A New York City mainstay might be closing soon to make room for a fashion powerhouse.
Lure Fishbar, the 20-year-old seafood restaurant in Soho owned by John McDonald, may reportedly be pushed out by its neighbor Prada, Eater reported on Tuesday. The Italian fashion house, which currently has real estate both above and around Lure, is seeking to open an outpost of its Pasticceria Marchesi in the Lure space, as was first reported by Emily Sundberg in her newsletter, Feed Me.
While there’s been no official confirmation of the news, McDonald told Eater that Prada is buying the building’s lease from its current owner, billionaire art collector Peter Brant. Lure Fishbar’s lease ends in mid-2026, and McDonald said his landlord may force him to close the restaurant or give it to Prada, but he hasn’t heard much from Brant or the label. (Eater reached out to both for comment but has yet to hear back.)
In the meantime, McDonald is hoping to keep Lure alive, and he’s enlisting some of the restaurant’s notable clientele to help. The restaurateur has reached out to regulars including Chris Rock, Katie Couric, and Arianna Huffington in the hopes that they’ll be vocal about what the restaurant means to New York City and the Soho community.
“Lure is my home away from home,” documentarian Ken Burns told Eater. “I hope Prada has the sense to know what an institution this is for Manhattan.”
The seafood restaurant is currently led by chef Preston Clark, the son of Patrick Clark, who was the first Black chef in the United States to win a James Beard Award, Eater noted. The eatery serves some 500 diners every night and goes through hundreds of pounds of fish and thousands of oysters every week.
If Prada does take over the space, it would become just the latest fashion company to open a restaurant in New York. Armani/Ristorante just debuted in the city, while Louis Vuitton opened its first stateside restaurant in November. But if McDonald and his well-known patrons have their way, Lure Fishbar will remain in place.
“Too often there’s a bloodthirstiness in real estate,” Burns said. “That doesn’t need to happen here.”
With nothing yet set in stone and Lure holding onto its lease for another year and a half (for now,) Burns and his pals have a little while longer to chow down on the restaurant’s fare.
