Ma Ta Ne Soft-Opens in the East Village as a Donburi Spot Built to Come Back

Matane soft-opened this fall at 59 First Avenue, just south of Fourth Street, as a Japanese donburi shop that already asks you to return. Eater New York put it on the November openings map and explained the name: “ma ta ne” means “see you again.” On Instagram, @matanenyc talks about premium seafood over rice, then about the warmth and familiar faces that should make a second visit feel easy.

The bowl they keep photographing is the Matane Don. A November 5 post describes Takana sushi rice under minced hamachi, tuna, salmon, crab, squid, uni, and ikura. Once the seafood is gone, you tip warm miso yuzu soup into the bowl and finish the rice as a short Japanese-style rice soup. Other posts show kaisen don with carefully sliced salmon, and hamachi cut for the board. A public price list has not gone up yet. The restaurant’s website is still private.

The room they describe sounds like a neighborhood counter: minimalist wood, soft light, and seats close enough to talk with the chef. In mid-October, a MixB job listing for the East Village seafood-don shop asked for servers who know sake and can guide a guest through the board. EV Grieve photographed the finished facade on October 29, in a strip that had held two short-lived dollar pizza shops, with Cho-Ko next door. Soft-open hours on Instagram run about 5 to 10 p.m., and the shop warns those hours may shift.

A few days in, the account thanked early guests and asked what could be better. The donburi is already on the table. The menu board, the staffing, and even the founders’ full names are still catching up in public. For an East Village night right now, that is enough to walk over, order seafood over rice, and leave hearing またね.