Huge news for Bushwick: The neighborhood is getting a location of Mission Chinese, the eclectic Lower East Side Sichuan-inspired restaurant from chef Danny Bowien and executive chef Angela Dimayuga.
Bowien announced the news on Thursday night at a Times Talk with writer Kim Severson and Anthony Bourdain, where the topic was Bourdain’s new documentary about food waste called Wasted!. The film looks at how chefs, including Bowien, handle waste.
During the question and answer session, Severson goes off topic and says that Bowien will be opening a new Mission Chinese in Bushwick. The chef confirmed that he found on Thursday that it would be happening. He did not offer further details about where the restaurant might be located or what it might be like. Eater has reached out to the MCF team for more information.
Update: Grub Street points to an Instagram post from nonprofit publisher 8-Ball Community Inc. that says Mission Chinese will open at a 599 Johnson Avenue, between Scott Avenue and Gardner Avenue, in March 2018. It’s still a fairly industrial area of East Williamsburg/Bushwick, but that’s clearly changing quickly. The new outpost will be just one block away from the new location of Bunker Vietnamese, which opened earlier this year.
Since Mission Chinese first opened in New York in 2012, it’s been a hit — drawing spice chasers for Bowien’s idiosyncratic take on Chinese fare with dishes like kung pao pastrami. The restaurant moved to its current, two-story location at 171 East Broadway in 2014 after the original Orchard Street one became plagued with rats.
Its current iteration remains one of the most consistently packed restaurants in New York. Details are still slim on what the new restaurant might be like, but considering Bowien’s knack for experimentation at new restaurants (see: the shuttered Mission Cantina), it wouldn’t be a surprise if the new outpost offered a few twists from the original.