James Beard-nominated chef Robbie Felice has opened his latest “secret” Manhattan restaurant — this time a Japanese-Italian eatery that’s located inside a Soho hair salon, Side Dish has learned.
Diners looking to score one of just 12 seats for the $295-a-person, 10-course omakase menu – with dishes like cacio e pepe fritti, truffle porcini ramen and dry-aged Japanese A5 Wagyu – can only book a slot via a “secret” link on Resy found on the restaurant’s website and social media.
They are then texted the secret location of the still-unidentified beauty shop — which the proprietor also declined to disclose to Side Dish — the day before their reservation.
The pop-up, called pastaRamen, offers two separate seatings only on Sundays and Mondays – when the salon is closed. It launched April 2 and will run through Memorial Day.
The concept of the furtive feasts is the brainchild of Felice and grew out of necessity after the COVID pandemic forced him to temporarily shut his two New Jersey restaurants, he told Side Dish.
“I still wanted to keep my foot on the gas and keep cooking, so I secretly snuck people into my restaurants for private dinners,” said Felice, 32, who runs Viaggio Ristorante in Wayne, NJ, and Osteria Crescendo, in Westwood, NJ, with his father, Joe Felice.
“I’d call them Tuesday tastings, and I’d cook for just two, four or six people at a time. That’s where I tested my concept,” he added.
It also helped him keep his staff of 50 workers during the pandemic, said Felice, who lives in West New York, NJ, with his two cats, Truffle and Mochi.
His pandemic gambit quickly drew a cult following, leading Felice to branch out with pop-ups at more lavish locations around the country.
He set up shop at a 68th-floor luxury penthouse in Jersey City overlooking the Manhattan skyline, on the roof of the stylish Faena Hotel in Miami, in a glass studio with a show kitchen in Seattle, a food studio in Los Angeles, and then back to Miami for Art Basel in a luxury waterfront residence.
“Everyone loves pasta and ramen. They are two names that everyone can say. It’s basic, and screams what we do, so we ran with it,” Felice said.
The fusion of the two noodle-centric cuisines blends ingredients and techniques from both cultures. The Japanese style – called wafu – combines the coastal flare of the island nation with the rustic style of Italian cooking.
Felice said the cuisines have similar flavor bases — like a shiso leaf, which combines the Italian-favored flavors of basil and mint.
The popularity of the pop-ups encouraged Felice to open his first brick-and-mortar pastaRAMEN in Montclair, NJ, a few months ago. He teamed with Montclair Hospitality Group and his friend and fellow restaurateur Luck Sarabhayavanija, of MHG’s Ani Ramen, on the BYOB, 65-seat eatery in an 1,800 square-foot space.
Fans include Iron Chef Morimoto, who stopped by the Soho pop-up with MHG’s CEO Joey Simons just before its opening. The space is transformed in the evenings into a culinary oasis by street artist Victoria Poplaski.
Now MHG is planning to launch another pastaRAMEN and a new Morimoto concept in Washington state this fall.
A more permanent Manhattan outpost may also be in the works, sources told Side Dish.