Ken Aretsky has been described as “one of New York’s most accomplished restaurateurs of the last thirty years.”

Biography

Aretsky is a graduate of C.W. Post College. He has been married three times.

Career highlights

He opened his first restaurant, Truman's, in Roslyn,

Long Island Long Island is a densely populated continental island in southeastern New York (state), New York state, extending into the Atlantic Ocean. It constitutes a significant share of the New York metropolitan area in both population and land are ...

in 1971. It was inspired by Maxwell's Plum. He was president and General Manager of the

21 Club The 21 Club, often simply 21, was a traditional American cuisine restaurant and former prohibition-era speakeasy, located at 21 West 52nd Street in New York City. Prior to its closure in 2020, the club had been active for 90 years, and it had ...

. Immediately after that, he bought the

Christ Cella Christ Cella was a Manhattan steakhouse that was a “pillar in the pantheon of New York steakhouses.” It went out of business in 1995 and in August, it was sold to restaurateur Ken Aretsky. Christ Cella was founded in 1926 by Christopher Cel ...

steakhouse, including the steakhouse. Christ Cellla morphed into Aretsky's Patroon in 2019. Along with Anne Rosenzweig, he owned Arcadia, on the

Upper East Side The Upper East Side, sometimes abbreviated UES, is a neighborhood in the boroughs of New York City, borough of Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded approximately by 96th Street (Manhattan), 96th Street to the north, the East River to the e ...

References

American restaurateurs Businesspeople from New York City American food industry business executives LIU Post alumni Restaurant founders {{Restaurateur-bio-stub