Lucky Strakers, Thomas Straker Takes the Old Lucky Strike Room in SoHo
The London chef opens his first American restaurant on Grand Street this weekend, and Keith McNally has thoughts
On Grand Street, at West Broadway, there is a fish on the new sign. Inside, there is an open kitchen ringed in steel and green stone, leather banquettes, dark wood and the low, warm light that makes everybody look better after eight. For 31 years this was Lucky Strike, one of Keith McNally's rooms. On Saturday, October 10, it becomes Straker's.
The new owner is Thomas Straker, a 36-year-old London chef with a following most restaurateurs can only dream of. Vanity Fair counts more than 2.5 million followers on TikTok and 2.7 million on Instagram, who tune in for his cooking videos. His company, All Things Butter, sells in British supermarkets and in Whole Foods here.
Eater New York made the opening its spotlight of the week. A late-September date was pushed back, the site reports, and the restaurant now opens this Saturday at 59 Grand Street. It is his first restaurant outside the United Kingdom.
From Notting Hill to Grand Street
In London, Straker runs two places in Notting Hill. There is Straker's, which opened in 2022 and sits in the Michelin Guide, and there is Acre. Eater describes the food as modern British with Italian leanings, and says New York will get the same approach.
He did not arrive in cooking by the straight road. He told Vanity Fair that he wanted to follow his father into the army and enrolled at Sandhurst, the British military academy. It did not work out, and he took a cooking course instead. Jobs followed at The Dorchester in Mayfair and at Casa Cruz, Juan Santa Cruz's clubby Notting Hill townhouse. Santa Cruz told the magazine he credits Straker with much of that restaurant's success.
New York, Straker says, was always the goal. He wants the competition. "I want to be a small fish in a big pond," he told Vanity Fair.
Haring on the Walls, Lucky on the Bar
The room Vanity Fair walked through before opening has corduroy booths and suede banquettes and a sound system loud enough to knock wine glasses off the rack. The art is serious. The magazine lists two Keith Haring paintings, six Damien Hirst drawings and a large black skull painting by Brian Clarke, all on loan from the collector Tico Mugrabi.
The piece people will talk about is smaller. It is a ceramic bar jar by the artist Jake Clark that reads "Lucky Strakers," a nod to the restaurant that held the space for three decades before it closed during the pandemic.
Straker says the room sold itself. "I walked into this space, I opened the door, and the energy hit me in the face," he told the magazine.
The Previous Tenant Weighs In
Keith McNally, the man behind Balthazar and Minetta Tavern, answered a few emailed questions from Vanity Fair about the newcomer. He did not hold back. Asked how it felt to see Straker in his old room, he needed five words. "Feelings of rage and jealousy."
His first impression of Straker? "I didn't like him." And now? "I like him even less now. That's not a joke."
Then came the turn, which is very McNally.
"Although I loathe Tom, I love his food, and I plan to eat at his NY restaurant every other day for the next 40 years or until I die. Whatever comes first."
Straker, for his part, told the magazine he admires McNally and has enjoyed getting to know someone he looks up to in the business.
After Dinner
The restaurant's own site lists lunch from noon to 3 and dinner from 5 to 11, seven days a week, with reservations through Dorsia. Straker told Vanity Fair that Dorsia is an investor, and that tables can also be booked on Resy. The magazine adds that most of the tables will go to whoever Straker decides deserves the VIP number, a line that rings a green phone inside the restaurant.
The magazine reports that the plan is for Straker's to keep going late, sliding from restaurant into something closer to a lounge after dinner. It is not alone in that. A few blocks away, McNally's son George opened Faux in September, a Tribeca room with a vaulted bar below built for the same hours. Two young Englishmen, two downtown rooms, one very old New York idea. Dinner is only the start of the night.
Whether Straker's lasts is the question every new room on Grand Street has to answer. Lucky Strike answered it for 31 years. This Saturday, the lights come back on.
