Less than a month after splitting with celebrity chef Todd English, hotelier Jason Pomeranc announced on Friday, May 1, the name of the restaurateur who will replace him: Jason Pomeranc.
Mr. Pomeranc and his partners in the Manhattan-based Thompson Hotel Group, Stephen Brandman, Larry Pomeranc and Michael Pomeranc, are creating their own restaurant and nightlife company called Do Not Disturb Restaurant Group.
“The bars and the restaurants are so much a part of the guest experience of the overall hotel, it’s something that we need to be involved in at the outset and really control on a day-to-day level,” Mr. Pomeranc told the Daily Transom.
He pointed out that the Thompson Group already manages some of its own food and beverage facilities, including those at the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood and, more recently, at the Thompson Lower East Side hotel on Allen Street.
First and foremost among the new entity’s projects will be taking over operations and revising the menu at The Libertine, Mr. English’s former eatery at the Thompson-managed Gild Hall hotel on Gold Street.
Mr. Pomeranc, who turned 38 last Saturday, described the split with the outgoing celebrity chef as “nothing dramatic.”
“Todd’s a really close friend,” Mr. Pomeranc said. “Because of timing and scheduling conflicts with other projects that he had, it was decided that it would be better for him to focus his energies on some other stuff and for us to step in here.”
He added, “I’m sure people would like there to be something dramatic but there really wasn’t. It was strictly a day-to-day business decision.”
Mr. Pomeranc noted that while Mr. English had created the menu for The Libertine, the concept of the restaurant as an “English-inspired American gastropub” was all Thompson.
Chef Susur Lee, who helms the kitchen at Shang in the Thompson LES hotel, will head up the company’s new restaurant at the Donovan House hotel in Washington, D.C., called Zentan, which, “interestingly enough, means ‘spy’ in Cantonese,” Mr. Pomeranc noted, “and sort of goes with the double-life concept that lives within the hotel.”
