Restaurant notes: Olexy-Starr restaurant has a name
Talula's Garden is on track for April 1 for Washington Square.
Aimee Olexy and Stephen Starr have decided on Talula's Garden as the name of their restaurant coming together on Washington Square. Opening is on target for early April.
Olexy says she needed to "feel" the space, where she and Starr ran a pop-up last summer. It's his former Washington Square, at 210 W. Washington Square. She describes it as the "urban sister" of her Talula's Table in Kennett Square -- an "elegant, classy farm-to-table. Actually, garden to table." Pressed for elaboration, she said she'd be growing some "vegetables and oddball herbs" on site. Serious cheese program, too.
As chef, she's hired Michael Santoro, previously chef de cuisine at Blue Duck Tavern in D.C., after a search by a headhunter. ("We complete each other's sentences," she told me.) He is relocating with his wife.
Menu will be a la carte, though she expects a tasting menu to be popular.
The timing of the opening is ideal, as Olexy pointed out. It will start smaller indoors, and by the end of April expects to add its signature outdoor seating.