PS1 Gets its Food Back

What a time to love art and food in New York City! Last week, the news broke that MoMA PS1 is finally reopening its cafe, with chef DeVonn Charles Francis at its helm. The now 50-year-old Long Island City extension of MoMA has been without a dedicated restaurant since 2023, when Mina Stone’s eponymous Mediterranean café closed after four years of serving spanakopita and ouzo. 

A lot has changed at the institution since 2023, the same year Connie Butler, former director of Los Angeles’s Hammer Museum, was tapped by former MoMA director Glenn Lowry to lead the charge of the museum’s offshoot associated with emerging art and risk-taking programming. As of this year, MoMA PS1 is completely free to all visitors until 2028 thanks to patron Sonya Yu, timed to the sixth edition of its popular “Greater New York,” focusing on living New York artists, another summer of its beloved “Warm Up” dance parties, and now, for the opening of Francis’s restaurant and café Symone, which will serve French-Caribbean fare like curry chicken salad sandwiches and cod and rice porridge.