Davide Restaurant

About this Restaurant

Chef Marc Forgione — most known for being on the Next Iron Chef and his eponymous NYC restaurant — is branching out again. The chef-restaurateur is teaming up with his decorated and influential father and chef Larry Forgione and the Butter Group of popular clubby spots like 1Oak for a new restaurant called Davide. The restaurant will serve Italian-Mediterranean food in the former space of Meatpacking District restaurant Spice Market, the seminal Jean-Georges Vongerichten Asian-ish clubstaurant from the Sex and the City era that closed in 2016. The space, at 403 West 13th St. at Ninth Avenue, is huge, and with the Butter team involved, Davide will likely also be a bit of a party scene. Details are still slim, but the Forgiones and Butter’s Richie Akiva will be charged with setting the food and scene, which will include Italian dishes with “Mediterranean fusion.” There will be an open kitchen, a communal table, and a private garden on-site. Butter’s Roy Nachum is designing the restaurant, which is named after fashion photographer Davide Sorrenti. The artist rose to fame in the ’90s during the era of “heroin chic” photography, but his death at age 20 in 1997 partly due to heroin use was a major factor at the end of the style. It’s the first new restaurant in more than two years for Marc Forgione, who opened the well-reviewed steakhouse American Cut with LDV Hospitality in 2016. But it’s the first in decades for Larry Forgione, who has won multiple James Beard awards for his cooking and has been called “the Godfather of American cuisine” for influence in the farm-to-table movement. Back when Spice Market closed, the landlord reportedly wanted to replace it with “experiential retail,” like a Samsung-branded showroom, instead of a restaurant. At one point, gourmet grocer Dean & Deluca was also rumored to be in talks for the space. But a couple of years later, clearly the ghosts of lychee martinis will just be haunting another restaurant.