At 7 a.m., the storefront at 154 West 70th Street that longtime neighbors knew as Café Mozart is pulling espresso again. A few doors east, the 5 p.m. seating starts at an omakase-minded Japanese counter. Just past Amsterdam Avenue, dim sum carts begin rolling at 10 a.m. through 8,000 square feet of dining room. None of these places existed on this street at the start of 2026.
Daniel Boulud closed Bar Boulud, Boulud Sud and Épicerie Boulud across from Lincoln Center in July 2025. Together those three covered the whole day: a morning counter, a bar and a dinner room. For the fifteen months the corner sat under construction, that full-day range came back six blocks north on a single side street, spread across four storefronts. Now Boulud has reopened all of it under one roof at West 64th Street, and the two halves of the neighborhood's dining day sit a short walk apart.
The day, address by address
Read as a schedule, the new West 70th Street covers nearly every hour that matters.
| Time of day | Where | Address | What's posted |
|---|---|---|---|
| Early morning | Croissant et Café | 154 West 70th Street | Mon–Sat, 7 a.m.–4 p.m.; closed Sundays at opening |
| Late morning to midafternoon | Wu's Dynasty | 208 West 70th Street | Dim sum carts 10 a.m.–3 p.m. |
| All day | Wu's Dynasty | 208 West 70th Street | Open 10 a.m.–10 p.m. daily |
| Lunch or dinner | Toro 7 Sushi | 103 West 70th Street | Sushi, teriyaki, ramen, gyoza |
| Evening | CHIKARA | 150 West 70th Street | Wed–Sun, 5–9:45 p.m. |
Croissant et Café opened July 2 between Broadway and Columbus Avenue. The menu centers on croissants, focaccia and espresso drinks, plus one thing no other counter on the block offers: Persian ice cream, or bastani. I Love the Upper West Side describes it as richer and chewier than an American scoop, typically scented with saffron and rosewater and studded with pistachios. The café opened six days a week and said it planned to move to seven-day service by September. Confirm Sunday hours before planning a weekend breakfast around it.
Toro 7 Sushi got there first, opening May 7 at 103 West 70th Street with a broad menu of sushi, teriyaki, ramen and gyoza. It is the most flexible of the four, a weeknight option rather than an occasion.
Who actually opened them
The block's résumé is what makes the cluster worth knowing. Most of these places are first restaurants under their owners' own names, but the people behind them are not new to the work.
CHIKARA opened August 6 at 150 West 70th Street. Co-owner Yumi Matsumura told West Side Rag that she was formerly a vice president at Sushi of Gari, which has a location at 370 Columbus Avenue. Her partner, chef Atsutaka Chikaraishi, the restaurant's namesake, previously cooked at every Sushi of Gari location. "My dream was to build a restaurant where every decision is made with our customers' happiness in mind," Matsumura told the Rag. The hours run Wednesday through Sunday, 5 to 9:45 p.m., and the owners said they may extend them.
Wu's Dynasty is the largest of the four and has the longest pedigree. Owner Derek Wu is known as a founder and manager of Wu's Wonton King on the Lower East Side, which he left to start this restaurant. It held a soft opening for family and friends on Thursday, September 3, and opened to walk-ins the next day. Eater NY reported live seafood tanks at the entrance holding king crab, Beijing duck on the menu, and a bar pouring cocktails, whiskeys and wines. The cart lineup includes pan-fried chive and shrimp dumplings, cheong fun and custard lava buns. "We hope to provide our neighbors a good place where they can enjoy Cantonese food, and where they can hang out with friends and family," Wu wrote to West Side Rag.
Croissant et Café's owner, Hana Saber, is quoted in the Rag's opening coverage, though that reporting does not describe any earlier neighborhood venture.
The addresses already had histories
Two of the four moved into rooms the street already associated with dining, which helps explain how the cluster came together so quickly. Croissant et Café reopened the Café Mozart storefront as a café. Wu's Dynasty took the space previously occupied by Tavola Della Nonna, an Italian-American restaurant that West Side Rag reported in 2020. That reuse of existing restaurant real estate is the practical reason a side street could take on an avenue's range of hours in a single year: the kitchens and dining rooms were already built.
Wu's Dynasty took longer than first announced. West Side Rag's July report said it was slated for August, and a team member later told readers it would not open on an early date that had circulated because there was "still quite a bit of work to do." It opened the first week of September.
Boulud returns, consolidated, at West 64th
Brasserie Boulud opened Thursday, October 8, at 1900 Broadway at Lincoln Plaza. Eater NY describes it as a 10,000-square-foot flagship that combines Bar Boulud, Boulud Sud and Épicerie Boulud into one. The two-story space, designed by Rockwell Group, has a large central bar, private dining rooms and a tucked-away speakeasy serving cocktails late into the night.
The menu brings back favorites from each of the closed restaurants. Expect seafood towers, French onion soup, steak frites, lobster soufflé, boudin blanc, the DB Burger, and pâtés from the charcuterie house Maison Vérot. A spokesperson told West Side Rag that the menus lean "towards casual everyday dining and a light twist on bistro favorites."
The brasserie's service hours break down this way:
- Morning: coffee and croissants to eat in or take away, the old Épicerie role.
- Pre- and post-theater: the express menus are back. The Met Opera's Macbeth runs at Lincoln Center through October 20.
- Dinner: Tuesday through Sunday, 4:30 to 10:30 p.m., according to the restaurant's posted menu page.
Eater reported on October 2, the day reservations went live, that tables were already booked well into October. The morning counter is the easier way in while the dinner book stays full, and West 70th Street is six blocks north for an evening without a reservation.
The rest of the stretch this month
A few more changes between West 64th and West 72nd round out the area this fall.
Kine Musubi soft-opened September 24 at 128 West 72nd Street, at Amsterdam Avenue, after what Eater NY called a year-long delay. Husband-and-wife team Chi Ian Chan and Lizzy Han started it as a pop-up, and the takeout counter specializes in Spam musubi.
Lucia Pizza opened October 5 at 159 Columbus Avenue, between West 67th and 68th streets. It is the operator's fifth shop, after Sheepshead Bay, SoHo, Gramercy and the Upper East Side.
Getting to and from the block is easier this month. Both elevators at the 72nd Street/Broadway 1/2/3 station returned to service in late September after more than a year of replacement work, though the construction staging area in Verdi Square was still in place when West Side Rag reported the reopening.
On Sunday, October 25, the Columbus Avenue BID hosts a Halloween and harvest Open Street on Columbus Avenue from West 68th to 77th streets, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., which crosses the eastern end of West 70th Street. The city's Trick-or-Streets listing describes the program as harvest and Halloween activities with performances and live entertainment, and warns that events can be delayed or canceled.
The Steven Cohen Team works these blocks every day, and we follow how a street's storefronts change as closely as we follow its buildings. If you own near Lincoln Square and want to know how your corner of the neighborhood is being valued this fall, Steven Cohen Team would be glad to prepare a complimentary market valuation or schedule a private consultation.
