NYC's Most Famous Dining Room Returns

In the pantheon of New York restaurants, it's hard to overstate the importance of The Four Seasons—a restaurant that defined power dining and ushered in a new generation of seasonal cooking. But its landmark space in Midtown has been empty since the middle of last summer. Starting next Tuesday, the Grill, which has gotten a refresh if not a complete makeover, will be filled with diners once again.

Mario Carbone, Rich Torrisi and Jeff Zalaznick, who own downtown destinations Dirty French, Carbone and Santina, plus the late, great Torrisi, are now in charge, with Carbone helming the kitchen. For the restaurant's return, he'll serve dishes inspired by the glamour of midcentury chophouses. Think: scallops in snail butter, lobster Newburg and prime rib roast rolled to the table on a silver cart, the New York Times reports.

Those dishes will be served at dinnertime, not the lunch hours the restaurant was famous for. "When people think of this room, they think of lunch," Zalaznick tells New York Magazine. "For us, that's not what it's about. It's important for us to shift the focus back to dinner. It's an experience that people who've come here 100 times have not actually had. Lunch is an amenity." The trio will ultimately add lunch this summer.

The summer will also bring the return of the pool room, this time reimagined as a seafood restaurant called The Pool, with Torrisi running the kitchen. Meanwhile, the team behind the original edition of The Four Seasons plans to reopen their restaurant nearby.