple’s son, is in charge of the kitchen, and the cuisine will lean into broader Asian flavors in a fine dining setting. The restaurant is named after the street where the Vilkhus first lived in Gretna, Louisiana, after immigrating from New Delhi in 1984, and the prix fixe menu takes inspiration from their family dinners. There will be salt-baked shrimp, cigarillos filled with seasoned pork, and refrigerator noodles—a dish inspired by Ashwin’s memories of eating cold leftover noodles after big Chinese take-out dinners.
Sao
Philadelphia, PA
Opening: May
Phila and Rachel Lorn, the couple behind the buzzy Cambodian noodle spot Mawn, are opening Sao, a seafood-focused Southeast Asian restaurant in the city’s buzzy East Passayunk neighborhood. The menu takes inspiration from a particularly memorable trip Phila took to the beaches of Cambodia. The Lorns tell Bon Appétit that the littleneck clams with Cambodian sour curry—a Mawn staple—will make their way to Sao and will be joined by various crudos like one with spotted prawn and shrimp fat chili oil. Unlike Mawn, which is strictly BYOB (a Philly tradition thanks to local liquor laws), Sao has a liquor license, and the Lorns brought on Rachel’s cousin Jesse Levinson, formerly of Vernick and Dandelion, to develop the beverage menu.