Drew Nieporent opened his first New York restaurant at 29. Now with the release of his new memoir, the 70-year-old hospitality mogul reflects on partnering with Robert DeNiro, astronomical dinner prices and the key to opening a successful restaurant.
One night in the mid-1990s, back when New York’s Nobu first electrified the sushi world, Drew Nieporent was still learning how to run his budding restaurant business when a customer started pissing him off. Nobu didn’t have a bar yet, so there wasn’t a place to wait for a table, but another restaurant that Nieporent owned with actor Robert DeNiro, Tribeca Grill, was a block away, and he often suggested customers grab a drink there to wait it out. But that particular night, this customer wasn’t satisfied with that solution.
“These two restaurants were like my kids,” Nieporent recalls. “So I looked at this guy and I said, ‘Maybe this place isn’t for you today.’”
As Nieporent walked away, the customer went up to a waiter and within earshot asked, “Who is that guy?”—only he didn’t say it that nicely—and Nieporent just smiled as the waiter replied, “Well, he’s one of the owners.”
The now 70-year-old restaurant king of Tribeca is reflecting on that moment and many others among his storied hospitality career because of his new memoir, I’m Not Trying To Be Difficult, which published earlier this week. “There’s a lot of people who call themselves restaurateurs. All they do is put in money,” says Nieporent, who opened his first restaurant, New York’s Montrachet, when he was just 29. “But the reality is, somebody who came up in the business, struggled in the business, but learned, rubbed a couple of nickels together, got enough money to open his own restaurant and went on to open 40 other restaurants—that’s what it takes today. Professional knowledge. You have to know what you’re talking about. Otherwise don’t even make an attempt to get into this business.”
The once notoriously combative Nieporent doesn’t pull his punches as he retraces his journey as the founder of the Myriad Restaurant Group. “People perceive me as being difficult, but I wasn’t trying to be difficult. For a restaurant to be successful, you have to have good food, and most of the time you can’t force somebody to like what the food is,” he says. “The other thing is you have to price it right. You can’t overprice it. And you also have to have a keen sense of what the consumer wants at that moment and be able to deliver that.”
After opening Montrachet in Tribeca in 1985, Nieporent’s restaurants took off almost immediately after it earned three stars in a New York Times review that same year. The restaurant kept those stars for 21 years, and the downtown institution closed after 38 years in 2006.
But it was his partnership with DeNiro that set Nieporent’s restaurants apart. In 1990 they opened the Tribeca Grill, which became a neighborhood mainstay (and after 35 successful years, closed in March 2025).
Four years after Tribeca Grill, Nieporent and DeNiro, made a fateful partnership Japanese chef Nobuyuki Matsuhisa—whose Beverly Hills restaurant, Matsuhisa had long been a favorite of the Oscar-winning actor—to opened the first Nobu in New York, The next year, DeNiro starred in the Martin Scorsese hit Casino and Matsuhisa even scored a minor role. All the while, Nieporent was staying focused on running the restaurant, which was quickly becoming a celebrity hotspot.
And while Nieporent has an ownership stake in the two New York City locations of Nobu and the first abroad outpost in London, he does not have any interest in the 55 other locations or the 21 branded hotels that have opened since.
Staying Hungry: “The only thing that keeps partners off your back is return on investment,” says Nieporent.
Hachette Book Group
“Most restaurants have a shelf life of a handful of years,” Nieporent says.“Here’s the difference between the era that I opened in and now—the current generation, they don’t care about institutions. They want the new, the new, the new—whether it’s a fine dining restaurant, a pizza place, a pasta place or a smash hamburger place. So when your restaurant runs for 35 years very professionally, that doesn’t matter to them because it’s not cool and hip.”
And that’s even with other investors in his restaurants including A-list names, including Bill Murray, Sean Penn and Christopher Walken.
“The only thing that keeps partners off your back is return on investment,” says Nieporent. “If you’re in business and you make money and you can pay your investors back their initial investment and then some, that’s a successful partnership.”
He says he’s still shocked by how high restaurant prices have risen: “Post pandemic, everyone’s charging huge amounts of money, and apparently people are showing up. So I think I miscalculated a little bit about what people were willing to spend,” he admits. “I could never charge $250 to $500 for a tasting menu.”
And yet Nieporent says he’s concerned for the future of the industry. “Sometimes even with high prices that doesn’t necessarily compute into profit.” Recalling a recent three-Michelin-star meal he had, he wanted to thank the chef and went back to the kitchen and saw 30 people working. “There’s no way you could be making money with 30 people in the kitchen,” Nieporent adds. “That’s not possible.”
A good deal of a restaurant’s success, he says, begins with the real estate. The rent can’t be too high, and if it’s not, then a long-term business with profitability is viable.
Nieporent still has five restaurants to manage, and he’s also still the landlord of the Tribeca Grill space, which he is about to rent out to a new restaurant. Yet after four decades and all he has learned, Nieporent says he’s not opening any new concepts anytime soon.
“I know I have it in me. But I can’t tell you how much I enjoy not having to stress,” says Nieporent. “I’ve had a wonderful life and it’s been consumed by what I do.”
MORE FROM FORBES