8 Things to Know About Penny, New From the Claud Team

1. You don’t have to go very far.

Penny is located just up the stairs from Claud in the same building on 10th Street. The space, which was previously home to an outpost of Montauk Salt Cave, sat empty ever since Claud first opened in the summer of 2022. But it wasn’t until last year that Sinzer and Pinsky accepted their landlord’s offer to take over the space up the steps.

“We said ‘no’ quite a few times, just because we had no idea if anyone would even come to Claud,” Sinzer recalls. “Thankfully, they did, and then we were able to develop a team at the same time that the space stayed available.”

You’ll likely see more familiar faces from Claud while you’re upstairs, too — including, of course, Sinzer and Pinsky, who will be devoting most of their time to getting Penny off the ground. In total, five members of the Claud team have joined Penny’s team of 12.

2. The family ties are still here.

Claud got its name from a nickname for Sinzer’s mother, and Penny, appropriately, is named after Pinsky’s grandfather, Benny Pinsky, whose nickname is Penny. Yet unlike the naming process for Claud, it was relatively easy for them to settle on Penny. (Fun fact: Claud could have been named “Le Serval,” “Night Nurse,” or “Ballato.”)

The sesame brioche starter is an ode to Penny, because it reminds Pinsky of the challah bread served at his family’s holiday dinner table.

“Penny,” says Sinzer, “just sounded like what we’ve thought this place will feel like: exciting and bustling. We tend to describe it as a seafood counter and raw bar and, in our minds, it’s definitely the more poppin’, casual space of the two.”

Pinsky’s wife, Jenna, also inspired the overall concept. “One of the first dates my wife and I used to do was go to a raw bar and share some oysters,” he notes.

3. They also looked to the City of Light.

As it was with Claud, Paris remains a major influence for both owners. Sinzer points to that city’s sister restaurants such as Le Chateaubriand and Le Dauphin, and Le Bistrot Paul Bert and L’Ecailler du Bistrot, as primary inspirations. On a recent trip to Paris, Pinsky and Sinzer dined at Le Bistrot Paul Bert, and then headed next door to share a tower of oysters and shellfish.

“I think there’s just something about being able to sit down for a meal with a good bottle of wine and some meat downstairs, and then up here, you’re able to do something that’s fresh, bright, airy, and casual — that was the vibe in my head,” Sinzer says.

4. There’s not a bad seat in the house.

Whereas basement-level Claud has dimmer lighting and lots of steely undertones, Penny is the opposite: Floor-to-ceiling windows offer plenty of natural light and the centerpiece of the entire dining room is a 21-seat long white marble bar that wraps around the raw bar displays near the front entrance, and a 10-seat kitchen counter in the same gleaming marble. Plush navy-blue stools — with backs, Sinzer is quick to point out — offer an ideal perch for interacting with the staff. Lamps situated along the bar provide a lovely glow.

And for those looking to just pop in for a quick bite or drink, there’s a rail overlooking 10th street with standing room for four people. Ian Chapin of Philadelphia-based Edsel Co., who designed Claud, also designed Penny.

“The counter is really uniquely situated for making conversations happen,” Sinzer explains. “Yesterday, Josh was taking some lobsters and cooking them, serving them with this drawn butter, and handing it to us from the counter. It felt like our old days a long time ago, working at the counter at Momofuku Ko [where both first met in 2014]. But this is the most casual version of that possible.”

5. Seafood is the star of the menu.

And it ranges from the classics, like shrimp cocktail, to more prep-intensive recipes, like a beggar’s purse of crème fraîche, onion, and caviar in a sourdough crêpe, tied together with chives and topped with caviar. Expect raw bar standards, some cooked items, and market specials denoting the freshest catch of the day. Pinsky is sourcing the seafood from all over, whether it’s trout from Virginia, cod from Norway, or periwinkles from Maine.

“I want to do a bunch of dishes that are seemingly as simple as possible,” Pinsky explains. The cooked-to-order Maine lobster, for example, came out of some R&D he’d been doing downstairs at Claud. Pinsky knew he didn’t want to do a standard chilled lobster so, instead, he’s come up with a recipe that involves boiling a whole lobster in court-bouillon, breaking it into manageable chunks, and placing it in a bowl with brown butter vinegar, herbs, and lemon. “As you eat and get to the bottom of the bowl, there’s all this sauce at the bottom,” he explains. “It’s kind of like a crab boil,” Sinzer adds. “We want you to always be able to dip bread into something and get your fingers in there.” To start, they’re not trying to put a cap on how many lobster orders, sold at market price, go out (“If I can do 100 a night, I’ll try, but I know that physically I probably can’t,” Pinsky says) but he’s aiming for completing at least 10 to 15 orders a night.

Another highlight is a tuna carpaccio made from big-eye Atlantic tuna that resembles beef carpaccio. “It’s got this deep red kind of feel, look, and texture to it, like raw beef, and we’re leaning into a Sicilian-style fish crudo, but kind of in our own way, with olives and sweet onions.”

Another obsession, for Pinsky at least, has been perfecting Penny’s recipe for shrimp cocktail. He’s settled on using ruby red shrimp because “it gives you more leeway to have a creamy, sweeter taste and texture” that’ll pair with a ketchup-based cocktail sauce that doubles down on the ketchup, literally. “This recipe has ketchup in it, and it has, simultaneously, all the ingredients that make ketchup,” Pinsky explains. “So, we take ketchup, and we add tomato paste made from nice crushed, canned tomatoes, and then we add a touch of corn syrup for texture.” The process, he says, has taken years to develop and — whether or not anyone notices — he’s just relieved they’ve come up with, what he hopes, is the best version of a shrimp cocktail that they could.

Then, of course, there’s the raw bar. You can order various seafood à la carte but, if you want to go big, you can spring for an ice box. Penny’s take on a seafood tower involves custom-made, dark blue, powder-coated rectangular boxes designed by Chapin. There are two from which to choose: one with oysters, clams, shrimp, mussels in escabeche, and crab salad; and another one, the ice box plus, with all of that and a seasonal crudo, periwinkles, vichyssoise topped with caviar, and raw live scallop. Cocktail sauce, mignonette made with celery, and garlic aioli accompany both boxes. “They’re pretty hefty,” notes Sinzer.

6. And the wines are exceptional, too.

Claud has become a serious destination for oenophiles and Penny will no doubt follow in its footsteps. Only this time, Sinzer’s gotten some help by collaborating with wine director Ellis Srubas-Giammanco, who previously worked with noted sommelier Pascaline Lepeltier at Chambers and Racines in Tribeca. Together, they’ve come up with a list he describes as “price point approachable:” That means nine wines offered by the glass, starting at $12, and two sake and two sherry options, also by the glass. In total, there are some 250 selections of wine to choose from — many of them rooted in France but also all over — and all contained among the shelves of the wine cellar in the back of the dining room.

You can also expect to see Suntory premium malt draft beer, a low-ABV cobbler-esque cocktail, a shaken iced tea, and a few zero-proof options as well.

7. There’s no chocolate cake here …

At least not like the one that catapulted Claud to TikTok fame when it first opened. But there will be a chocolate mousse. And an ice cream sandwich. “[Chef de partie] Sam [Weber] and I eat a disgusting amount of ice cream every way, so it’s just hard to not want that,” Pinsky says.

8. You could, theoretically, make it a double dinner, if you want, too.

Most of all, though, both Pinsky and Sinzer simply want diners to have a good time, and to choose their own adventure when they come to Penny (and possibly Claud, too).

“I hope people feel spontaneous here,” Sinzer says. “We want people to be able to plan to come through Resy, but also want them to be able to pop into the bar.” He adds, “Walk-ins are kind of the priority. We take a select number of reservations, especially for groups of four here on the corner of the bar.”

“There’s the opportunity to have a formal meal and hang out here all night long, but you can also come in here and have a glass of wine and beer and 12 oysters and go on your merry way,” adds Pinsky.

Just know that whether you decide to start your evening at Claud, or Penny, the option to dine at both is always there.

Penny is open Monday through Friday from 5 to 10 p.m.

Deanna Ting is Resy’s New York & Philadelphia Editor. Follow her on Instagram and X (formerly Twitter). Follow Resy, too.