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The West Village’s culinary power couple is heading uptown. Rita Sodi and Jody Williams, the James Beard Award-winning duo behind Via Carota, I Sodi and Buvette, have been tapped to overhaul the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s entire restaurant program.
The pair, who the New York Times once dubbed “one of the great partnerships of the New York restaurant scene,” are known for creating some of the city’s most consistently excellent dining rooms, where a perfect Negroni and a plate of lasagna a sugo feel like religion. Now, they’ll bring that same unfussy sophistication to one of New York’s grandest cultural institutions.
Their collaboration with the Met will unfold over the next two years, beginning with the renovation and activation of the museum’s 83rd Street and Fifth Avenue entrance and extending to a total revamp of its dining and retail spaces. The first new concepts will debut in 2027 at the Met Fifth Avenue before expanding to the Met Cloisters uptown. Think cafés for a quick espresso between galleries and restaurants offering full-service lunch and dinner—all guided by Sodi and Williams’s knack for timeless flavor and understated elegance.
“The Met provides creative and intellectual nourishment to countless people in so many ways,” the chefs said in a joint statement. “We are humbled to be part of the Met’s next chapter and delighted to add to the culinary experience at the Museum we love.”
Museum director and CEO Max Hollein echoed the excitement. “We are thrilled to have the extraordinary and visionary culinary power couple Rita and Jody partner with us as we work to bring bold and reinvigorated dining offerings to the Met,” Hollein said.
With six million visitors annually and a new culinary era on the horizon, the Met’s restaurants might soon rival its galleries for crowds—and if the lasagna makes the cut, that’s a masterpiece in its own right.