Crown Shy – James Kent's Art Deco table, carried forward

Crown Shy occupies the ground floor of the Art Deco landmark at 70 Pine Street, in the heart of Manhattan's Financial District. It opened in March 2019 as the first solo project of chef James Kent, working in partnership with restaurateur Jeff Katz, and the restaurant earned a MICHELIN Star within six months of opening — a distinction it has held every year since. It holds one MICHELIN Star today. Kent, who began cooking as a teenager with neighbour David Bouley before working through Babbo, Jean-Georges and Eleven Madison Park's rise to three Michelin stars, built his reputation long before Crown Shy; he died suddenly in June 2024, aged 45. The kitchen he founded is now led by Executive Chef Jassimran Singh, who arrived from The NoMad and rose through Crown Shy's own ranks to take the pass. The cooking stays rooted in European technique, pulled wide by the flavours of New York itself, and by the people who cook them.

01The room and the setting

The dining room and bar occupy a series of rooms on the ground floor of 70 Pine Street, with floor-to-ceiling windows that climb sixteen feet and an open kitchen set within what is widely described as an Art Deco masterpiece of a building.

The same tower holds two siblings reached from the same lobby: Saga, with two MICHELIN Stars, on the 63rd floor, and Overstory, the cocktail bar one floor above it, ranked third-best bar in the world and second-best in the United States at The World's 50 Best Bars in 2023. Crown Shy sits at the base of that same vertical address — Wall Street dining stacked one on top of the other.

02The chef

James Kent began his apprenticeship at fourteen, knocking on the door of his neighbour, the chef David Bouley, and was invited to spend a summer working in that kitchen the following year. He trained at Le Cordon Bleu and Johnson & Wales, worked at Babbo and Jean-Georges, then joined Eleven Madison Park during the years it rose to three Michelin stars. He became executive chef of The NoMad in the autumn of 2013, where the restaurant won its first Michelin star that same year, before leaving in 2017 to pursue his first solo project. That project, opened with restaurateur Jeff Katz — previously of Del Posto, where the restaurant won a James Beard Award for outstanding service — was Crown Shy. Kent died of a heart attack on 15 June 2024, at the age of 45.

Insider tip

Lunch weekdays, dinner nightly; book 28 days out via the restaurant's own system.

Today the stoves belong to Jassimran Singh, who grew up in New Delhi and trained in Melbourne kitchens including Maze by Gordon Ramsay and No. 8 Southbank, before moving to New York as a sous chef at The NoMad from 2014 to 2017. He joined Kent's team at Crown Shy, worked up through the line, and is now Executive Chef-Partner, as well as Culinary Director of Kent Hospitality Group, founded by Kent, overseeing Saga as well — making him, by the group's own account, the first Sikh American to oversee two Michelin-starred kitchens. He cooks in his neatly folded pagh, a detail that has become part of his own kitchen's identity. Chef de Cuisine Pratik Parida runs the pass beside him.

03The cooking

The food stays rooted in European technique but reaches outward, drawing on the flavours the kitchen team grew up with, travelled for, and still find across New York's own diversity of cuisines. The clearest expression of that is the Grilled Citrus-Marinated Chicken, perfected by Kent himself and so popular that guests now book tables specifically to order it; Singh is characteristically blunt about its standing on the menu: "It's our number one dish to be honest."

Other signatures have arrived sideways. A former sous chef, Jooho Song, once built a batch of Korean-inspired hot pockets that turned into an unexpected Crown Shy classic before he left to become executive chef at Oiji Mi — proof that the kitchen's culture of letting every cook pitch in has outlasted any single chef, including its founder.

04What to order

Start with the Gruyère Fritters, chili and lime ($18) or the Watermelon Salad with suya spice, feta and pistachio ($24). From the mains, the Squash Agnolotti with English Shropshire and brown butter ($38) and the Seared Scallops with morcilla and rice porridge ($36) show the kitchen's European backbone, while the Short Rib tandoori flatbread ($29) and the Grilled Citrus-Marinated Chicken with Crown Shy hot sauce ($49) show where it travels. For the table, the Roasted Short Rib with meat pie and condiments ($138) is built to share, and the Sticky Toffee Pudding for Two, with pecans and apple sorbet ($28), closes the meal properly.

05Wine and drinks

The by-the-glass list runs from a grower Champagne up to Krug's Grande Cuvée ($85), alongside a Rheingau Riesling from Peter Jakob Kuhn ($22) and a Pouilly-Fumé Sauvignon Blanc from Serge Dagueneau ($24) — enough range to have earned the room a reputation for an interesting wine list.

The cocktail programme leans inventive: a Charred Onion Gibson of vodka, dry vermouth, sherry and burnt onion ($22), or a Melona Milk Punch built from vodka, honeydew, sticky rice and coconut ($20), sit alongside a full non-alcoholic menu, from a Bitter Raspberry aperitif spritz to a Mango & Togarashi soda.

06When to go and booking

Crown Shy serves lunch Monday to Friday from 11:30am to 2pm, with dinner running nightly from 5pm — to 9:30pm Sunday through Wednesday, and to 10pm Thursday through Saturday.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.