Opening Friday, April 17, The Consulate is taking over the longtime home of El Rio Grande on East 38th Street, turning the corner into a 300-plus-seat dining destination that pairs polished French-meets-New American cooking with a very strategic warm-weather perk: a sprawling outdoor setup made for lingering.
If you’ve been to The Consulate’s other New York City locations, you might already know the drill. The restaurant, founded by twin brothers Kiril and Metodija Mihajlov, is both easy-going and elegant, a place where you could just as easily post up for oysters and Martinis as you could settle in for a full dinner.
The Murray Hill outpost builds on that, but at a much bigger scale. Inside, the buzzy space can move easily from cocktails to dinner service. But outside is the real draw: an expansive terrace shared with its sibling concept next door, with room for more than 200 guests across the property.
Photograph: Courtesy of The Consulate
The menu is equally wide-ranging. Seafood is a clear anchor, with a raw bar lineup that includes tuna tartare with yuzu, oysters, shrimp cocktail and seafood towers. There’s also a dedicated sushi program—think crispy rice with spicy tuna, yellowtail with jalapeño and specialty rolls.
From there, things branch out quickly, with French staples like mussels in white wine and French onion soup, plus crowd-pleasers like truffle mushroom flatbread and crab cakes. Mains include steak frites and dry-aged ribeye, along with miso-pomegranate salmon, roasted chicken and a short rib cavatelli. And, of course, there’s a burger—topped with caramelized onions and goat cheese.
There’s also a second act built right in: At the Office, a high-end sports bar opening in the same space, offers a more casual, late-night energy (and plenty of screens). Together, the two concepts are meant to function as a fluid night out—start with dinner, end with drinks, no Uber required.
For a corner that’s spent more than 40 years as a Tex-Mex standby, it’s a big shift. But if nothing else, Murray Hill just gained a terrace worth planning around.