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A new all-day restaurant has quietly opened inside Ray-Ban House at 62 Prince Street, and it comes with a familiar name behind the menu: chef Pasquale Cozzolino, the owner of Ribalta and one of the city’s most reliable sources for proper Neapolitan pizza. This time, though, he’s trading pies for pillowy Japanese milk bread.
The concept centers on sandos, the famously soft, crustless Japanese sandwiches made with shokupan, reworked through an Italian lens. The result is exactly as indulgent as it sounds—think prosciutto layered with burrata and pesto, roast chicken stacked into a Soho-style club or even a house pastrami version with mustard aioli and pickles.
Cozzolino, who was born and trained in Naples, has long leaned into ingredient-driven cooking and the Italian and Japanese overlap makes more sense than one might think. Both cuisines share a similar reverence for technique and simplicity and that overlap shows up in the details, from the quality of the olive oil to the careful balance of textures in each sandwich.
But this isn’t just a sandwich shop. The menu also stretches into raw bar territory with dishes like bluefin tuna with avocado and Sicilian olive oil, plus a lineup of carpaccio and tartare, including red shrimp with ricotta and lemon zest and a beef-and-truffle version that leans more decadent. There are also small plates (like wagyu meatballs) that nod back to Cozzolino’s Italian roots.
Right now, the restaurant is in a soft opening with a limited menu, but the full lineup officially launches on May 7. Which means there’s still a small window to say you found it before everyone else—and before the sandos inevitably start showing up all over your feed.