The hitmaker restaurateur behind Sushi Nakazawa and the revived Chumley’s is eyeing a West Village storefront that until this May housed chef Anita Lo’s beloved French-Asian fine dining spot Annisa.
Alessandro Borgognone is applying for a liquor license for a new restaurant at 13 Barrow St., according to a Manhattan Community Board 2 calendar agenda.
The address was home to Annisa, Lo’s acclaimed restaurant, for 17 years before rising real estate taxes and the minimum wage reportedly forced the chef to shut its doors in May.
Taxes had climbed by $80,000 in the previous two years, Lo told The New York Times in January, but they may prove no deterrent to her apparent successor.
Alessandro Borgognone is the co-founder of Sushi Nakazawa — a West Village collaboration with Jiro One protege Daisuke Nakazawa that earned a coveted four-star review from Times critic Pete Wells in 2013 — and the entrepreneur who reopened the cherished West Village neighborhood bar Chumley’s as a full-fledged restaurant last October. He has also taken over the nearby space at 63 Bedford St.; his plans for that location remain unclear.
Borgognone drew criticism for his decision to open a second Nakazawa in a D.C. building owned by President Trump, after two other chefs backed out of agreements to open establishments there.
Reached by phone, the Brooklyn-born businessman declined to comment on his State Liquor Authority license application and his plans for the space.
In an email, a spokeswoman for his restaurants said she had nothing to report at the moment.
