Time and Tide Opens in Manhattan From Chef Danny Garcia

Walking into the vestibule of Time and Tide, a corner displays dried hydrangeas that echo windswept seagrass. Like a meditation room or a confessional box, the long hallway offers a beat from the city outside before entering the restaurant. This is the first restaurant from the recently renamed Kent Hospitality to open in the wake of Saga and Crown Shy restaurateur Jamal James Kent’s untimely death in June.

Since it was conceived close to two years ago, Time and Tide — at 360 Park Avenue South, at East 26th Street in Flatiron, opening October 23 —was always going to be a team-up between Kent and Danny Garcia, the season 21 Top Chef winner. For Kent, this was a personal project: a seafood restaurant inspired by his grandmother. Now, Garcia is leading on his own. It’s a lot of pressure to take on what he built together with Kent.

Kent, one of the most influential and accomplished chefs in New York City, helmed a trio of restaurants in a historic building in the Financial District, the two-Michelin-starred Saga, sky-high bar Overstory, and ground-floor Crown Shy, along with a growing collection of restaurants in his hospitality group. Before that, he led kitchens for then-partners Daniel Humm and Will Guidara, as executive chef of the Nomad; he was also the chef de cuisine and a sous chef at the three-Michelin-starred Eleven Madison Park.

The restaurant group has since changed names from Saga to Kent’s namesake, and it’s a partnership among his wife, Kelly Kent; Garcia; pastry chef, Renata Ameni; executive chef of Crown Shy, Jassimran Singh; and the newly drafted head of Saga, Charlie Mitchell.

A nod to the song from jazz great Charlie Mingus, Time and Tide, in a new building, the first tenant at 360 Park Avenue at 26th Street, was conceived as an homage to Kent’s grandmother, Sue Mingus, and Kent’s summers in her house in Sag Harbor. It’s also inspired by Grand Central Oyster Bar, where his grandmother first dated Mingus. They got married and she oversaw the Mingus legacy until she died in 2022, the New York Times reported. With Garcia at the helm, the restaurant also includes details of his spending summers in Fire Island, with elements of seaside memories for both Kent and Garcia interwoven throughout the restaurant.

Using the steakhouse format, Time and Tide is what they’re calling a fish house, with an emphasis on sustainability. The menu lists snacks like nori fries, sardine toasts, and goldfish at the 19-seat front bar as well as oysters, littlenecks, and a seafood platter ($47 per person). The full dinner menu is divided by raw fish, small fish (oyster pan roast, longfin squid, and leek salad with anchovies, $21 to $28), and big fish (seared swordfish, fluke milanese, halibut pithivier, $38 to $75). Sides range from seared sweet plantains to charred cabbage, and a word of advice from the chef is to order all the sauces (au povre, vin jaune cream, salsa macha, cilantro caper, $6 each). The full menu is available at the bar as well as the dining room.

Harrison Ginsberg, who oversees beverages for the restaurant group, has helped compile the cocktail list with drinks like a smoked olive martini and a wine list of pours that complement seafood (tide) as well as those that have benefited from a little age (time).

Designed by Modellus Novus, overseen by general manager, Kal Nemieboka, the 100-seat dining room reinforces the menu. Past the brass-topped host stand, the bar wraps around the front room, seats outfitted with leather used in Crown Shy that riff on directors’ chairs. The terracotta tiles on the floor match those in Sue Mingus’s Hamptons home, while the green tile against the bar reflects the color of the sea. An eight-seat raw bar flanked by dry-aging fish tucks in the front of the restaurant. Setting the mood, light changes behind a wall like the colors of a sunset – cool blue daytime, warm oranges at dusk, and the evening sky at night. Circular booths basket weave through the dining room. Shades like sails near the banquettes allow for privacy. The floor-to-ceiling windows are unadorned, with the nighttime streetscape a backdrop.

The most astonishing aspect of the space aligns the walls in the 37 seascape photos from Japanese artist Hiroshi Sugimoto. They are a gift from Garcia’s architect father, who had been holding onto them for decades.

Parallel a hallway of Sugimotos, a coffee machine points to the next iteration of the space that will roll out in the winter: Baby Birdee, an outpost of Ameni’s bakery, will showcase the executive pastry chef’s brioche, croissants, cookies, and danishes. During the day, the restaurant will also offer coffee and pastries to service the office tower. It’s the early teaser of her own standalone bakery under the Kent umbrella that will open in Brooklyn’s Domino Park in 2025.

Kent’s mentorship shaped Garcia’s career, he said. They worked together when Kent was running the kitchen at the Nomad and Kent later advised him through the prestigious chef competition, the Bocuse d’Or. Kent also facilitated Garcia meeting his wife, pastry chef Sumaiya Bangee, when they were both employed at Crown Shy. Garcia’s relationship with Kent is detailed further in the private dining rooms, where shelves show off memorabilia from Garcia’s time in Fire Island as well as Kent’s grandmother’s house. Photos of each of them are tucked around the restaurant. Even with Kent’s passing, Time and Tide remains a collaboration, shelf by shelf, plate by plate.

Time and Tide will be open from 5:30 to 10 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. Reservations are now open on Resy.