After 18 pop-ups across New York and beyond, chef Jorge Luis Pabón and hospitality pro Alexis White have finally found a permanent address for their culinary love story. At Mili, the menu is French-leaning, distinctly New York, and designed to be shared. Naturally, we have questions.
I have a theory about restaurants opened by couples: the best ones understand that a successful dinner is a little like a successful relationship. There has to be chemistry, a willingness to compromise, a few surprises, and, most importantly, someone has to know when to bring out the cheese.
At Mili, the Lower East Side’s newest restaurant, all four seem to be on the menu.
The story begins with chef Jorge Luis Pabón and hospitality professional Alexis White, partners in life and business who have spent years imagining what their own restaurant might look like. Their answer wasn’t to sign a lease immediately, hire a designer and hope New York fell in love. Instead, they took their idea on the road.
Since April 2025, Mili has appeared in 18 pop-ups and restaurant collaborations, traveling through New York, Naples and Mexico City. There was a three-month residency at Runner Up in Park Slope, along with other opportunities to test dishes, develop a following and discover what kind of restaurant they wanted to build.
On November 4, 2026, the traveling project finally put down roots at 123 Ludlow Street.
And just like that, a pop-up became a downtown address.
A love story with a side of Vermont cheese
Before there was Mili, there was the New York restaurant world.
Pabón, originally from Puerto Rico, was executive chef at Estela. His professional résumé also includes time at The French Laundry and Spain’s El Celler de Can Roca. White, originally from North Carolina, worked in hospitality, including as general manager at Altro Paradiso.
The two first crossed paths while working for restaurants under the Mattos Hospitality umbrella. Their relationship, however, reportedly took a more interesting turn during a cheese education trip to Vermont.
Yes, Vermont. Cheese. Hairnets. Beer.
White recalled the trip to Resy as the moment their relationship began to feel like something more. It is not exactly the setting of a conventional romantic comedy, but perhaps that is the point. Some love stories begin over candlelight. Others begin while learning about dairy.
Their partnership eventually became the foundation for Mili.
The restaurant’s name is a particularly personal detail. Mili is named after Pabón’s mother, Milagros, who taught him how to cook. So while the restaurant represents a new chapter for the couple, it also carries a piece of the chef’s earliest culinary memories.
There is something lovely about that. A restaurant can be a business, an artistic statement and a family tribute all at once.
Eighteen pop-ups later, New York gets a dining room
New York has a long history of falling for restaurants that feel as though they belong to the neighborhood before the neighborhood has quite figured out what to call them.
Mili arrives with a little experience already behind it.
The pop-ups allowed Pabón and White to refine their concept without rushing into a permanent space. They could watch how people responded to the food, adjust the menu and build relationships with diners along the way. Their longest residency, at Runner Up in Brooklyn, gave them an extended taste of operating something that felt like their own restaurant.
Now the couple has a 34-seat home on Ludlow Street.
The intimate scale matters. This isn’t a cavernous dining room designed to move hundreds of guests through a service. Mili is conceived as a neighborhood restaurant, with an open kitchen and a menu of approximately 15 plates intended for sharing.
That format feels particularly appropriate for the couple’s philosophy. White told Resy that Mili is based on how they like to dine: sharing everything and enjoying creativity. The invitation is simple. Bring someone whose taste you trust, order a few things for the table, and resist the temptation to guard your plate.
Although, between us, that last part can be difficult.
So, what are we eating?
Pabón has described the cooking as “New York Creative,” a useful phrase for a menu that doesn’t seem particularly interested in staying inside one culinary box.
The cooking leans on French technique, seasonal ingredients and unexpected combinations. Pabón has said he plans to work closely with farmers at the Union Square Greenmarket, allowing the menu to evolve with the seasons.
Among the dishes highlighted by Resy are a savory cheese course with caramelized onions, grilled grapes and a semolina sesame cracker; a potato and sunchoke tart with Taleggio cheese sauce, herbs and lavender; and Hudson Valley duck.
There is also monkfish with onion sauce and sea lettuce, a green salad with sesame dressing and hot honey, and housemade bread and butter.
And then, dessert.
Mili’s reported offerings include flan, soba-cha milk custard made with buckwheat tea, and pear cake with walnut ice cream. In other words, the sort of ending that makes ordering another course seem like a perfectly reasonable decision.
The menu is designed to be shared, which means the experience is less about choosing one entrée and more about building a meal together. A little cheese, a little seafood, something from the farm, something sweet. The table becomes its own conversation.
Naturally, the menu will change, so diners should check the restaurant’s current offerings before visiting.
A drink list with a New York state of mind
If the food is about French technique and seasonal creativity, the beverage program has its own point of view.
White is overseeing a domestic-only beverage list, drawing from producers across the United States. The idea is not to treat American wine as a compromise, but to explore the range of what the country’s producers can offer.
Resy reports that the list includes wines from New York and other states, with nine wines by the glass and approximately 75 bottles in the cellar.
One cocktail in particular deserves a moment: the Sake Negroni, made with Brooklyn Kura sake, Meadowsweet amaro and vermouth from Channing Daughters Winery on Long Island.
It’s a very New York combination. Different producers, different traditions, one glass.
There are also classic cocktails, beer and a zero-proof option such as the Melon Sour. The beverage program feels like an extension of the restaurant’s larger identity: thoughtful, curious and not especially interested in doing things simply because everyone else does.
The pleasure of a restaurant that knows its own story
Mili’s arrival is happening at an interesting moment for the Lower East Side, a neighborhood where restaurants have long helped define the cultural personality of the streets.
The restaurant is contemporary American in classification, but its identity is more personal than that label suggests. There is Pabón’s Puerto Rican background, White’s Southern roots, their shared New York hospitality experience, French culinary technique, seasonal ingredients and a distinctly American beverage list.
It is a restaurant shaped by movement and collaboration.
And perhaps that is what makes the story so appealing. Mili didn’t appear fully formed. It traveled, experimented, learned and changed before settling into its permanent home. The restaurant’s first chapter was written in other people’s dining rooms, and now the couple gets to write the next one on Ludlow Street.
The name, meanwhile, brings the story back to family. A chef’s mother taught him to cook, and years later, her name is above the door.
Which brings me back to my original theory about restaurants and relationships. Maybe chemistry really is the secret ingredient. But so is memory. So is knowing what you love, being willing to share it, and having the courage to build something of your own.
And if there happens to be a very good potato and sunchoke tart involved, I certainly won’t argue.
Mili: 123 Ludlow Street, New York, NY 10002. Dinner Wednesday through Sunday, 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. Reservations are released two weeks in advance at 9 a.m. Check the restaurant’s Resy listing for availability and its official website for updates.
Question of the Day
Would you rather discover a restaurant through a chef’s cooking, a personal story, or a dish that everyone keeps talking about? And when you find a place you love, are you sharing your plate—or ordering your own?
Stay in the Mood
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Reporting note: Restaurant background, opening details, menu examples and beverage information are drawn from Resy’s October 28, 2026 interview with the founders and the restaurant’s reservation listing. Menu selections and availability may change.
