Nobu Will Move Out Of Tribeca Flagship, Reopen In Financial District By 2017

Nobu, the haute Japanese cuisine restaurant from chef Nobu Matsuhisa and partners Drew Nieporent, Meir Teper, and Robert De Niro, is slated to leave its longtime flagship location in Manhattan's Tribeca neighborhood, for a generous space in the Financial District, reports The New York Post.

The new space at 195 Broadway, encompassing 14,384 square feet, will be designed by the architect of Nobu's original location, David Rockwell of the Rockwell Group. Both Nobu and the adjacent Nobu Next Door will remain open through the end of 2016.

The new space will provide not only a significant bump in square footage to better accommodate "lucrative private events," in the words of The Post, but also the chance to establish the Financial District as a fine dining neighborhood, with Nobu at the center.

Terms of Nobu's 15-year lease with 195 Broadway, owned by L&L Holding Company and JP Morgan Investment Management, were not revealed, though Nobu has the rare distinction among New York City restaurants of being both enduringly popular and profitable enough not to have been pushed out of its home, but lured elsewhere.

In contrast, though perennially admired by critics and neighborhood regulars alike, Danny Meyer's Union Square Café lost its lease in June after three decades in the same space, and is being forced to relocate.  

Though the decision to leave Hudson Street was a difficult one, Nieporent told The Post that in the end, L&L "pretty much made a deal we couldn't refuse."