Netflix's miniseries Black Rabbit is a gritty look at the underbelly of a famed N.Y.C. restaurant. Starring Jason Bateman and Jude Law, the thriller follows a pair of musician-turned-restaurateur brothers, one running the titular rising establishment, the other a reckless gambler out for over $100,000. When Vince (Bateman) returns to town with several loan sharks on his tail, Jake (Law) has to balance his brother's chaos with his own house of cards.
To put its own twist on the canon of New York-set shows, the team behind Black Rabbit toned down the glitz and glamour and leaned on the real-life history of the city's most notorious restaurants. Below, read on for everything to know about where Black Rabbit was filmed. (If you're looking for a breakdown of Black Rabbit's ending, we've got you covered.)
Where was 'Black Rabbit' filmed?
As the latest gritty N.Y.C.-set show, Black Rabbit is filmed entirely in the city, both on location and on a soundstage at Steiner Studios in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. For the titular restaurant's exteriors, the production crew found one of the last wooden-frame buildings in Lower Manhattan, on 279 Water Street in the South Street Seaport area. According to Tudum, production designer Alex DiGerlando and his team took elements from the original location—"things like the carved wood banister, the exposed lath, the peeling wallpaper, the chipping brick and concrete"—and recreated them in the interior set.
DiGerlando also revealed that the show took inspiration from both former N.Y.C. eateries and the homes of classic rock artists like Jimmy Page and Keith Richards. "We were looking at those and thinking about taverns in the English countryside—the kind you could imagine stumbling into after a long day of traveling—and [we] started pulling all these references," he said.
In addition to the real-life stand-in for the Rabbit, the Netflix miniseries filmed across Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens from April to September 2024. Some notable locations include the 10th St Russian and Turkish baths in the East Village, the Coney Island boardwalk, and the Pool Room in the Four Seasons.
Is 'Black Rabbit' a real restaurant?
Despite how good those bone-in burgers look, the titular restaurant of Black Rabbit is entirely fictional. Co-creators (and spouses) Zach Baylin and Kate Susman told The New York Times that the Friedkins's eatery was inspired by N.Y.C. hotspots, most notably the Spotted Pig, a clubby gastropub that closed in 2020 amid allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct. Per the outlet, the creators used to frequent the Spotted Pig in the early 2000s and "borrowed much of its history" for the Black Rabbit.
"We were completely intoxicated and obsessed with what was going on with these restaurants," Susman said in an Esquire interview. "At a number of these places, like the Spotted Pig or Dressler, stories came out later that there was so much going on there that we weren't aware of. There were these really dark underbellies. Zach and I had worked in restaurants for a long time in high school and college. So we understood the difference between what you see and what happens when the lights turn off."
