Ladies and gentlemen, Chef Tom Colicchio is coming back to the kitchen. Starting two weeks from tomorrow, Colicchio will cook at Tom: Tuesday Dinner in the 32-seat private dining room space at Craft, offering a seasonally-driven, seven to eight course tasting menu for a limited number of guests every other Tuesday. (Set-price starting at $150.) Though Colicchio insists he's never really left the kitchen—despite the vastness of the Craft empire and his Top Chef judging duties—the new venture will certainly afford him the creativity that comes with plating individual dishes (as opposed to the family-style service of Craft).
This project has been in the works for about two years, but was scrapped last summer before it came to fruition. At this point, Colicchio has cleared a year's worth of alternate Tuesdays and assures us that he will be cooking in an open kitchen on all of those nights, accompanied by several Craft chefs and the occasional guest drop-in chef. He hopes to reprise some dishes from his days at Mondrian and Gramercy Tavern, and is working on new dishes, like squab with honey-glazed onions, licorice root and black fermented garlic.
Reservations for two and four-tops will be taken by phone up to six weeks in advance, and can be made at (212) 400-6495. (Website forthcoming.) Of course this also means Top Chef spoilers might soon become a little easier to glean. (Co-written by Hugh Merwin)
