Good-Bye to Japonica

The Village View | May 2026 villageview.nyc

BY NANCY DAVIDOFF KELTON

THE LOSS OF A FAVORITE RESTAURANT is not as hard as the loss of a favorite friend, but there is a moving on and closing a door, and it is difficult. I was sad enough last summer when Elephant and Castle on Greenwich Avenue closed. For five decades, I regularly ate brunch and dinner there, sometimes with family and friends, sometimes alone. I was acquainted with a few waiters with whom I would chat. Only in the last several years, after talking to a person at the next table who was eating a hamburger, did I start ordering their burgers. Yum!

Now upon finding out a few weeks ago from Jeffrey, the owner of Japonica, that my favorite Japanese restaurant was closing at the end of April, I am sadder still. Japonica on University Place, like Elephant and Castle, has been a go-to restaurant since it opened 48 years ago.

I have loved good sushi since I discovered it. When Japonica opened, my daughter tasted my salmon roll… in between sips from her bottle. She loved it too.

Neighbors and celebrities were also regulars. I would see Ed Koch and Miguel Baryshnikov there. One evening Julianne Moore and her husband, Bart Freundlich, were sitting at the next table. I had just seen the movie The Hours a few nights before. I told her I loved her as Laura Brown. I was having miso soup. She was eating the salad. We talked about our meals and about the su shi we ordered. Their children and Bart had gone to the same school as my daughter. His favorite English teacher and I were good friends. She and I sometimes ate dinner at Japonica’s sushi bar and I would write or help her with the school’s parenting column.

On Wednesdays, before teaching my afternoon writing class, I made a habit of eat ng lunch at Japonica alone, sometimes with a book or a newspaper. If I was hungry, I would order a Bento Box that included miso soup, a salad, edamame, fruit, a California roll, udon, or chicken teriyaki.

Rob, a man I dated a few decades ago, had invited me to his daughter’s wedding. Then, at Japonica one evening after we ordered, he un invited me. I already bought a dress. He said he’d pay for it. I said I thought his uninviting me for reasons that had to do with his children and ex-wife were not nice. He got angry and spilled soy sauce on his polo shirt right by the little polo mallet. He started to wipe it off, got more exasperated, and left. The Japonica owner at the time was nearby, and seeing what happened, came to the table and said she would not charge me for what he ordered. The next time I was there alone for lunch, she gave me a silk kimono. It occurred to me that when I got divorced, I told family and close friends. Now the owner of Japonica was in the act.

”I can’t believe you like this raw fish,” my mother said when I took my parents to Japonica. I then ordered beef negami for her which worked a little better, but clearly my Japanese restaurant did not turn my mother on as much as her brisket and overcooked salmon did.

A close friend from New England wanted to try lunch at Japonica. She liked it. Her husband loves sushi and rarely comes into the city. We went back with our husbands, ordered a spider roll and a huge platter of sashimi and sushi. It was super fun and satisfying.

There are other sushi restaurants where I will be eating, but they do not have the his tory nor the quality nor the welcoming spirit that Japonica had. The English teacher who went there with me recently died. So did my college roommate who moved to Texas and always wanted to eat at Japonica when she was in New York.

The loss of a favorite restaurant is not as hard as the loss of a favorite friend, but there is a moving on and closing a door, and it is difficult.

Breads Bakery, a block from my apartment building, has become a regular place for breakfast, egg salad, babkas, and warmth. I put babkas in my freezer so I only have a sliver at a time, but that doesn’t work. Frozen babka is delicious. And the kindness of the Breads owner is great. He offers me samples of new soups. He always stops at my table and chats with his customers.

He is very welcoming. I asked him if he created the foods the Breads staff cook. He said yes. He loves to cook.

I asked him if he planned to close soon. He laughed and said he doubted it. “Don’t leave,” I said. “Okay,” he replied. It’s sad missing people and places to which I am attached. The times they are a changin’.