Year of the Horse

I had lunch at Shun Lee West this week as a sort of pre-celebration of the Chinese New Year on January 31. The lunch was courtesy of Ford, which is having its own year-long party for the Mustang, turning 50 on April 17, 2014. It's certainly a stroke of luck when a major anniversary for an iconic car named after a horse is aligned with that year's Chinese Zodiac symbol. 

Shun Lee didn't disappoint. Not only were the steamed dumplings and lo mein delicious, but the space, which I hadn't been to in possibly two decades, was also festively outfitted with all the Zodiac signs, some internally lit and hung from the ceiling.

There was even a giant fortune cookie at the end. Mine read: "Your life will be a blur. In a good way." I'll take that. Happy new year!

Watermark at the Seaport

Wid Chapman has designed more than a dozen Manhattan restaurants, the standouts being both locations of Tamarind (only the TriBeCa outpost is open now). His latest eatery is Watermark Bar.  I haven't been yet, but I look forward to a visit in the spring, since it's right on the water on Pier 15, which, like the rest of the South Street Seaport, is getting back on its feet after Hurricane Sandy. Interior Design magazine has begun a great video series of designers giving virtual walk-throughs of their projects. Here's the video of Wid discussing Watermark.

Watermark Bar. Photo by Paul Johnson. 

Friends or...Frenemies?

West 50th Street in midtown Manhattan is home to two new fast-casual eateries, Melt Shop and the Little Beet. Both are well-lit and colorful, with some nice design moments, which ordinarily is a very good thing. But these two well-lit and colorful spaces are smack next door to each other.

But there's more. Both places have the same exact chair throughout: the Marais A by Xavier Pauchard (which can be found at Design Within Reach).

Granted, this is a popular chair, especially where sturdiness and easy cleaning are needed, like in high-traffic midtown lunch spots. But I still find it a bit unusual. Seems like each restaurant got the Marais in a custom color (yellow for Melt, purple for Beet), but I'm still scratching my head as to whether this was an intentional similarity or a crazy coink-i-dink. Let me know if you know!

Scrapbook: Mexico City

Scrapbook. A new type of entry: a visual roundup focusing on design and food in a particular city. Vamonos a Mexico City!

Chips and salsa setup at El Bajío

Outdoor dining at furniture showroom Piacere

Corn encased in Plexiglass at Museo de Arte Moderno

Delicious colors in Javier Anzures's Domingo, 1982, also at MAM

A suite at the W Mexico City

Dinnerware at Azul Histórico

Triple-height green wall at Downtown Mexico hotel & hostel

Glassware by students from Anáhuac Mexico Norte & Nouvel Studio, part of Design Week Mexico

Porcelainware from Trinitate

A plate with Luis Barragán's favorite symbol at Casa Luis Barragan

A basket of Mexican dulces

Soup getting poured at Quintonil

The Nightlife Conference

Yes, you read that correctly. MAD Museum is hosting a weekend of talks centered on the social practice of NYC nightlife, Nov. 8-10.

Among the panels to choose from are:
-You Deserve a Drink Ticket! The Art of Hosting
-States of Excess and Undress: Fashion, Performance, and Taboo in Nightlife

But some actually have seem to have some meat to them, like:
-What Ever Happened to Flyers? Nightlife Post-Internet
Which will explore how the virtual social space of the Internet alters the physical architecture of nightlife venues, among other things.

Patricia Field kicks things off with the keynote speech—on Friday night, of course.

Marea: Nautical in the Best Way

In August, I wrote about The Butterfly. Which makes this my second writeup about an Altamarea Group NYC restaurant in a short while. I guess that's because my experiences there have been so enjoyable. Unlike The Butterfly, which is quite casual and in TriBeCa, Marea is more of a special-occasion destination in Midtown. Also different is that it's known for its seafood (marea is Spanish for "tide"), which I can confirm, after the Branzino I had, is delicious.

Branzino, pumpkin, coco beans, spigarello, marcona almonds

The seaside is also translated into the design, executed by Richard H. Lewis Architect and Franco Rosignolo, but in such an elegant and artistic way. Sure, there are seashells, but they're presented dramatically like individual sculptures—limestone bases and all—that they seem perfectly at home in the urban setting. I'd love to have the below one in my house, which, too, is not anywhere near a beach.

Then there's the actual art: a stunning collection of water-themed photography. Pieces appear throughout the dining room, of course, but some of my favorites were downstairs, in the restroom lounge, and even in the restroom stalls.

In the dining room

Restroom lounge

Restroom stall

A Rural Saturday

There are many treasures in the food and design worlds to be discovered just outside the city. An hour north by car, up the Palisades, lies Garrison and Cold Spring, two charming hamlets worthy of exploration.

The former is perhaps best-known for Manitoga/The Russel Wright Design Center, the mid 20th–century home and studio of the modern ceramicist that's situated above a former quarry amid 75 woodland acres. Standard tours are offered but so are volunteer landscape days, which is what we did and which I totally recommend—a really wonderful way to immerse yourself in the setting, help preserve a National Historic Landmark and World Monuments Watch Site, and meet like-minded people. . .plus they provide a lovely lunch.

Russel Wright's house

Dining area with Wright ceramicware

The wooden tub & view in Wright's studio

A 1959 letter from Edward J Wormley to Wright (notice the cigs)

Designer and fellow volunteer Anita Csordas exploring the 75-acre woodlands

A drive literally down the road takes you back a whole other century to Boscobel, an estate built in the early 1800's in the New York Federal style. We didn't tour the house, but we did walk the grounds, which include an orangery and stunning Hudson River views. 

The Boscobel orangery

Kousa dogwoods dot the estate grounds

Cold Spring is another short drive, and its Main Street is perfect for a window-shopping stroll, followed by a snack at one of the cafés. We were drawn most by the clapboard Cape-Cod style of Hudson Hil's, a clever moniker derived from the co-owner's name, Hilary Hayes, and the menu's offerings made of fresh, local ingredients from Hudson Valley farms. 

Homemade at Hudson Hil's with produce from local farms

Excessive Accessorizing?

First, the wine glass got accessorized with charms. Now it seems it's the cookie jar's turn. PlaceTile Designs introduces the ceramic Fits for the Occasion Cookie Chair, which has a socket for interchangeable, magnetically attached motif designs. Witness the below pineapple, turtle, and fleur-de-lis motifs. And there are many more...think holiday, safari, coastal. Apparently the options are endless. The oval below the motif is a writeable area that can be labeled with an erasable marker. Which could come in handy should you want to swap out the jar's contents from cookies to, say, pineapples, turtles, or fleur-de-lis. 

Dinner With Designer (DWD): Alder x Jennifer Carpenter

In the (not-so) gritty East Village, a sunny yellow door and shingle-style cladding beckon you into Alder, a new casual restaurant-pub by Wylie Dufresne, of wd~50 fame. Inside, the menu and the design wink strongly to the north, specifically to Cape Cod, where Dufresne spent his summers as a child. Of course this being NY, and Dufresne and executive chef Jon Bignelli being wunderkinds, classic American and New England fare has been creatively reinterpreted: Pigs in a blanket are filled with Chinese sausage; New England clam chowder comes with oyster crackers that are actual oysters, fried; fish & chips are generously heaped & tastefully presented on a slate slab.

Fish & Chips

Clam Chowder with Oyster Crackers

Pigs in a Blanket

The design, by Jennifer Carpenter Architect, is equally comfortable and familiar yet inventive. This was the first restaurant job for Carpenter, who incidentally is a sister of Dufresne's wife, Maile, although she's a seasoned architect with a successful portfolio of retail and residential projects. Her main move was the ceiling: a series of fins made of wood repurposed from a fence from, yes, Cape Cod. What could just be regular rustic appears minimalist and contemporary, thanks to each fin being strung on a blackened-steel rod, then canted at 1 of 12 different angles, creating a subtle rhythm. Wood appears elsewhere—the floor, the chairs, the banquette—yet ironically none of it is alder wood. Carpenter pays tribute to the wood at the entry door, its forged-bronze handle sporting indentations like an alder branch.

Entry with alder-like bronze handle

 Ceiling fins

 Menu

Goodbye. . .for now

A Twitter post by Bobby Flay and the NY Times Dining section today announced that Mesa Grill is closing on August 31. Flay's post indicated it will reopen in another location. Until then, remember the Flatiron location, which served customers for 22 years.

Photo by Evan Sung for The New York Times

Hennessy X Os Gêmeos

For it's third artist collaboration, cognac brand Hennessy has invited Os Gêmeos to design a limited-edition bottle label. The Brazilian identical-twin brothers, Otavio and Gustavo Pandolfo (os gemeos means "twins" in Portuguese), said their design, quite a departure from the graffiti-like art they're known for, is similar to a drawing each of the brothers did when they were around 6 years old. Today, the twins are busy in their São Paulo studio preparing for two big exhibitions: one in Brazil in 2014 and one in NYC in 2015.

Meanwhile, Hennessy, which began its artist collaboration in 2011 with Kaws and followed in 2012 with Futura, is finalizing which artist it will partner with for 2014. Every Limited Edition Hennessy V.S bottle in this artist series is individually numbered.

Here's a recipe from the twins for a cocktail called Brazil Spice: 

Brazil Spice

1.5 oz Hennessy V.S

.5 Fresh Lime juice

.5 Fresh Simple Syrup

Splash of soda

Optional: 4 dashes of Angostura bitters

Garnish: Lime wheel

Note: The lime and simple syrup can be substituted with 1 oz of sourmix.

Method: Shake all ingredients but the sprite and strain into a rocks glass with ice add a splash of sprite and garnish with lime wheel.