Results tagged “sohohouse”

The storied restaurant Monkey Bar, which was sold last year and closed for renovations, is now in a super-stealthy friends-and-family mode. New owner Graydon Carter also operates the exclusive Waverly Inn and inspires such awe and secrecy among his customers that those who have so far previewed the menu have declined to be identified in articles about the restaurant. But the first (anonymous) reports reveal a throwback menu that’s all blue-plate specials gone to high-end heaven: “Meatloaf, chicken Payard [sic] and the old iceberg wedge with blue cheese,” the Observer reports. Andrea Strong hears Waldorf Salad and "Lobster Newburgh" [sic] are in there, too. “Chef is from London,” Strong’s tipster says, but up until now the chef’s identity has remained secret. We have it on good authority that Monkey Bar’s new executive chef is Elliot Ketley (pictured), who worked as chef for 4 years at exclusive NY club Soho House, but also at some of the most well-regarded restaurants in England.

If you're feeling down about the economy, maybe you'll find some comfort in the latest story about cutbacks being made...at the members-only SoHo House. No, no one's cracking open a fresh can of PBR there just yet, these are more like decadent rich people cutbacks. The House has put up a sign reading: "Anyone found in pairs in the toilet will be asked to leave the club immediately and their membership will be suspended." The sign has reportedly caused quite a stir amongst the well-heeled on a Facebook page that's since been taken down, and Guest of a Guest theorizes the bathrooms were not just being crowded with coke buddies, but fornicators, too, "Drug use has always been a common concern for bathroom attendants at our city’s hot spots...but apparently, sex is the new cocaine. It makes sense too…sex is a lot cheaper, and even the young, rich, and famous need to save up their pennies." Members, don't fear, there's a loophole with this sign which makes threesomes totally acceptable.

Respected chef Neil Ferguson, who opened the warmly-received Allen & Delancey just last fall, has abruptly quit, taking an offer to be the top chef at Soho House, a private club whose food we cannot vouch for because we only went there this one time to interview the Beastie Boys. But what's cool about Soho House is when you ask them for water, they give you an entire glass bottle of some exotic brand that is yours to keep. So you can see why Ferguson would be tempted. Eater obtained this email he sent to friends, in which he sticks his thumb in the eye of certain unprincipled scoundrels at Allen & Delancey: "I have strong principles and thoughts on how a restaurant should operate and conduct itself, at every level. Unfortunately those principles have been bought into question. I am leaving for both moral and personal reasons."

The members-only establishment will be in a rowhouse at 241 West 14th Street (between Seventh and Eighth Avenues), just about two blocks from Soho House. The property was on the market in 2005 (pictured at the time, via Curbed), and in it's new incarnation will include sitting rooms, a meeting space and a restaurant with a backyard dining area. The Observer reported that, according to Edward Kirkland (the chair of Board 4’s landmarks task force), “Essentially, they [Linn and Ruggi] see it as something of the Gramercy National Arts Club, but more up-to-date and with it...smaller, more intimate, more invited-membership of people interested in the arts.” Linn and Ruggi have described it as “an upscale private art and literature club for younger people.”

There's yet another interesting bit in this weeks City section FYI column, this time on one of our fair city's old school private clubs, the Century Association. Housed in a land-marked 1891 McKim Mead & White Beaux Arts building on W. 43rd street the association (also called the Century Club) was "originally an arts and letters society founded in 1847." The invitation-only club admitted its first female members in 1988 and currently has around 2,4000 members "many from New York's cultural, professional and political worlds. The 2005 membership directory included Mayor Bloomberg, Brooke Astor, Ric Burns, Robert A. Caro, Chuck Close, Betsy Gotbaum, Henry Kissinger, Robert Morgenthau, David Rockefeller, Andy Rooney and Arthur Schlesinger Jr." Former members include Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Did you catch them while they were in town? We were lucky enough to be at night one. And for those who care, these famous people were also at the shows: Ed Norton, Michael Stipe and Michael Mills.

against the law. And who knew he drove a Ford Escape?

Be warned, anyone who works in media or anyone who knows anyone who works in media or anyone who knows anyone who consumes media. Apparently, a line in the sand has been drawn between blogs that cover NY media - a line in the sand, people! Or at least that's what an article in the NY Times City section suggests. The facts: In one snarky corner, there's Gawker with snarky publisher Nick Denton and snarky editor Jessica Coen, and in the other corner, there's Mediabistro, with less-snarky founder Laurel Touby and new uber-snarky editor Elizabeth Spiers (formerly of snarkcorp Gawker- still with us?) who is co-authoring the Mediabistro media gossip blog, FishBowlNY - add some quotes about competition, snarketition, rivalries, bitch-smacking, and Tara Reid's boobies (we made two of those up!). It's like Million Dollar Baby, except without the million dollars, and with more snark, and um, what were we talking about?

Dale Peck, Writer

The Post reports that the New York City Marketing Development Corporation is recruiting different celebrities and NYC notables to explain why they love the city in order to develop ways to drum up tourism. A recent poll that the NYC MDC conducted says that "crime is still the No. 1 reason why tourists stay away," prompting the MDC to go to people like Russell Simmons (Phat), Sofia Coppola, Mark Messier, Dick Wolf, and Ric Burns (documentarian), as well as George Steinbrenner (Yankees), Danny Goldberg, David Stern (NBA), Nick Jones (SoHo House), Deputy Mayor Patti Harris and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly and draw out what they love about NYC. The interviews are expected to be a part of a global advertising campaign that may include TV, outdoor, and tie-in books. Burns told the Post, "New York City is about as big a brand as you're going to get. The richness, the denseness of New York's intellectual, spiritual capital is so strong. New York's greatness is not that it is better, but that everyone comes here. Everyone is us." Gothamist agrees that NYC is great, but we hope that the voices of regular New Yorkers are captured, because a lot of NYers we know have great suggestions on what tourists should really see in NY. Then again, some may want to keep those at least semi-secret. But the least the NYC MDC can do is tell tourists to visit the other boroughs, the Noguchi Museum or Arthur Avenue in the Bronx.

Deborah Schoeneman, New York Magazine

Greg Allen

Choire Sicha

A new way to get your Anglophilia on in the New York area, without resorting to Soho House or yet another packet of fish & chips: British taxi cabs are coming to a Westchester-area livery cab company. No word on whether the drivers will say, "Hallo, guv'nor!"

The Daily News spends a day on set of Sex and the City - the day they happen to be filming at Soho House. The News is quick to point out that even though the girls are fabulous, "" Gawker, who has visited Soho House in less nefarious ways, has this tip about where else in the club SATC filmed.

Gothamist went to an opening at the Vitra store on Hudson between West 13th and 14th Streets. There was a lot of pretty furniture, but what we remember are the margaritas and being allowed to go upstairs and see the offices, which are supposedly off limits to regular visitors. Plus the opening in question, the exhibit of work and furniture from designers Constantin Boym and Lauren Lyon Boyms, like miniatures of seminal places in history (World Trade Center, the Unabomber's cabin, the tunnel where Princess Di died) and the Boyms strap chair.