Keith McNally

KMKeith McNally
EOEmmanuel Olunkwa

Keith McNally is a British-born restaurateur who has helped shape the fabric of New York City’s dining culture. After moving to Soho in 1975, he opened The Odeon in 1980 with his brother Brian and then-partner Lynn Wagenknecht. The restaurant quickly became a downtown landmark—its glowing red neon sign a symbol of Tribeca’s cultural ascent. Inside, a new kind of energy took hold: a blend of grit and glamour that drew artists, editors, and tastemakers including Jean-Michel Basquiat, Anna Wintour, Chuck Close, and Andy Warhol.

Over the next five decades, McNally built an empire—Balthazar, Pastis, Minetta Tavern—that turned restaurants into living, breathing theaters. His spaces are known not just for their food, but for their atmosphere: choreographed yet casual, intimate yet expansive. They became shorthand for a particular kind of New York experience—where ambiance is as integral as the menu. Later this year, McNally will publish his memoir, I Regret Almost Everything, a sharp, personal account of his life in restaurants. The book traces his unlikely journey from London’s working-class East End to the heart of Manhattan’s hospitality world, offering glimpses into the contradictions, humor, and heartbreak that have defined both his career and his city. This conversation took place in January 2025.

KMKeith McNally
EOEmmanuel Olunkwa

You moved to New York in 1975 and started The Odeon in 1980. We’re nearing the 50th anniversary of your arrival and the 45th anniversary of The Odeon. What were your ambitions when you first were navigating the city, and what are they now?

I came to New York with the vague idea of making films. Two weeks ago I opened Minetta Tavern and the Lucy Mercer Bar in Washington D.C., and next May Simon & Schuster is publishing my memoir, which took me an agonizing six years to write. After that, I just want to sleep.

The Towers, the original name of the restaurant, and Tribeca was a notorious hangout spot for Richard Serra, Philip Glass, and Chuck Close. It was also frequented by John Chamberlain and Leo Castellli. Were you privy to this scene prior to responding to the advertisement to take over the lease?

Although I knew very little about New York’s contemporary art world before opening The Odeon, I knew who John Chamberlain and Leo Castellli were because they were regular customers at a restaurant I managed in the late seventies called One Fifth.

Paula Cooper’s 155 Wooster Street gallery opened in Soho in 1973. Were you aware of the art world at all?

I arrived in New York in 1975, two years after Paula Cooper’s gallery opened. After moving to SoHo in 1977, I became aware of the downtown art scene, but I’d rarely visit the galleries. I was more interested in films and theatre.

When you were first entering the scene, what industry was most compatible with the business you were seeking and hoping to cultivate?

Whenever I open a restaurant, I’m never hoping to ‘cultivate’ one particular scene. (That would be abhorrent to me.) Of course, you hope that like-minded people will come to the restaurant. Once you consciously ‘seek out’ one particular crowd, you invariably end up with the opposite.

Was there any appeal to being in cahoots with the creative class in New York? Were you coming from a similar scene in London?

I never saw myself as being in ‘cahoots’ with any one class of person. I left London because I hated the class system there. As a teenager in London, I flirted with acting for three years but hated myself for doing something so seemingly superficial, that at 19, I gave up the profession and hitch-hiked to Kathmandu. On returning 10 months later, I got a job operating the lights of the original Rocky Horror Show.

Why move to New York? How did you apply the skills you learned acting to running a restaurant?

I moved to New York in 1975 with the intention of making films, but after a few weeks ran out of money and got a job as a busboy at a place uptown which exists: Serendipity on 60th Street.

Do you think about choreography or architecture? In terms of the bones of a building, location, or structure, what are the necessary ingredients that must exist in order for a project to will itself into existence? How do you know when something is going to work?

I like the phrase ‘will itself into existence’ because this is what happens when I decide to build a restaurant. Initially, I look at a space alone and if I think it has potential, I’ll ask my co-designer–Ian McPheeley–to look at it with me. The most important element is the space itself. Next comes the location. A great restaurant can make a bad location desirable, but a bad restaurant cannot make a great location desirable.

I never know if a restaurant is going to work until it’s open for business. The floor staff one hires–particularly the servers and bartenders–make a far greater contribution than one might think.

How essential is collaboration? Do you struggle more doing that dance in business or in the design process of your restaurants?

Collaboration is crucial. The few restaurants of mine that have succeeded only did so because I surrounded myself with people more competent than myself.

Can you speak to the general relationship between artists and restaurants? What about the dynamic works and fails?

Because I believe this is a pretentious subject, I’d prefer not to go there.

You’ve shared the story of your friendship with Anna Wintour starting in 1977. Who else has shown you grace and enabled you to reinvent yourself?

I haven’t so much reinvented myself–a phrase I’m highly suspicious of–as discovered my true voice. Which is ironic because since my stroke eight years ago, I can barely string a sentence together. But finding my voice came about through the vicissitudes of life, not anyone specific.

I’m currently reading Ina Garten’s memoir, Be Ready When the Luck Happens, and she mentions responding to an advertisement for the Barefoot Contessa store in 1978. Did buying into an existing restaurant seem like the most plausible way to enter the industry? What were you justifying at the time?

My first wife, Lynn Wagenknect, my brother Brian, and myself cobbled our first restaurant–The Odeon–together 45 years ago not because we wanted to ‘enter the industry’ but because we wanted to make money.

Dean & Deluca’s storied New York location opened in 1977. Was it on your radar at all? If so, what was its impression and appeal?

I was living three blocks from the original Dean & Deluca when it opened on Prince Street in 1977 and, at the time, it was an absolute game-changer. An Aladdin’s Cave of the most beautiful produce and kitchen equipment I’d ever seen. Dean & Deluca was a magnificent store and one that made an enormous impression on me. There’s a terrific scene in Woody Allen’s film, Manhattan, that takes place in Dean & Deluca. Do you remember it?

Yes, it was one of those liminal spaces of New York, both simultaneously of the past and future. It was thoughtful yet unapologetic. What are the politics of owning a restaurant? Who are you trying to reach or communicate with when you open a space?

The only person I ever build restaurants for is myself and about five or six people I deeply admire.

Do you have a specific audience in mind before opening?

I don’t have a specific audience. I just want people who are not entirely different from me to like the place. I’ve a fair idea if the place is going to work a couple of weeks before opening, but some of my biggest flops were restaurants I felt most confident about beforehand, so bang goes that theory!

What assured you of opening restaurants in certain neighborhoods before culture has identified its pulse?

Having the pulse of the neighborhood certainly helps. When I opened Balthazar in London in 2013, I had no idea at all of the pulse of the neighborhood. Consequently, I hated every second of the building and operating the place. That’s what happens when you do something just for money.

How has being a restaurateur changed your understanding of real estate?

Much to my financial detriment, I’ve never been interested in real estate. If I had been, I probably would have bought a building or two in Tribeca after opening The Odeon.

How has the industry changed since you first entered it? What about the standards?

I dislike hearing people bang on about how things used to be better in the past, so I loathe going there myself. Having said that, of course, it was easier to open a restaurant in the 1980s and ’90s. Rents were cheaper, staff was easier to find, and employees sleeping with each other wasn’t the taboo it is today.

What sets New York dining apart from the rest of the world? What’s its magic?

Let’s face it, New York is fucking sexy.