Oyamel is one of Jose Andres’ restaurants. Its first location is located in Washington DC, so they decided to open a second here in New York City in Hudson Yards. Jose Andres is one of those chefs and restaurateurs that has a good track record every time they open a restaurant. For his restaurants in NYC, we have been to Zaytinya, Nubeluz, and Spanish Diner. Coincidentally, Spanish Diner has closed and was replaced with Oyamel in the same location. I made a reservation for 2 for 5:00 PM easily for a Friday evening without issues the night prior.

Chef Andrew Carmellini has some pretty good restaurants (NoHo Hospitality) that we’ve been to. Some recent ones that we really enjoyed include Cafe Carmellini and Carne Mare. Locanda Verde opened a second location in the Hudson Yards area. This is his ode to urban Italian cuisine, and we wanted to try this out because the exterior seemed very nice. I made a reservation for 2 for 5:15 on a Friday evening without any issues.

Summary

We were visiting the Edge, which is a touristy spot where you can see the NYC area from 100 floors above, and in this COVID environment, it’s been hard to find some decent outdoor restaurants. We had passed by this place, which is a Jose Andres restaurant, and it seemed interesting. It’s a quasi-indoor place in that you’re eating in the building, but the area feels like you’re in a garage. The garage doors open facing outside, and there are plenty of fans to circulate air. We saw that they spaced out all the tables distantly from each other, so it seemed fine to sit down and eat. This is the Spanish Diner at Mercado Little Spain in the Hudson Yards block.