Only in New York
When I was growing up here, native New Yorkers didn't dine in hotels unless they were having an affair.
But hotel dining today has evolved into a totally different affair.
Consider that many of the hippest, most desirable tables in New York are now in hotels, such as Koi (Bryant Park Hotel), Town (Chambers), Ono, Garden of Ono and O Bar (Hotel Gansevoort), any of The Maritime Hotel subterranean, patio or rooftop eateries, the enduringly popular Jean Georges (Trump International Hotel & Tower), Alain Ducasse (Essex House Hotel), Café Boulud (Surry Hotel), DB Bistro Moderne (City Club Hotel), Blue Fin (W Hotel Times Square), Olives (W Hotel Union Square), Mercer Kitchen (The Mercer Hotel) and Ian Schrager's stable.
Since Schrager opened The Morgans hotel in 1984, he has redefined contemporary innkeeping as a “boutique” that sells sexy drinking and dining. Asia de Cuba in the Morgans Hotel launched an international string of successes.
Also, New Yorkers are increasingly turning to hotels for living and entertaining amenities. (With real estate at an all-time boom-high, many cannot afford to rent or own an apartment with guest rooms, much less a formal dining room.) The Meatpacking District's Hotel Gansevoort hosted the summer's most popular ongoing pool parties this year.
The hotel-restaurant synergy works on many levels. According to David Rockwell, who has designed both notable hotels (The W chain and New York's Chambers) and hotel restaurants (including the Chambers' currently hot Town), “In the right situation, restaurants and hotels can make great bedfellows: Good locations are key for restaurants, and hotels offering room service and three meals a day have a huge advantage.”
There are significant financial and atmospheric incentives to both parties. Brett Traussi, director of operations for Dinex Group (chef Daniel Boulud's restaurant empire), points out, “Hotels provide a natural customer base and often carry the majority of the rent and/or interior design investment, which gives the restaurateur some security and allows him to spend more money on flowers, prime meat or organic vegetables. There is also a kind of conviviality that comes from being attached to a hotel, where there's constant activity.”
Even The Four Seasons chain has started introducing celebrity chef consultants at some of its locations, such as Wolfgang Puck's affiliation with The Four Seasons Maui and the soon-to-be-announced “name” chef to train executive chefs at The Four Seasons in New York.
Most hotel restaurants now have their own architects, interior designers and street entrance, to be a destination in their own right. “Though you will want the restaurant sightlines to work so that the greeter can supervise the circulation from both a hotel lobby or a street entrance,” says architect Larry Bogdanow (who designed many restaurants, including Union Square Café and The TriBeCa Grand Hotel), “you don't want your restaurant to look like an extension of the hotel lobby.”
Not that all hotel-restaurant marriages remain great matches. Sirio Maccione has publicly blamed The Palace's restaurant union for shuttering his Le Cirque 2000. And while he's enjoyed sweetheart rent deals in the past at the Mayfair and The Palace, he's investing in buying his own space for $10 million in the former Ritz-Carlton (now being converted into condos) on Central Park South.
Experience New York yourself.
Attend StoreXpo in December. For more information, visit www.storexpo.info.
Victoria Rowan is VM+SD's New York editor. Her tours through the shops, museums, windows, offices and streets of the city will be a regular feature of the magazine.