Inside of a chic tri-level townhouse on East 60th street in Manhattan, a New York classic is being reborn. Tony Fortuna and Derek Axelrod have been hard at work bringing to life their renewed vision for the space, complete with an exclusive private event room and a separate VIP entrance.
“We were established for about 27 years on Third Avenue and 73rd,” Fortuna said. “We’re still at the beginning of the Upper East Side, but we wanted to be closer to Midtown, we’re kind of in between. With my partner Derek. We decided that it was time to make a change, we wanted something a little bit more modern, going to the next step. Because T-Bar was there for years but we became a little bit of the Upper East Side go-to restaurant for the neighborhood, very special, very supportive, very nice but I wanted to kind of go a different direction a little bit.”
They also have a T-Bar location in the Hamptons which is open seasonally, drawing the chicest of the Hamptons summer set to its tables.
“We have Southampton that we do seasonal, but these last couple years have been a little bit exceptional, unfortunately because of COVID, everybody was out there so we were open in the wintertime, when normally we close,” Fortuna said. “Right now [in September] we’ve actually closed for the season [this year].”
With COVID concerns fading, T-Bar is ready to return to its normal schedule of year-round service in Manhattan and seasonal service in the Hamptons. And what better way to do that than with a totally revamped Manhattan location?
Originally, the plans for the renovation started out small, but over time, the team’s new vision for the restaurant began to blossom into something totally new.
“We started with a small renovation, then we realized we wanted to do something different, and the next step took a lot longer than we wanted to, but the results speak for itself, thanks to Derek and Leslie,” Fortuna said.
With its new luxurious style, T-Bar is also looking forward to offering a different dining atmosphere on their new location, especially on their third floor.
“We have a private dining room, and we hope that upstairs will be more of a later night crowd, more of a different crowd than it would be downstairs later in the night,” Fortuna said.
The new location’s interior was designed with their customers’ desire for a nightlife atmosphere in mind.
“The [old] Upper East Side [location] was more of an open restaurant, big windows,” Fortuna said. “Here we don’t have a lot of windows, it’s a little bit more of a club-y atmosphere, which we did not have that uptown. The club-y atmosphere [in the old location], that was done by the customers themselves, here we do it with the décor.”
In addition to the new nightlife vibes, with the new location closer to Midtown, Fortuna and Axelrod are also looking forward to also welcoming power lunches at their tables.
“We’ll be open seven days a week, lunch and dinner; this area here is definitely more business [oriented] than [our old location],” Fortuna said. “For dinner I think we’ll definitely be busy also; we’re on a great street.”
While the restaurant itself may have had a full makeover, diners will be able to rely on the same great T-Bar taste they know and love.
“Our kitchen, basically our style is the same as Southampton, T-Bar on the Upper East Side, we want to stay in that format because that’s what our customers like,” Fortuna said. “The fact that we have a very good following also helps… We’re going to tweak some dishes and bring out some more maybe seasonal [dishes] down the road, but overall, we can’t really change too much of our menu because our customers love it.”
As customers’ love for T-Bar only continues to grow, Fortuna has hopes that its number of locations will continue to grow as well.
“I would like to see one or two more T-Bars; we have Southampton which is seasonal, definitely,” Fortuna said. “We’d like to do Florida, which Florida is a state that’s basically all year round, Florida has become an all year round [destination], and we do have a couple things, looking in other places, but […] one step at a time as my dad used to say when I was smaller.”
