Pabón and White Open Mili in the Lower East Side After 18 Pop-Ups

Jorge Luis Pabón and Alexis White opened Mili Lower East Side on November 4, turning 18 pop-ups across New York City, Naples, Mexico City and other stops into a 34-seat restaurant with the kitchen visible from every seat.

The first permanent room from the couple carries the name of Pabón’s mother, Milagros, who taught him how to cook; White leads hospitality, Pabón leads the food, and the bright yellow exterior on the Lower East Side now gives their roving project a fixed address.

Mili gives Pabón and White’s project a permanent kitchen and dining room. White’s entirely domestic beverage program is built from New York State outward.

Why Mili in the Lower East Side Marks a New Chapter for Pabón and White

Pabón, originally from Puerto Rico, and White, from North Carolina, began the idea for Mili during a relationship that started three-and-a-half years ago. Their first restaurant arrives after a long trial run: 18 activations across three continents, including New York City, Naples and Mexico City. Pop-ups ask a cook to carry the method into someone else’s room, use another team’s rhythm, and still make the dish land. Those 18 activations gave the couple time to learn what survives travel.

White described the pop-up as "our own little 12-seat restaurant, with us running around together," said Alexis White.¹ Pabón no longer cooks from the margin of another kitchen. White no longer hosts through a temporary front door. The work has a station, a pass, and regular hours.

The name keeps the first teacher in the room. Milagros, Pabón’s mother, taught him to cook, and Mili carries her name into the Lower East Side. The dishes include savory cheese cut on a girolle, a potato and sunchoke tart, Hudson Valley duck, and monkfish with onion sauce and sea lettuce. Pabón’s food lead role is direct. White’s hospitality role is visible in the room and beverage list built for repeat use.

From Mattos Hospitality to a 34-Seat Open Kitchen

Pabón and White met while working inside the Mattos Hospitality orbit, White as general manager at Altro Paradiso, Pabón as executive chef at Estela. Mili puts those readings in the same small room.

The 34-seat room keeps kitchen and floor in public view. The open kitchen is visible from every seat, and mirrors extend that view for diners not facing the cooks directly. The line moves through plating, wiping, passing, receiving, and resetting. Pabón’s hands do not disappear behind a wall. White’s team cannot hide the exchange between kitchen and floor. The room asks both sides to carry their work in public.

From the street, the bright yellow exterior and large glass windows make the room easy to identify. The windows open when the weather allows, and the front of the restaurant includes a small bar. A centerpiece cooking stove from France gives the kitchen a focal point. The bright yellow exterior, glass windows, bar, and French stove keep the eye on labor. The diner sees the station, the bar, the pass, the door, the handoff. In a 34-seat room, hospitality is a sequence of gestures repeated close enough for everyone to catch the misses.

The Lower East Side location also changes the stakes of the project. The neighborhood can absorb a short-lived pop-up and forget it by the next week. A permanent restaurant has to keep its shape across Wednesday service, late Sunday tables, weather, staff changes, and the small failures that arrive in any first year. Mili in the Lower East Side enters that rhythm with a concept already tested in borrowed spaces and a fixed room that will measure the work differently.

Jorge Luis Pabón’s Menu, Named Back to Milagros

Pabón’s menu carries around 15 plates designed for sharing. The format suits a couple whose project started in pop-ups, where dishes have to read quickly and move across a table without a long explanation. Sharing also fits the way White has described their preferred dining style: plates in the center, conversation moving, the meal built by reach and return rather than a strict course sequence.

The couple described the kitchen's language as New York Creative, leaning on French technique and seasonal ingredients. The savory cheese uses a girolle, the tool often associated with curled cheese service, then pairs those curls with caramelized onions, grilled grapes and a semolina sesame cracker. The pleasure is structural: fat, sweetness, fruit, crunch, then the repeat bite.

The potato and sunchoke tart moves through puff pastry and taleggio cheese sauce, with herbs and lavender. That is a dish built on layers and temperature control, even without a published recipe. Puff pastry asks for discipline before service ever starts. Taleggio sauce asks for a cook to manage salt, texture and heat. Herbs and lavender can tilt a plate quickly if the hand is heavy. The dish gives Pabón room to show restraint in a format that still reads generously at the table.

The kitchen has a dry-ager for the Hudson Valley duck. The dry-ager lets the kitchen treat duck as an ongoing process.

The monkfish with onion sauce and sea lettuce brings a different kind of control.

A green salad with sesame dressing and hot honey, housemade bread and butter service, flan, soba cha milk custard and pear cake with walnut ice cream fill out the range.

Milagros remains the named predecessor, and Pabón’s current bench also includes the farmers he plans to work with at Union Square Greenmarket. No named farm has been attached to the opening menu. In a permanent room, that relationship becomes a calendar. The cook’s Union Square Greenmarket buying will change between November and May.

Alexis White’s Domestic Beverage Program

White’s beverage program stays entirely domestic, from vermouth to wine. At Mili, the constraint turns the list toward American producers across several states, including New York State, California, Oregon, New Hampshire, Texas and Virginia. White previously worked in the Finger Lakes and has said she fell in love with New York State wine during that period; the Mili list gives that experience a place at the table.

The Sake Negroni is made with Brooklyn Kura sake, Meadowsweet amaro and vermouth from Channing Daughters on Long Island. The drink keeps the domestic rule intact while bending the familiar Negroni frame. Brooklyn Kura supplies the sake, Meadowsweet supplies the amaro, and Channing Daughters brings the vermouth from Long Island.

The wine list includes nine wines by the glass and around 75 full bottles in the cellar. The by-the-glass number shows how many entry points White can offer without requiring a bottle decision. The cellar count matters because 75 bottles in a 34-seat restaurant can turn quickly. White's list places New York State alongside California, Oregon, New Hampshire, Texas, and Virginia.

White has focused the list on American regions with different climates and traditions, then kept the scale small enough for conversation.

How to Book Mili in the Lower East Side

Mili is open Wednesday through Sunday from 5 p.m. Until 11 p.m. Reservations drop two weeks in advance at 9 a.m. The room is small enough that a full book can form quickly, especially with diners who attended the pop-ups and want to see how the work has changed now that Pabón and White control the room.

The Lower East Side address gives visitors a clear visual cue before they enter: the yellow exterior, the large glass windows, the view toward the kitchen. Pabón’s role is the food, grounded in a menu of roughly 15 shared plates. White’s role is hospitality, with the domestic beverage program and the room’s pace under her watch. Milagros, the mother who taught Pabón to cook, gives the restaurant its name. Mattos Hospitality sits behind the couple’s meeting point, Altro Paradiso on White’s side, Estela on Pabón’s.

The opening to watch is whether the couple can keep the energy of 18 pop-ups while accepting the repetition of a fixed service week. Mili now has to make its case from the same 34 seats, five nights a week, with Pabón at the food lead, White at the hospitality lead, and Milagros’ name on the door.