Are Missy Robbins And Danny Meyer Cooking Something Up?

Missy Robbins is one of the best-known and well-respected restaurant-less chefs around. After turns at such lamented New York City establishments as Arcadia, Lobster Club, and March, and an immersion in Italian cooking at Tony Mantuano's award-winning Spiaggia in Chicago, she took over from Andrew Carmellini as executive chef at A Voce in Manhattan. She subsequently helped open a second location of the place. The Guide Michelin gave both establishments a star.

In May of this year, Robbins announced that she was leaving A Voce. At the time, she told The New York Times that she had no definite plans, but wanted to travel and work on a book.

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Restaurateur Danny Meyer, meanwhile, has been continuing his benevolently inexorable campaign to pretty much dominate the New York restaurant scene, both high and low — most recently opening the 847th Shake Shack (or so it seems) at Grand Central Terminal and announcing that he and Nick Anderer, chef at his Maialino, would install a restaurant in the new King & Grove Hotel on East 29th Street.

Then, the other night, out and about in the Manhattan food world, I happened to overhear a reasonably credible source announcing that Robbins and Meyer were teaming up to open... well, something.

I asked Meyer if he could confirm or deny the rumor. "Love Missy," he replied, "and can't wait to see where she charts her next chapter. Never know about the future, but nothing to confirm about any plans to work together." I thought that sounded at least a little bit like "maybe" between the lines.

Robbins herself put the kibosh on that idea, though. "Funny how rumors fly around our little city," she said. "I am not doing a project with Danny... You're not the first person who has asked me that very question."

Oh well. Let's just hope she ends up cooking someplace soon, because she's missed.