WD-50, one of the biggest-name restaurants in New York, plans to close at the end of November 2014, and there’s no explanation as to why.
Chef Wylie Dufresne, largely regarded as one of the more creative and boundary-pushing chefs in the business, has been at the helm of WD-50 for 11 years now — it’s where he made his mark, propelling the restaurant to tremendous success. In 2010, S. Pellegrino listed it as one of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants. Dufresne himself has been called the “Mad Scientist” of food, an appropriate title considering this is the man who figured out how to fry mayonnaise.* This is a guy who takes tremendous joy in breaking down the component parts of foods just so he can rebuild them in crazy new ways like a kid with Legos and an active imagination, and whose kitchen at WD-50 has an enormous entrance specifically designed to allow customers to watch him and his chefs at work.
He’s also, somewhat antithetically for a big-name chef, known as a nice guy and generally very well-liked within the business. Yesterday, though, he tweeted that WD-50’s last night of business would be at the end of November:
There really isn’t much information on this at this point. There are some rumors that there’s a new building going up at the site of the restaurant, so it’s possible this is merely a prelude to relocation, but no one knows anything for sure, and Dufresne has resisted all media attempts to find out more in the past day.
One thing’s for sure, though: whatever he does next, he’s not going to want for customers.
*When asked if he was doing it because it sounded like a cool idea and he’d be the first to do so, Dufresne responded, “No, I’m doing it because it’s delicious.” After reading that article, I’m a little bit in love with Wylie Dufresne.
Image via Getty.