‘Ino New York
THE WEEKLY BITE
French Bars, Fiery Kitchens, and a Gluten-Free Favorite Reborn: This Week’s New Openings
By Eric Barton | Oct. 8, 2025
AUTHOR BIO: Eric Barton is editor of The Adventurist and a freelance journalist who has reviewed restaurants for more than two decades. Email him here.
You can tell it’s October because chefs everywhere are lighting new fires.
San Francisco alone saw three big debuts, from a Michelin chef cooking like he’s got something to prove to an izakaya tucked under the Transamerica Pyramid.
New York added a French bar in Brooklyn and a few sharp new rooms in Flatiron and Midtown, while Asheville’s gluten-free icon finally opened its long-awaited second home. Seattle kept things casual, Los Angeles took the week off, and the country’s dining pulse still beats loud enough to make you hungry.
Here then are the big restaurant openings you need to know about this week.
Ama — San Francisco
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Transamerica Pyramid workers finally have a reason to linger after work. Chef Brad Kilgore’s Ama serves Japanese izakaya dishes that’s both playful and deliberate—karaage fried just right, sashimi that looks too clean to touch, and a bar program designed to keep the office crowd from ever going back to their desks.
De La Soil — Kenmore, WA
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Technically this one’s been operating since early summer, but since this farm-to-table spot was new to me, I decided to sneak them in. What started as a pop-up way back in 2018 now has a brick-and-mortar inside Copperworks Distilling. The menu from chefs Cody and Andrea Westerfield reads simple—root vegetables, line-caught fish—but every dish looks entirely rethought to show off what’s fresh. (No telling if the name is a reference to classic hip-hop, but just in case, here’s the soundtrack for the rest of this article.)
La Tazza D’Oro — New York City
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Union Square just got a slice of Rome in the form of La Tazza D’Oro, an offshoot of the Italian coffee brand that’s been around since the 1940s. The espresso is dark, the pastries flake properly, and the staff pours it all with the nonchalance of people who’ve seen worse mornings.
Posana — Asheville, NC
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One of Asheville’s most beloved gluten-free restaurants is opening a second location this week in Biltmore Park. It’s the same polished menu—local produce, meticulous plating—but with more sunlight, more parking, and brunch that means you don’t have to battle downtown parking Sunday mornings.
Seahorse — New York City
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The W Hotel Union Square’s new restaurant wants to give seafood a full-on glamor filter. Oysters arrive under crushed ice like jewelry, cocktails come in coupe glasses, and even the shrimp cocktail feels like a throwback you don’t want to resist.
Via Aurelia — San Francisco
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Mission Rock’s new Italian restaurant is already pulling a crowd for its handmade pastas and Negronis. The menu is short, the plating leans fine-dining, and with David Nayfeld and Matt Brewer behind it, you’ll likely be hearing about this place in a whole lot of San Francisco restaurant lists.
Wolfsbane — San Francisco
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Carrie and Rupert Blease of Lord Stanley are back, teaming with former Serpentine owner Tommy Halvorson for a fine-dining return in Dogpatch. Wolfsbane offers both à la carte and seasonal tasting menus, and the cooking aims for the kind of polished precision that made their last dining room a destination. Timing note: it’s scheduled to open October 15, so mark this one for next week rather than tonight.
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