Judge to Solil: Hands off Danny Meyer’s Maialino

One pan, two pan, red pan, blue pan.

Danny Meyer can finally take inventory at his original Maialino, now that he’s allowed back inside it.

A judge has granted the restaurateur 30 days of access to his closed eatery on the ground floor of the Gramercy Park Hotel. Meyer still can’t remove anything, though.

The ruling is the latest development in a legal battle between Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group and New York City real estate mainstay Solil Management.

In 2009, Meyer signed a lease with Aby Rosen’s RFR Holding, which operated the hotel at the time. Solil owned the ground below it. Maialino thrived — the New York Times called it “a very good restaurant” and “a study in pork” — until the pandemic hit and Rosen closed the hotel, taking the restaurant down with it.

Rosen also stopped paying rent, which did not leave his tenant, Meyer, with much leverage.

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Rosen’s bills kept stacking up until he fell nearly $1 million behind in rent. Solil then sued to terminate the hotel’s lease and collect the $79.5 million Solil said it was due under the long-term deal. Solil eventually won the case and gave Rosen the boot.

During all this time, Meyer remained locked out of Maialino. His restaurant group claimed it could not get access to the valuable possessions — such as the wine and liquor collection, artwork, high-end kitchen equipment, dining room and bar furniture, china, glassware and silverware — inside.

When Solil began selling the hotel’s property to the public, Meyer feared it would do the same with Maialino’s stuff. A property manager assured Meyer the restaurant’s possessions would not be liquidated, but then Solil asserted in an Oct. 3 letter that the restaurant had “abandoned” the property.

That’s when Meyer raced to court to keep Solil’s hands off his stuff. (He also managed to reopen Maialino last month in a smaller space at the Redbury hotel, 30 East 30th Street.)

Besides letting Meyer back onto the premises, the judge ordered Solil not to remove the restaurant group’s possessions.

Neither Union Square Hospitality Group nor Solil responded to requests for comment.