Todd English was standing near the wood-burning oven, his big, square jaw set as he looked out through the open kitchen of his new restaurant, Olives, at the W Hotel in Union Square.

It was the third night of the unofficial soft opening, and Mr. English, who is Boston’s most famous chef, seemed pretty calm for a guy who’d finally taken the ultimate culinary gamble and moved to New York. The high-ceilinged dining room, done up in casual earth tones, was bustling, packed with

restaurateurs, chefs and members of the food press-all the people Mr. English will have to seduce if he is going to survive in this city. They nibbled from big white plates of foie gras, truffles, octopus and lobster as the nervous new staff navigated through the cramped room. Mr. English sent a quartet of amuse bouches over to a middle-aged woman…