Croman’s Amato Opera Building on the Bowery Welcomes ‘Kissaki’ Sushi Next Month
The onetime Amato Opera on the Bowery – renovated and upscaled years ago – will get a high-end sushi restaurant called Kissaki.
Eater reported this week that former Gaijin chef-owner Mark Garcia is behind the 26-seat Omakase venture at 319 Bowery. The Omakase menu will cost $160 for twelve pieces of Nigiri and four kaiseki-style plates.
Kissaki is planned for sometime in January.
Certainly a far cry from the former use of this space.
The 61-year-old opera house staged its final performance in May 2009, five months after notorious landlord (and ex-convict) Steve Croman bought the property for $3.7 million.
As previously reported, Croman later converted 319 Bowery into a mixed-use dwelling befitting Bowery 2.0. Three glitzy, full-floor apartments, including penthouse digs. (Monthly rents range between $8,995 and $10,995.) And until now, the remodeled ground-level store sat vacant.
Indeed, the retail space had been on the market since at least 2012, asking ungodly amounts for rent ($35,000 per month). A tipster at the time had surmised that the prior few interested parties may have been scared away more from its haunted nature than the rent itself.