Beach week
Porta Asbury Park, downtown lofts, Frog Club, The Burren, Green Day, The Pink House, best Litchfield restaurants, Litchfield secrets, MORE
GETAWAYS • Asbury Park
Little eden
We slid into two seats at the bar at Porta Asbury Park last Sunday night, our ankles still a little sandy from an afternoon on the beach in Spring Lake. The restaurant was bustling with summer shore energy, crowds of all ages at long picnic-bench tables, the glass-garage-door walls open to the patio off Kingsley St., bartenders working hard to keep up.
We make it to Porta at least once a summer, almost always as a family on our way back from a beach week somewhere further south, our car stuffed with boogie boards and suitcases of still-wet towels. It was just the two of us on this glorious July afternoon, but usually the five of us sit at a hightop up front, the kids’ dangling feet inching downward, ever closer to the bars across the stools’ bottoms with each passing year.
The pizza is the draw, and it’s very good, although maybe not quite as special as it once was. The pomodoro pasta, always, and a Three Trees salad. The wine comes in slim water glasses and the beer in cold mugs.
A friend of FOUND was just in Asbury Park for the week. His Porta is Talula’s, which also serves pizza on Cookman, downtown. There’s also Barrio Costero around the corner, where they make good mezcal drinks and serve elevated coastal Mexican. Another FOUND Asbury fan reports that Catbird is the new wood-fired spot. It’s an ambitious food town, better than it has to be.
We’ve tried branching out here and there, but Porta satisfies a specific craving for us that makes it hard to bypass. It’s that crust on the pie, and the way they dress the salad, yes. But mostly, it’s the passage of time and the kids with their sippy cups from those first trips and the feeling of climbing out of our overstuffed cars and into this big, breezy, beachy pizza place, where it’s always a summer afternoon fresh off the sand. –Josh Albertson
→ Porta (Asbury Park) • 911 Kingsley St • Reserve (or just slide into the bar).
GETAWAYS LINKS: Renovated luxe motel The Nevada opens in York, ME • Five contemporary art shows to check out in Maine this summer • Anticipated Turks and Caicos hotel opening, The Strand, readies for fall debut in Providenciales • New luxury hotel The Largo opens in Porto, Portugal • Submitting to the chill of Biarritz • The case for summering in the city.
REAL ESTATE • Sold
Lofty ambitions
What’s doing lately in the downtown loft market? Patience and fortitude. That’s certainly what it took getting to contract on a fifth-floor loft at 459 West Broadway, which has been on and off the market as far back as 2018, when the owners asked $6.9M. When relisted by Compass in February, the ask was $5.75M. The closing price as it went to contract earlier this week? $4.995M. And it also took the patience of a Buddhist monk at 50 Wooster Street, where a sixth-floor loft spent 500 days on the market, almost all at an ask of $12.5M, before the loft finally went to contract earlier this month at $11.6M.
Here, for Friday browsing, those two Soho loft sales, plus one Tribeca loft that went to contract earlier this month as well, per Olshan:
→ 125 Watts St #4 (Tribeca) • 3BR/2BA co-op • Final ask: $4.25M • loft with original exposed beams and 7-inch oak floors • Days on market: 62 • Monthly maintenance: $2779 • Agent: Richard Ziegelasch, Corcoran.
→ 459 West Broadway #5N (Soho) • 3BR/2.1BA, 3000 SF co-op • Final ask: $4.995M • 5th floor loft with west, north, and east exposures • Days on market: 126 • Monthly maintenance: $5000 • Agent: Nick Gavin, Compass.
→ 50 Wooster St #6N (Soho, above) • 4BR/3BA, 4663 SF condo • Final ask: $11.6M • 6th floor loft apartment in 1883 cast-iron building • Days on market: 500 • Monthly common charges: $2944, Monthly taxes : $2828 • Agents: Mallory and Brandon Bogard, SERHANT.
REAL ESTATE LINKS: Giant pigeon will soon perch atop High Line • Is the future of Midtown’s Pier 76 greenspace? • Robert A.M. Stern-designed The Henry Residences tops out on Upper West Side • New renderings revealed for The Delacor on Upper East Side • New Snøhetta-designed public library opens in Far Rockaway.
CULTURE & LEISURE • Friday Routine
Sport dining
PAOLA SINGER • writer/editor • paolasinger.com
Neighborhood you live in: Upper West Side
It’s Friday afternoon, how are you rolling into the weekend?
I’m a writer and editor for a variety of publications, so I’m often juggling a few deadlines, but I generally take it easier on Fridays. Depending on the weather, I’ll go for a walk along the Hudson or take a midafternoon gym class. I love finding good happy hours in Manhattan, preferably at a restaurant or wine bar, so around 5 p.m. I’ll head somewhere like Roey’s on Greenwich Ave in the Village, a cute spot that serves a well-priced and not-bad-at-all falanghina from 4 to 6 p.m. Another place I really enjoy in the afternoons is Stafili (alas, no happy hour). They have a great selection of Greek wines, and their outdoor setting is lovely, on one of the prettiest corners of the West Village.
Where are you drinking or dining this weekend?
I’m a big restaurant goer, but getting a table at a desirable dining destination in New York has become a competitive sport. If I’ve remembered to plan ahead, I’ll go out to dinner, and if not, we’ll order in and watch a movie on our new Nebula projector — it’s a beautiful gadget. A good friend of mine had recommended the Thai food at Chalong several months ago, I finally placed an order, and it was truly outstanding.
I also recently got a reservation at the much-talked-about Frog Club, inside the old Chumley’s space. I have to say my expectations were on the low end, given that some of these buzzy, cliquey places tend to disappoint flavor-wise, but I really enjoyed the food. We shared a burger and lobster pierogi, and they were super satisfying in a retro way. I keep a list (in my head) of places I want to go to — it’s a very idiosyncratic list and not necessarily about what’s new. For example, I have Keens Steakhouse in there, because somehow I have not yet been, and Freemans on the Lower East Side, because I love that space and haven’t been in a decade.
How about a little leisure or culture?
I “discovered” pickleball last summer, and my partner and I will sometimes head to one of the city courts (there’s one on Hudson River Park near 33rd Street, for example) where you can just show up and play with other people and it’s always a lively scene. But I’m dealing with a case of tennis elbow right now, so I’ve been taking weekend yoga classes. One of my absolute favorite studios is Three Jewels in the East Village; they’re a nonprofit that’s serious about the practice, and their small space has a minimalist, comforting vibe.
Any weekend getaways?
I had a girls’ weekend in Hampton Bays this month, and was surprised by how much I liked it. I say I was surprised because there’s this idea that Hampton Bays is not the “real” Hamptons (i.e. East Hampton, Amagansett, Montauk), but the beaches are just as scenic, the seafood just as tasty, and the vibe is frankly much more relaxing. There‘s a chic new hotel there, Canoe Place, that has a fantastic restaurant with interiors by Workstead, who really outdid themselves (they designed the Wythe Hotel, among others). And Dockers Waterside Marina is now my favorite waterfront seafood restaurant. Also, surprise, the taco scene there is probably better than at any other beach town on the East Coast, thanks to a significant Latino population. Bait n’ Taco, just to name one spot, is pretty good.
What was your last great vacation?
Ireland. We flew into Dublin but spent most of our time in Connemara and County Clare, both on the western coast. It was really poetic, a bit otherworldly in the best way. The landscape is straight out of a storybook, and for people who love gardens and botany and history, it’s the best place to be. We hiked through the limestone hills of The Burren with a local guide, a farmer who was like a walking encyclopedia, and told us all about the glacial-era stones, the myriad wildflowers, and the ancient tradition of winterage, when cattle are sent up the hills to graze on the shrubbery that grows between the rocks, a sustainable practice that allows flowers and insects to flourish in summer.
Because he knows me well, the next day my partner drove me to the Burren Perfumery, where I almost keeled over. This boutique and farm doles out the most delicate fragrances, lotions, and scented candles — all as natural as can be — and has a little cafe on site with teas, and baked goodies, and just too much cuteness everywhere. I can’t say the food in Ireland was something I’ll remember forever, but we did have delicious oysters and crab cakes at Linnane’s Lobster Bar right there in the Burren.
CULTURE & LEISURE • Time of Your Life
Travis • Mercury Lounge (East Village) • Fri @ 6p, GA, $72 per
Imagine Dragons • Northwell Health at Jones Beach (Jones Beach) • Fri @ 7p • section 104, $239 per
Green Day • Citi Field (Flushing) • Mon @ 530p • section 107, $210 per
CULTURE & LEISURE LINKS: Bid to reopen Metro Theater on UWS gains momentum • Soho Rep to leave Walker Street in January • How six Tribeca galleries transformed a derelict upstate school into an unlikely contemporary art hub • Inside Xanadu Roller Arts, a design daredevil’s Bushwick roller rink • Art museum guards dish on their favorite works • Olympics are one giant LVMH ad.
GETAWAYS • Westchester/Litchfield Intel
→ BEDFORD, NY: A special FOUND correspondent reports, “Great new find in Bedford, oHHo, opened two weeks ago — an upleveled CBD goods maker that’s also selling flowers, food, and gorgeous home goods (above). Martha Stewart seen there already. No Snoop.” The opening, in the town’s Old Firehouse building, is oHHo’s sixth outpost, including shops in Kent, CT, and Irvington, NY.
→ WEST CORNWALL, CT: Chef Gabe McMackin, whose Clinton Hill bistro The Finch earned a Michelin star before shutting down in 2020, has opened The Pink House restaurant in West Cornwall, CT. The space, which includes a deck overlooking the Housatonic, used to be home to Frank.
GETAWAYS • The Nines
Restaurants, Litchfield County
The Nines are FOUND's distilled lists of the best in NYC and surrounds. See also Nines: Restaurants, Catskills and Restaurants, Hudson Valley. And scroll down for more Litchfield “secrets” below. Additions or subtractions? Hit reply or found@foundny.com.
Ore Hill (Kent), seasonal five-course prix fixe, intimate farmhouse setting; see also more casual tavern sister Swyft
Community Table (Washington, above), Litchfield institution in a country chic space