New York has always been the kind of city that wears its history like a badge of honor—or, to put a finer point on it, a vintage patch on a new jacket ripped right from the runway. Forever in flux, the city’s beloved institutions are regularly usurped by buzzy hotspots, remembered only by the locals who’ve been in the neighborhood long enough to have witnessed the transformation. It’s fitting then that it’s two native New Yorkers who came together to create Time, a cozy new sushi restaurant on the corner of Canal and Forsyth that manages to pay homage to tradition while maintaining a thoroughly modern feeling.
Time Café—a now-shuttered 1990s NoHo mainstay that served health-conscious fare—served as the inspiration for the name. “I could see that restaurant from my bedroom window,” says co-owner and architectural designer Nick Poe of his childhood spent living across the street from his restaurant’s eponym. “I remember the space pretty vividly.”
Photo: Courtesy of Nick Sethi
The similarity in names is where the comparison ends, however. “My partner is a low-key sushi fanatic,” Poe says of co-owner Alec Reinstein, a passion which led to the restaurant’s tightly edited menu featuring traditional sushi and omakase alongside more inventive side dishes—think: yellowtail carpaccio with yuzu, miso, and tricolor peppercorn. “I hadn’t done a Japanese restaurant yet,” says Reinstein, also known as rapper Despot. His pre-Time dining ventures include Frankel’s in Greenpoint and Gigi’s in Hollywood. “This was a fun challenge.” Yasmin Kaytmaz, formerly of Dr. Clark and The River, is another partner in this endeavor.
At Time, classically Japanese dishes are situated amid warmly lit French bistro ambiance and Surrealism-inspired design choices, creating the kind of dining experience that makes you want to settle in and stay awhile, drinking in every detail. On the walls, a blown-up image of an architectural model in earthen monochrome serves as a mural, drawing the eye around the room and upwards to the original, pre-1900 molded tin ceiling. Sconces and overhead lights are diffused by ruddy, globular fixtures that call to mind the variations on bird cages often appearing in Kansuke Yamamoto’s art, as well as the lighting motif Marcel Breuer created for the lobby of the one-time uptown Whitney. Classic bistro chairs sport repurposed Persian carpet upholstery, their faded florals made richer by time-worn imperfections.
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