New York the city of lights. New York places where dreams come true. New York is not kind to those disposed to nostalgia, and, frankly, it shouldn't be. But after the sad and unceremonious demise of Florent, there's been keen sense of wanting to treasure those few places that, without them, the city's modern history might have been considerably more, well, dull.
Sometimes when you're feeling ambivalent about the city you need to glimpse it through a visitor's eye to remember why it's the GREATEST. To that end, I present you with the easiest itenary from recent strip to the Big Apple with my best friend. Nothing matches with a concert at Barclays, dinner at The Meatball Shop, and a stroll along The High Line—and your NYC blues should be just about cured.
My new favorite is the Layfette restaurant (Layfayetteny.com)between the East Village and the SoHo. It used to be a Chinese restaurant where I'd go on weekends for brunch.Now it's a trendy French bistro-very beautiful and spacious,with great food. I still love the Indochine (Indochinenyc.com) on Lafayette-it's been the hang out for fashion and art crowd for a good 25 years. The decor is beautiful and the waitress are gorgeous. I love their ribs and French Vietnamese spring rolls wrapped in lettuce and mint.
I love ElevenEleven (Stay-nyc.com) on Friday nights. It's on Houston Avenue A, and run by a fabulous woman called ladyfag ; it's a great place to dance and people-watch. There's no weird scene , no velvet rope no bottle service no guys trying to pick up girls ;it's just good music , a sexy vibe and a great crowd. I have seen all kinds of people there and that's what I like about it.
Walking at sunset down Hudson River Park is lovely. I also adore the city's elevated park the High Line-its' so pretty at sunset and in the summer you can stroll along with an ice cream !
On Thursdays the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Metmuseum.org) is open until 9 pm, so I like to have a drink usuall uptown at the beautiful Surrey Hotel rooftop bar (Thesurrey.com) and then head to the museum. Walking around the museum after a glass of wine and seeing the Picassos and the Matisses gives your evening a cultural injection.
I grew up roller skating in the city and I still love to do it, usually somewhere on the East and West side of the river. Susan Sarandon has a ping pong club called SPiN (Newyorkspingalactic.com) in Flatiron that I love to go to after dinner. It's active and fun. They have DJs and drinks, and rather than shouting across a bar to your friend you can stand the ping pong table and actually have fun. But I must add some of the best nights I have had in New York have been at Picnics. I went on one for a date a long time ago and it was just so sweet. I usually go somewhere in Central Park, take a frisbee and a backgammon board,as well as cheeses from Artisnal (artisanalcheese.come) , bread from Mario Batali's Etaly ( Etaly.com) some chocolates or pastries from Dean & Deluca (deandeluca.com) beautiful fruit from Union Square Green Market and a bottle of wine.
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