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The Ned NoMad, Cecconi's, Soho House, Corner Slice, Manhatta, new guard clubs, Partlow boots, As You Are, MORE
RESTAURANTS • First Person
Put it on my tab
The Library at The NoMad restaurant was always one of Manhattan’s best rooms: two stories of bookshelves lining the wall and an elegant spiral wood staircase in one corner to ascend to the upper stack. Today, it’s part of private club The Ned NoMad. And while the room feels very much the same as it did when the NoMad opened a decade ago, it’s now accessible only to Ned members (and overnight guests at the club’s hotel).
Sitting there last week in the good graces of a friend, I pondered the ongoing evolution (or lack thereof) of club dining in New York City.
As a longtime Soho House member, I’ve come to expect very, very little from the food there. A recent brunch at the Dumbo outpost — a breakfast burrito and shakshuka — reconfirmed: the food is aggressively fine (bland, really) and expensive, an exemplar of the form.
Of greater curiosity to me: the ground floor restaurant of the same building in Dumbo, Cecconi’s. As a resident of the neighborhood, I’m a not-infrequent diner there by default. It’s technically separate from the Soho House above, but shares a parent company that co-locates them with their private clubs in places ranging from Istanbul to Mumbai. Cecconi’s menu is as down-the-middle as it comes: there will not be joy, but there will be serviceable pizza from the wood oven, and rigatoni bolognese. I never hate the experience (the plush interiors help), but it still feels like what it is: de facto club food.
Now comes ZZ’s Club, opening at Hudson Yards this month by way of Miami and Major Food Group. Not only does the club boast a new version of Carbone called Carbone Privato, but chef Mario Carbone promises to make guests anything they want with 48 hours notice. (An upgrade on club food? Depends on your grandma’s recipe.) Uptown, at posh restaurant club Casa Cruz, non-members can reserve for dinner alongside those paying six figures for the privilege. So, progress, of a sort.
Back at The Ned, which is also owned by the Soho House-Cecconi’s cartel, my friend assured me the food at the members-only restaurant is actually good. It better be, because the dover sole lists for $90. If not, we could always go to the Cecconi’s next door. –Lockhart Steele
→ The Ned NoMad (Nomad), 1170 Broadway.
→ Cecconi’s Dumbo (Dumbo), 55 Water St • Reserve.
RESTAURANTS • Intel
→ WE’LL TAKE MANHATTA: New this month at Manhatta, high above Wall Street, a flexible three- or four-course menu ($115 or $145, respectively), featuring several fresh dishes, like a crowd-pleasing big eye tuna with foie gras, artichoke, and moscatel vinegar, and a sunchoke and black truffle dumpling with brown butter consommé. The bar continues to offer dishes à la carte. –Lee Pitofsky
→ MAPLEWOOD REPORT: Mike Bergemann is closing Corner Slice in Gotham Market to open a new 18-seat restaurant in a sizzling hot corner of Maplewood, NJ. The new space, at 419 Boyden Ave., used to be home to The Bread Stand, an excellent bakery that merged with beloved downtown pizza joint Arturo’s to form Artie’s around the corner earlier this year. Porta Rossa, a fresh pasta and provisions shop from a Maialino and del Posto alum, is also new to this particular suburban oasis. –Josh Albertson
NYC RESTAURANT LINKS: After four-and-a-half month gas leak hiatus, La Grenouille reopens • Steak frites specialist Le Relais de Venise, closed since pandemic, reopens this week in Midtown • Unpacking the Rashid Johnson/Renzo Piano interiors at the Whitney’s new Frenchette Bakery: ‘I consider this sculpture to be a poem’ • Where Jeff Zucker and Steve Martin lunch on the UES • Remembering the glory days of the Manhattan power lunch.
CLUBS • The Nines
Clubs, new guard
Casa Cipriani (Wall Street), see-and-be-scene at Battery Maritime Building, $1K-$2K initiation, $2500-$5K annual
Nexus Club (Tribeca), targeted at families with onsite childcare, $20K initiation, $14K annual
Zero Bond (Noho), Scott Sartiano’s Gracie Mansion south, or whathaveyou, $1K-$5K initiation, $2750-$4400 annual
Chapel Bar (Gramercy), plush bar for Fotografiska museum and NeueHouse members, $500 initiation, $2K annual
The Ned NoMad (Nomad), latest import from Soho House & Co., $1500 initiation, $5K annual
ZZ’s Club (Hudson Yards), new from Major Food Group w/private Carbone, $20K initiation, $10K annual
Aman New York (Midtown), swank hotel, spa, omakase, more!, $200K initiation, $15K annual
CORE: (Midtown, above), four floors of new digs at 711 Fifth, $15K-$100K initiation, $15K-$18K annual
Casa Cruz (Upper East Side), ultra-exclusive London restaurant club in UES townhouse, $250K-$500K annual
Hit reply or email found@foundny.com with additions and subtractions.
GOODS & SERVICES • FOUND Object
This post appeared in last week’s premiere edition of FOUND LA. Looking for a little more West Coast in your life? Subscribe to FOUND LA, with new issues dropping each Thursday.
Not their first rodeo
Just launched from former model/LA girl Kasey Lempkin (originally from Mississippi), Partlow boots are not your cowboy's cowboy boots. Never campy, never kitschy, these are for the city girl who wants a dash of trend. Sometimes, it’s okay to mess with the classics. –Zoe Schaeffer
→ Shop: Partlow Boots (Partlow Official), from $995.
GOODS & SERVICES LINKS: Magnolia Bakery has weed edibles now, but you can’t buy them in New York • ‘Hit-or-miss’ W. 8th St. is about to get a facelift • Erewhon exec threatens: ‘We are gonna be in New York’ • Why interior designers are making their own lines and opening stores.
WORK • Tuesday Routine
Coming up Aces
CAMILLE BECERRA, chef/partner, As You Are
Neighborhood you work in: Downtown Brooklyn
It’s Tuesday morning, where are you working?
I’m working from home today. I’ve been spending a lot of time at my new restaurant project, As You Are, located inside the Ace Hotel Brooklyn. I can't get to all my emails when I'm there, as I'm cooking and teaching. When I need to sit and write, I'm at home, a loft in the Lower East Side converted from a high school.
What’s the Tuesday morning scene at your workplace?
Big windows and lots of plants that grow wild, like my fiddlehead fern that touches the double-height ceiling (above).
What’s on the agenda for today?
I'm emailing and scheduling meetings for my upcoming book, Bright Cooking: Recipes for the Modern Palate, while also alerting the team at As You Are about upcoming VIP reservations to have on their radar, making sure they're sending out something from the kitchen to welcome them.
What’s for lunch?
My daughter's Puerto Rican rice and beans leftovers from last night, with a few slices of Caribbean avocado and the hot sauce I made using peppers from the Union Square farmers market I got over the summer.
Any plans tonight?
I'm stopping by my friend Emily Hawtin's launch of Clementina, a bespoke woman's suit brand. My friends in fashion Laura Ferrara and Rita Nakouzi are hosting a gathering in Tribeca. After that, I'm going to Anna Karlin's beautiful studio for a party, then I'll walk over to Lovely Day in Nolita for their jazz night downstairs — it's so cool and sexy.
WORK • Commuter Report
Tickets? Please
It wasn’t that long ago that an hour-plus commute from the NYC suburbs into the city — shoulder-to-shoulder on crawling trains and buses into aging, soul-crushing transit hubs — seemed like the cost of doing business. The pandemic laid bare the absurdity of that exercise, a denuding that continues to ripple through the economy, in New York and across the country.
According to a recent survey from transit tracker Replica, 25% fewer NYC commuters took public transport last year versus 2019. The drop is mild compared to many other U.S. cities: down 53% in San Francisco, 68% in Chicago, and 91% in Detroit. That’s requiring a host of creative shifts to keep public systems alive and encourage ridership. Money will help, like the $3.8B in additional federal funds just pledged to Gateway, the long-delayed project to upgrade the Hudson River transit tunnels. Commuters, brace for a smoother trip… in 2035, when the new tunnel is expected to open.
By then, who knows what commuting will look like. This week in NYC, it’s more e-bikes (Lyft is about to double its Citi Bike fleet) and fewer mopeds (Brooklyn-based Revel just sunset its fleet after demand flagged). Next week, perhaps an electric plane rideshare?
WORK LINKS: Manhattan office leasing ticks up 58% in October (thanks to a few big deals) • Empire State Building is 90% leased • On the family P&L: $350k estate managers and $120k babysitters • Another signing at Starrett-Lehigh: architecture firm Populous expanding • ‘I just lost the fear’: why more older people are founding start-ups • The new headache for bosses: employees aren’t quitting.
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