Buddy & Son, a new French-American brasserie, opens at the Public Hotel on Oct. 26

The Public Hotel on the Lower East Side gets a new restaurant on Monday, Oct. 26. Buddy & Son, a French-American brasserie, opens inside the hotel at 215 Chrystie Street, at East Houston Street. Shelley Armistead, who led the Gjelina Group as CEO until 2025, is behind it together with chef Jake Epstein.

Their history runs through Gjelina, the restaurant from Venice, Los Angeles, that came to New York in 2023. Armistead spent more than a decade with the group and oversaw that New York launch. When Gjelina New York opened, Epstein ran its kitchen as executive chef.

A new restaurant for the Public Hotel

Ian Schrager opened the Public nine years ago in a building designed by Herzog & de Meuron. Its restaurants, including Public Kitchen from Jean-Georges Vongerichten, never became a place that diners from outside the hotel sought out. Armistead is betting the brasserie format can change that. “We believe that a brasserie concept suits a hotel well,” she said. She named Schrager’s backing, designer Dominic Kozerski and the kitchen team as what makes the project exciting.

Two longtime collaborators are following Epstein to Chrystie Street. Dan Everhart joins as chef de cuisine, and Kimberly Limoncelli takes charge of pastry. Both have cooked with him for close to 10 years, at Craft, Eataly, Carissa’s and Gjelina.

Buddy & Son menu and cocktails

Epstein calls the place “an ingredient-driven French-American brasserie.” Cajun cooking, mentioned in earlier announcements, is only one of the influences he uses to vary flavors. The centerpiece is a seafood tower of oysters, littlenecks and fluke crudo, alongside Dover sole with beurre blanc and a deboned half chicken on red wine jus. Smaller plates range from a crab cake with gribiche and beef tartare with colatura to cabbage braised in cider and oyster mushrooms finished with cognac and crème fraîche. For dessert, Limoncelli is making chocolate mousse, coconut cake, brioche doughnuts and a daily ice cream.

Classic Sazeracs and French 75s share the cocktail list with house creations such as Le Métro, a mix of Suze, Beefeater, soda and lemon. Bottles come from France, Italy, Spain and California. Next door, a cafe offers coffee, juice and lunch.

By restaurant standards, everything came together quickly. Armistead’s conversations with Schrager go back to late 2019, and she and Epstein have been colleagues since 2022. Still, plans for a restaurant in New York did not take shape until this spring, and construction started Aug. 10.