A Megabistro in Midtown

Le Rock is the latest restaurant to land in Rockefeller Center. It's a big one.

- By Joshua David Stein

SINCE TISHMAN SPEYER FIRST embarked on its audacious plan to overhaul the restaurants within Rockefeller Center, hoping to turn the complex into a dining hub, one question has hung over the project: Will New Yorkers ever actually want to go there for dinner?

Estela chef Ignacio Mattos arrived first, transforming the former Bouchon Bakery into the Italian café, bakery, and aperitivo bar Lodi. Also in the works are Five Acres, an allday restaurant from Olmsted chef Greg Baxtrom that will have a farm-to-table slant; Naro, a modern Korean restaurant from Junghyun and Ellia Park; and Jupiter, a pasta restaurant from Annie Shi, Jess Shadbolt, and Clare de Boer, the trio who run the trattoria King on the edge of Soho. Viewed as a whole, the Tishman Speyer plan seems to go something like this: Take restaurants from some of the city's cooler corners and supersize them.