On Wednesday, Tom Colicchio announced on Instagram that he would close his 25-year-old flagship restaurant, Craft, on June 27.
“Twenty-five years is a long time in New York,” he said in a phone interview on Thursday. “I’m grappling with the situation,” he said. “Things have changed, rents and expenses for everything keep going up. You can’t function.”
He has not relinquished the space but isn’t sure what the next step will be for it and for him. He also plans to close his Italian restaurant, Vallata, next door to Craft. It shares some of Craft’s facilities, including the dishwasher.
Mr. Colicchio, a familiar face to many as a judge on Bravo’s “Top Chef,” where he is also an executive producer, said that Craft survived the pandemic reasonably well. But he said that the nature of running a restaurant in New York had changed, as had the clientele. “Diners were more adventurous when we opened,” he said. “Back then, I could sell 26 squab a night. Now, I’m lucky to get two orders.”
Last year, he switched the menu at Craft to the more typical à la carte format because he felt the prices he had to charge for family-style portions were too high in the current economy. But it wasn’t enough.
From its inception, Craft was different. Mr. Colicchio sought to create a restaurant that celebrated simplicity, giving diners the opportunity to select a main as one would in a steak house, with an assortment of high-quality side dishes, sauces and the like to accompany it. He showcased the great ingredients chefs could count on and treated them simply. “My approach was food that was craft, not art,” he said.
Not long after it opened, Craft received three stars from William Grimes in The New York Times. Sam Sifton confirmed that rating 10 years later.
The restaurant also won awards for its design, with Bentel & Bentel’s simple display of honeyed burnished wood, leather and steel surrounding oversize tables set with place mats, not linen cloths.
“The room feels as relevant to me today as it did in the beginning,” said Marco Canora, the owner of Hearth in the East Village, who was the executive chef at Craft when it opened. He’s one of several prominent chefs, including Jonathan Benno, Akhtar Nawab and Karen DeMasco, who worked at Craft.
If Craft was different, so was its opening in 2001.
Mr. Colicchio was still working with Danny Meyer at Gramercy Tavern, and “wanted to challenge the notion that only steak houses could offer a naked protein with sides,” Mr. Meyer said. “He knew what he wanted to do.”
Mr. Colicchio found a location directly behind Gramercy Tavern, an easy commute, and continued to work in both kitchens. “He had that entrepreneurial itch, there was no stopping him,” said Mr. Meyer, who declined the opportunity to be Mr. Colicchio’s partner in Craft. “It was certainly unusual.”
Mr. Colicchio, 63, has several other restaurants in his portfolio, including Temple Court and the Bar Room in the Beekman Hotel near City Hall; Small Batch in Garden City, N.Y.; and Craftsteak in Las Vegas.