Members only
Berenjak at Dumbo House, best new guard clubs, Clemente Bar, Atomix, Gabriel Kreuther, The Modern, Per Se, Foursquare, Ciao Gloria, Pasta Night, MORE
CLUBS • First Person
Back in the club
As I considered the delicious black chickpea hummus in front of me — its texture and consistency not unlike whipped chicken liver mousse — and an accompanying clay-baked flatbread, I asked myself: Am I really eating this well at a Soho House?
If we’re being exact, I was at Dumbo House, the club’s Brooklyn outpost where London’s Berenjak kicked off a full restaurant pop-up last week. Known for elevated Persian cooking, the restaurant has brought a sizable portion of its London menu to NYC (the famed goat shoulder has not yet made the trip). Over a leisurely lunch last week, three of us tried a variety of dips to start, including that hummus and a yogurt with Persian cucumber, followed by succulent kebabs (the BBQ prawns were a particular hit) and an eggplant stew with split yellow peas, dried lime, and tomato that was as good as anything I’ve eaten anywhere recently. At Dumbo House!
The last time FOUND checked in on the state of private club dining in New York City about a year ago, I lamented the sameness of the Cecconi’s now dotting the city (and the world), but also took note of the new class of restaurant-centric members-only clubs opening their doors, like ZZ’s Club, which — along with its sister Carbone Privato — turns a year old next month. That trend continues this fall with September’s opening of Flyfish Club on the Lower East Side and this week’s debut of Casa Tua, a Miami clubstaurant imported to the just-opened Surrey Hotel on the Upper East Side. (See our updated New Guard Clubs Nines, below.)
Everyone’s goal, of course, is to catch lightning in a bottle like Scott Sartiano did when he opened Zero Bond in 2020. The trick: Collect the right mix of members (who meet your standards for cool), surround them with good service offerings, and frame them in a vibey space where people want to hang out (and be seen) again and again.
At restaurant-forward clubs, members will have to want to go back for the food, too. Soho House, for all of its previous dining deficiencies, was always more club than restaurant. An early visit I paid to Flyfish Club (definitely more restaurant than club, with a subterranean bar and omakase counter) found fare like an impressive seafood tower (three levels, $110 per), and a boisterous crowd, but in a city with infinite dining options, a twice-a-week habit here — or at any club — could feel limiting.
Pricing for most of these clubs seems to be settling in the $2500-$5000/annual range that Soho House and Zero Bond roughly charge. Flyfish, which once offered membership through an NFT sale, now transacts strictly in fiat with a $3500/annual price (plus $1500 initiation fee for non-NFT members), and Casal Tua has set a $4300/annual price (plus $1600 initiation) at its new digs on the Upper East Side (though like nearby private club Casa Cruz, Casa Tua also has booking options for non-members).
In practice, however, private club fees can sometimes be negotiated. A FOUND operative recently spotted a $1000/annual membership to Flyfish on the (members only!) dining reservations app Dorsia. [Ed note: Flyfish followed up to say the offer is for a $1000 initiation fee, with annual dues remaining at $3500.] And anecdotal reports from NYC chat groups is that some private clubs, like Tribeca’s Nexus Club, are offering to waive initiation fees altogether as the local private club market stretches towards saturation. In any case, it can’t hurt to ask.
Back at Dumbo House, I asked my server how long Berenjak planned to stay in residence. “Indefinitely,” he told me. I could get used to this. –Lockhart Steele
→ Berenjak (Dumbo) • 55 Water St • Soho House members can reserve on the app.
RESTAURANTS • Fine Dining Report
Our fine dining correspondent Lee Pitofsky dines at Per Se as often as most civilians order delivery. Here, now, his latest New York City report for FOUND:
DIAL IT TO 11: Less than two weeks in, Clemente Bar (Nomad) is already one of the hottest tickets in town. Located upstairs from Eleven Madison Park from which it spawned, the place is stunning, with wall-length murals, polished wood, and swanky banquets. Start with the Clemente Martini (Altamura vodka, Malfy gin, green curry, saffron) and pair it with the Agedashi Dogg, a vegan hot dog with fried tofu and black truffle on a toasted potato roll, with a perfect accompaniment of thrice fried potatoes. The Negroni Colada (Plantation Cut & Dry coconut rum, bitter bianco, blanc vermouth, pineapple) is the clarified cocktail perfected. Finish with the Koji Cafe (Havana Club Aged rum, raspberry eau de vie, coffee, koji cream), inspired by a hypothetical hybrid of an affogato espresso martini, Irish coffee, and a carajillo. Reserve (walk-ins welcome).
GESTATION PERIOD: It’s nearly been a year since my last visit to Atomix (Nomad, above), for no other reason beyond the excessive planning required to land one of the toughest reservations in the country. The current menu, recently updated for autumn, is one of my favorites to date. One of the first bites signals the type of night ahead: A delicate tartlet is topped with filefish and veal tartare, golden kaluga caviar, and filefish liver mousse. Later, tempura fried Japanese whiting fish, in the lightest of batters, is served with a cured egg yolk sauce, fermented plum, and Japanese eggplant. There can be a feeling of redundancy in A5 Miyazaki Wagyu sets at fine dining restaurants, but the Japanese Wagyu at Atomix is anything but, sliced in strips, served with egg yolk jidan, cranberry beans, and a mushroom rice, finished with a familiar and craveable garlic sauce. Reserve.
MANY HAPPY RETURNS: October was a month of milestone dinners, with visit number 30 at both Gabriel Kreuther (Midtown) and The Modern (Midtown), and my 60th dinner at Per Se (Upper West Side). The chef’s menu at Gabriel Kreuther checked every box, with caviar, Hokkaido Uni, wagyu, and a honeynut squash ravioli celebrating the start of fall. The Modern continues to be as good as ever under chef Thomas Allan, with seamless menu progression and thoughtful, ingredient driven cuisine. (A standout: Icelandic cod under a bed of smoked potato agnolotti with a scallion-potato sabayon and shaved white truffles.) Per Se remains the epitome of New York City fine dining, forever consistent in the impeccable delivery of a restaurant experience at the highest level. The legendary Oysters and Pearls will always be a dish worth a visit alone — I can vouch that, after 60 times, it never gets old. –Lee Pitofsky
RESTAURANTS • The Ticket
Kids Pumpkin Carving Competition • hot cider and snacks for pumpkin carving • Friend of a Farmer UWS (Upper West Side) • Thurs 10/31 @ 4p, $25 per
Halloween Parade First Seating • outdoor patio seating on lower Sixth Ave for dinner and parade viewing • Cha Cha Tang (Greenwich Village) • Thurs 10/31 @ 5-8p, $125 per (minimum)
Halloween Night • three-course dinner and three cocktails per for parade viewing • Kubeh (Greenwich Village) • Thurs 10/31 @ 5-1030p, $180 per
NYC RESTAURANT LINKS: Weekday lunch returning to JGV’s abc cocina every Wed-Fri starting this Friday • Anticipated bakery Elbow Bread opening tomorrow on Lower East Side • Following last year’s fire, Danji finally set to reopen Nov. 15 • Midtown outpost of bakery Mah-Ze-Dahr shutters • What even is ‘American IPA’?
WORK • Social
Foursquare and seven years ago
Saturday night, after we were seated at Le Veau d’Or, I checked in on Swarm and a tip popped up on my phone from Lockhart, my friend on the social app since back when it was called Foursquare.
After it launched with a bang in 2009, Foursquare was for a time the most exciting thing on the New York tech scene. It was both an A+ connector and a robust discovery tool, with reported nine-figure acquisition offers and buzz of a bust on social’s Mt. Rushmore.
In those very early days, Curbed sublet a table in our 3000-SF office at 36 Cooper Square to Foursquare when it was just two guys and a plan. In that open room with butcher block desks and wide columns, we watched them raise a ton of money and staff up in a blink. Soon, they’d take a whole floor in the building and sublet a corner back to us, flipping the script.
It was fun to be in the middle of it. Curbed raised an exponentially smaller amount and was finding its way to profitability piece by piece, by necessity. Foursquare was playing a different game. But the companies shared a lot of DNA — NYC projects run by real people, with an interest in enhancing how users engaged with their respective cities and spaces.
The Curbed team all got hooked on Foursquare immediately, checking in with each other at The Scratcher, The Mud Truck, and wherever else we went in the neighborhood and beyond. In 2014, when they split the app — into a city guide still called Foursquare and Swarm for check-ins — we dutifully downloaded Swarm. Today, it contains an unbelievably rich history of the places I’ve been over the last 15 years. Sometimes I still get tips from Lockhart (he was right, Le Veau d’Or is reason enough to live in NYC!).
Last week, Foursquare sent an email to users announcing they were sunsetting the City Guide app on December 15. Fortunately, Swarm will live on, but the company has long since pivoted from its beginnings as a consumer social app to its current B2B data model. It never did get that place on app Rushmore, but it did find a way to generate enough revenue to make it through to the other side of the VC grinder.
In the meantime, social discovery remains an uncracked code. In fact, the state of restaurant discovery has progressed so little that Eater just launched a “new” app with "essentially the same functionality" as the first Eater app we launched back in 2013.
Maybe this is the decade someone will figure it out. Maybe it’ll be Eater co-founder Ben Leventhal with Blackbird, his ambitious new restaurant loyalty and payment platform. Or maybe it’ll be Foursquare co-founder Dennis Crowley, another serial builder of cool things, who’s working on a new audio city guide called BeeBot. Or maybe FOUND will take its trove of city-specific recommendations and intel, and build some tech ourselves.
Last week, Crowley lamented Foursquare’s sunsetting on Threads. Others chimed in with reminiscences and valedictories. It was a great run, but nothing’s forever. And there’s still a lot of 36 Cooper Square out there in the world, pushing forward on the next big thing. –Josh Albertson
WORK LINKS: More details on Chobani House on Bowery: “experiential retail,” incubator, community kitchen • Amazon in talks to lease 350K SF at 10 Bryant Park • In spite of RTO push, ‘there is no evidence of offices suddenly filling’ • MBA applications jumped 12% in 2024 • Should you be able to take a test to become an accredited investor?
WORK • Tuesday Routine
Biscotti days and pasta nights
RENATO POLIAFITO • restaurateur / author • Ciao, Gloria & Pasta Night
Neighborhood you work in: Prospect Heights
Neighborhood you live in: Gowanus
It’s Tuesday morning. What’s the scene at your workplace?
I’m the owner and manager of Ciao, Gloria, a daytime cafe bakery with a slight Italian bend to it, as well as Pasta Night, a new Italian-American restaurant I opened directly across the street from Ciao. Tuesday mornings are usually pretty busy at Ciao — people have places to be and need their caffeine and cinnamon roll fix, and we’re happy to provide it. I come into work around 9a or so, say my hellos to the staff, and pretty much get right to work. But first, coffee. It's more ritual than addiction for me: It allows for a brief pause before my usual hectic day begins.
What’s on the agenda for today?
These days, I am mostly shuttling between Ciao and Pasta Night, steering the ship at Ciao, and setting up systems at Pasta Night. Fortunately, I have a great team at Ciao, and can lean heavily on them to keep the shop in working order while I make sure Pasta Night is getting the attention it needs. But like any small business owner in the city, my day is filled with a little bit of everything: solving any and all kinds of issues, paying bills, fixing things, testing food, ordering from vendors, talking to customers, wiping tables, and playing therapist to my employees. It's a very full day, but a satisfying one.
Any restaurant plans today, tonight, this weekend?
I’m excited to check out Briscola Trattoria in Crown Heights. It opened up around the same time as Pasta Night, and I am a huge fan of [Briscola’s sister restaurant] LaRina, so I'm excited to see what they’ve cooked up. Also excited to try Nin Hao, which opened up around the corner from us, as well as Dilly Dally, just down on Vanderbilt. My pastime is eating, if you haven't guessed. I may also end up having a drink at Animal or Good Judy.
How about a little leisure or culture this week?
I'm trying to get upstate before the leaves fully drop. I love doing an overnight or two at Getaway in the Eastern Catskills. It's one of those few opportunities I get to disconnect, even if for a night. If I don't get upstate, I’ll try to get myself to the studio to throw some pieces — I'm a member at BKLYN CLAY, but haven’t been for a few months as I've been entrenched in the Pasta Night buildout — but as many business owners know, the struggle for making a work/life balance happen is very real.
What’s a recent big-ticket purchase you love?
I should definitely spend a little more on myself, but I tend to be conservative. We just bought a MoccaMaster for our kitchen and I love it. It doesn't take much to make me happy.
What NYC store or service do you love to recommend?
Let's spend a few hours in Greenpoint: A few places I love are Archestratus Books and Tend. Archestratus for all manner of cookbooks (including mine!) and the sage wisdom of its owner, Paige Lipari; Tend for all manner of plants, pots and its handsome and funny owner, Joe Ferrari. Of course, there's Peter Pan for doughnuts (and a classic BEC you can eat at their iconic counter on a weekday when it isn't mobbed) but if you’re there around dinnertime, please don't sleep on Bernie's... Everything they do is truly wonderful, and as a fellow restaurant owner, an inspiration.
GOODS & SERVICES LINKS: French designer Jacquemus opens in Soho • Chef Flynn McGarry opening Gem Home store in Soho tomorrow • Keep it old school with a new, dedicated portable audio player • Feed Me’s ultimate beauty black book • The Gumshoe guide to cleaning out your closet.
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CLUBS • The Nines
Clubs, new guard
The Nines are FOUND's distilled lists of NYC's best. Additions or subtractions? Hit reply or found@foundny.com.
Casa Cipriani (Wall Street), see-and-be-scene at Battery Maritime Building, $2500-$5K annual, $1K-$2K initiation