Philadelphia restaurateur Michael Schulson opens Double Knot tomorrow, Wednesday, February 18, at 1251 Avenue of the Americas at West 50th Street; it’s the first New York location of the Philadelphia restaurant that originally opened in 2016. The sprawling new space brings a 12,000-square-foot, bi-level izakaya to a Midtown corner across from Rockefeller Center that’s been trying to reinvent itself for at least five years.
Schulson is the third major Philadelphia restaurateur to push into Manhattan in recent years, following Stephen Starr (Pastis, Le Coucou, Babbo) and Michael Solomonov (Laser Wolf, K’Far in Brooklyn). But Schulson calls Double Knot something more personal than expansion.
Double Knot
“I was born in New York,” he says, then went to the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, graduated, and worked at the Waldorf Astoria, Park Avenue Cafe, and Peacock Alley. Then he moved to Philadelphia, eventually helping Starr by developing the opening menu at Buddakan, the clubstaurant that opened in the Meatpacking District in 2006. He returned to Philadelphia, where he eventually opened over a dozen restaurants in that city and beyond, including Double Knot in 2016 and Dear Daphni in 2024.
Schulson calls the New York opening the “grown-up” version of the restaurant. “Styles change. We change. We get older, maybe wiser,” he says. “So this is version 2.0 of Double Knot. A little more sophisticated. My budget is a little different as I grow as an operator.”
Schulson’s framing for the project isn’t really about geography — it’s about experience. “Our parents used to go to dinner and a movie. The big event was the movie,” he says. “Restaurants have become our dinner-and-a-movie.”
If dinner is the movie now, Double Knot is the restaurant equivalent of a multiplex. And at Midtown prices, the restaurant needs to feel like the night’s main event. “It’s service, ambience, and food — all three matter,” he says, stressing value.
Designed by Parts and Labor (Time Out Market, Greywind), the restaurant spans two levels and more than 350 seats. Upstairs holds the main bar, sushi counter, and dining room. Downstairs is what Schulson calls the Amber Room — “a little more sexy, a little more of a vibe, almost like a jewel box” — along with a robatayaki counter and a tucked-away pocket bar.
Double Knot
An izakaya with a bit of everything
The New York menu begins with cold dishes like albacore with onion ponzu ($16), tuna tartare with avocado and chile oil ($19), and hamachi carpaccio ($17). Small plates include edamame ($8), wagyu soup dumplings ($15), pork gyoza ($15), and broiled oysters with yuzu and nori butter ($18).
Robatayaki skewers range from miso eggplant ($5) and chicken thigh ($8) to kobe beef ($15) and lamb chop ($14). Larger-format dishes are grouped as “crispy,” meat,” and “fish”: Japanese fried chicken with daikon and miso ($18), pork tonkatsu ($31), grilled Japanese wagyu ($83), broiled seabass ($35), and ora king salmon ($29). On the side, the restaurant serves items like black cod fried rice ($19) and mushroom truffle fried rice ($16).
Sushi and sashimi are priced per piece — tuna ($9), toro with caviar ($12), A-5 kobe ($19), premium uni ($21) — while rolls include spicy tuna ($15), blue crab ($19), and the Double Knot big eye tuna roll ($19).
Schulson recommends ordering across categories rather than focusing on one.
Cocktails, sake, and scale
The drink menu spans specialty cocktails like the Double Knot (bourbon, rye, vermouth, smoke) at $19, alongside zero-proof options at $9, Japanese whiskies, and an extensive sake list offered by the carafe and bottle. Double Knot debuts for dinner, starting at 4 p.m. and serving food until 10 p.m. to midnight, depending on the day. Reservations are available on Resy.
Double Knot