A seemingly successful restaurant with Michelin-level accolades, chef Seth Stowaway’s Osito, will be closing after this weekend, due to the high rent on the space, Stowaway says.
The sudden announcement, which Stowaway has not yet put on social media or on the restaurant’s website but which he made to SF Standard reporter Sara Deseran, comes at an anxious moment for Bay Area restaurants broadly, with other acclaimed and seemingly successful restaurants calling it quits for similar economic reasons. In the case of Michelin-starred Aphotic, which closed late last year, chef-owner Peter Helmsley minced no words in calling out the dismal environs his restaurant existed in, on Folsom Street near the Moscone Center, as well as a general decline in people’s willingness to spend money on expensive, multi-course dining experiences.
“We’ve definitely seen a downtick in a more happy-go-lucky, free-wheeling kind of clientele,” Helmsley said at the time…