Within a single month this fall, two large French brasseries opened on the Upper West Side, 17 blocks apart. Daniel Boulud's Brasserie Boulud opened October 8 at 1900 Broadway, at West 64th Street, across from Lincoln Center. Boucherie Upper West Side followed on Friday, November 6, at 444 Columbus Avenue between 81st and 82nd Streets.
They serve a lot of the same food: onion soup, steak for two, a burger worth the trip. Their schedules overlap at lunch and dinner and part ways at both ends of the day. Brasserie Boulud is built around early mornings and evening performances, and it closes on Mondays. Boucherie opens at 11 a.m. on weekdays and stays open until midnight every day of the week. Between them, they cover almost every hour from 7 a.m. to midnight, and only one of them is open at either end of the day.
Who Has the Room, Hour by Hour
These times come from the hours the two restaurants post now. On a typical Tuesday through Friday:
- 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. Only Brasserie Boulud is open, through its Épicerie café counter, which opens at 7.
- 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Both are open. Boucherie serves its weekday prix fixe lunch, and the Épicerie handles the sandwich-and-salad crowd.
- 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. Boucherie runs its bar-only Green Hour. The Épicerie closes at 6, and Boulud's dinner service starts at 4:30.
- 4:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. Both serve dinner.
- 10:30 p.m. to midnight. Only Boucherie is still serving.
Weekends shift Boucherie's opening up to 10 a.m. On Mondays, the whole list shrinks to one restaurant, because Brasserie Boulud's café and dinner menus both list Tuesday through Sunday only.
Brasserie Boulud Runs on a Lincoln Center Clock
Brasserie Boulud's schedule makes sense once you consider the address. It merges three Boulud restaurants that operated across from Lincoln Center for about two decades: Bar Boulud, Boulud Sud and Épicerie Boulud. All three closed in July 2025. When West Side Rag previewed the opening, a spokesperson said the menus would lean "towards casual everyday dining and a light twist on bistro favorites," and the restaurant gave September 17 as its opening date. The doors opened October 8 instead, and Wine Spectator reported that things "took longer than expected."
The daytime half of the restaurant is the Épicerie, an adjoining café that serves breakfast and lunch. The main brasserie serves dinner. Eater reports that you can eat the morning coffee and croissants at the café or take them to go. On the current Épicerie menu, a croissant is $5, a pain au chocolat is $5.50 and an almond croissant is $6.50. A breakfast sandwich is $12, quiche is $14.50 and a jambon-beurre is $15.
The evening is planned around performances. Eater reported that pre-theater and post-theater menus were in the works. Behind the dining room is Bar Viv, a hidden cocktail lounge that the opening announcement pitches for post-performance drinks. The restaurant's website says Bar Viv has limited space and can't be booked for a whole evening. Downstairs, three private dining rooms seat up to 36 guests. Tables are booked through Resy.
Dinner ends at 10:30 p.m. That is late enough for a meal after a show at the plaza across the street, and it is the reason the last stretch of the night belongs to the room uptown.
Boucherie Takes the Afternoon and the Late Night
Boucherie is set up to stay busy all day. It fills the former Milling Room, which occupied the space for about a dozen years, and the Starbucks storefront next door, now joined into one restaurant with 255 seats. Before the Milling Room, the address was home to Main Street, Calle Ocho and Corvo Bianco. The space began as the Palm Room of the Hotel Endicott, built between 1889 and 1891. I Love the Upper West Side describes the layout this way: a brasserie with a pewter bar in the front room, a second dining room under the Palm Room's arched glass roof, and a semi-private room inside the main dining room that holds up to 40.
Three menu programs fill the hours that Brasserie Boulud leaves open:
- Weekday prix fixe lunch, $33. Served Monday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. It includes French onion soup or Caesar salad, then a Croque Monsieur, chicken paillard or salmon.
- Green Hour, 2 to 7 p.m. daily, bar only. Oysters are $3, beer is $9, house wine is $12 and cocktails are $14. Champagne and fries together come to $90.
- Tuesday corkage. On Tuesdays there's no corkage fee, up to two 750ml bottles or one magnum per reservation.
There is also a weekend brunch menu. Eggs Benedict is $28, French toast is $27, a choice omelet is $21 and steak and eggs is $44. Boucherie takes reservations on OpenTable. Its owner, The Group Hospitality, opened the first Boucherie in the West Village in 2016 and also runs Boucherie Union Square, Petite Boucherie and La Grande Boucherie in Manhattan.
The Green Hour lands in the gap between Boulud's two services. From 6 p.m., when the Épicerie closes, until 7, Boucherie's bar is the only one of the two serving oysters at happy-hour prices.
Where the Menus Overlap, and What It Costs
These prices come from each restaurant's current published menu.
| Dish | Brasserie Boulud | Boucherie Upper West Side |
|---|---|---|
| French onion soup | $21 at dinner | Included in the $33 weekday lunch prix fixe |
| House burger | $29, brisket blend with raclette and pork belly | $32 |
| Steak for two | 30-ounce côte de bœuf, $225 | 48-ounce tomahawk, $185; Châteaubriand, $195 |
| Escargots | $23 | On the menu |
| Booking | Resy | OpenTable |
At dinner, the steaks for two run within $40 of each other. The bigger price gap is in when you can get them. Boulud's lobster soufflé ($35) and coq au vin ($36) come off the kitchen's last order around 10:30 on a weeknight. Boucherie's $52 lobster linguine stays available for another 90 minutes. The burger tells you the most about each place. Boulud's is the descendant of the DB Burger that Eater and the opening announcement both call a cult favorite, returning to the same corner of Broadway.
The Smaller Openings Around Each Anchor
The fall's other openings cluster near the two brasseries and cover the meals that neither one is built for.
Near Lincoln Square, Lucia Pizza opened October 5 at 159 Columbus Avenue in a former Starbucks. It has standing counters, no seats, and serves from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Saturday and from noon on Sunday, which makes it an easy Monday dinner within walking distance of Brasserie Boulud's dark dining room. Down the avenue, La Pecora Bianca has taken the former Rosa Mexicano space at 61 Columbus Avenue for its Lincoln Square location.
Near Boucherie, TALEA Beer Co. opened September 25 at 441 Amsterdam Avenue, one block west, with a food menu served all day. It took over the space St. James Gate left in 2024. Farther up Broadway, Eataly Caffè has taken 2252 Broadway, another former Starbucks, with a menu of coffee, pastries and Roman-style pizza.
At 11 p.m. on a Monday, the only one of the two still serving is Boucherie, in its dining room under the Endicott's glass roof, until midnight.
When I advise clients on where to buy along this stretch, the brasseries offer a practical test. Some people want a 7 a.m. croissant near Lincoln Center. Others want a table until midnight on 81st Street. Which one matters more to you says a lot about which blocks will feel like home. If you'd like to walk both corridors with someone who knows them, Daniel Kramp is glad to help. Let's connect for a private consultation.
