Il Totano

Il Totano, From ‘Top Chef”s Harold Dieterle, Has Closed After Less Than a Year | Eater NY

"Opened in May 2024 at 154 W. 13th Street, near Seventh Avenue, by Top Chef season one winner Harold Dieterle in partnership with Alexandra Shapiro (of the Upper East Side’s Flex Mussels and Hoexters), the restaurant’s name means “the squid” and seafood was the focus; it was noted as one of the handful of places aging fish outside of sushi restaurants, along with Time and Tide, Travelers Poets and Friends, and Theodora. This was Dieterle’s comeback in Manhattan after closing Kin Shop and Perilla in 2015 (and after he had shut down the Marrow in 2014), and he told Eater: "The mom and pop model is very difficult in the changing economics of New York City ... great neighborhood restaurants become forgotten at times when everyone’s racing to the new hot spot." Though the operation lasted only a couple of months and has already closed to be flipped into a new concept from the same team, it received notable praise: former Eater New York critic Robert Sietsema called the dry-aged fish "a dish of the year," writing that Dieterle had returned to New York a decade later, with "fresh energy." The New Yorker’s Helen Rosner wrote that the restaurant "doesn’t seem to know what kind of restaurant it’s trying to be" in a summer 2024 review, while both Rosner and Will Hartman of the Infatuation (who ranked the restaurant at 7.8/10) exalted the crudo, calling it "necessary on every table," even as reviewers pointed to some unevenness across the rest of the menu. Eater has reached out to Dieterle and Shapiro for more information, and a representative confirms the duo will stay on as partners in the new venture in the space." - Emma Orlow