After 11 years Wylie Dufresne is forced to close his lower east side modernist restaurant, wd~50. November 30th will be the influential restaurant’s last night of service. Wd~50, named after the chef’s initials and the address, 50 Clinton St, is a fine-dining New American restaurant known for the chef’s experimental cooking methods and unique use and manipulation of ingredients. Wylie Dufresne had a vision and he admirably stuck to it for 11 years, never rethinking his concept or straying from his original idea.

Unfortunately, a developer has plans to build on the site which is forcing the restaurant to have to close. Wylie is looking for a new location in the city but has nowhere specific in mind at the moment. After Wylie announced that the restaurant would be shutting its doors, a number of disappointments with the situation were expressed by fellow chefs and thoughtful testaments flooded the twitter feed. David Chang, Korean chef/entrepreneur and founder of Momofuko added “This is unfortunately what’s probably going to happen to almost everybody, unless you can buy the building.”

To read more about the closing of wd~50 click here