FOUND: cheat codes

Radio Kwara, Pierhouse, classic NYC hotels, La Fantaisie, Yolo, MORE

Sep 22, 2023

∙ Paid

REAL ESTATE • In Contract

Low flow

After a summer’s worth of out-of-office bouncebacks, September feels like the month the city should rev back to life. And yet, historically, it’s the slowest time of the year for high-end real estate transactions. Blame it on Labor Day, the High Holidays, back-to-school chaos. Only 10 contracts above $4M got inked in Manhattan last week, per Olshan, including a 2536SF, 3BR at Lantern House in the High Line District, asking $8.75M, down roughly $2M from its original 2020 price.

Brooklyn is also easing into the new school year, with just 12 deals above $2M signed last week. The priciest of the lot was a $5M sale at Pierhouse — one of the big three new Brooklyn waterfront developments, along with the Olympia in Dumbo and Quay Tower by Pier 6. The 2BR unit, N1016, last traded for $4.4M in 2019. Also at Pierhouse this month: tales of a bizarre feud over “toilet noise” from a public bathroom on the building’s ground floor disturbing residents of a duplex upstairs. The bathroom exists as part of the public/private arrangement that finances the park and allowed the construction of Pierhouse and Quay Tower. New York: Still got it.

→ Pierhouse (Brooklyn Heights) • 90 Furman St.
→ Lantern House (West Chelsea) • 515 W. 18th St.

NYC REAL ESTATE LINKS: Winners (Brooklyn) and losers (co-ops) in NYC’s current real estate market • Inside One High Line’s luxe art unveiling • How Hudson River Park revitalized Manhattan’s west side • Can a city really ‘die’?

GETAWAYS • The Nines

NYC hotels, classics

Lotte New York Palace (Midtown East), classic entrance through grand gates, $714
The Peninsula (Midtown), neutral tones and understated elegance, $1101
St. Regis (Midtown), for tea or dinner in the grand Astor Court, $1392
Park Lane New York (Central Park South), panoramic Central Park views, $1299
The Carlyle (Upper East Side, above), piano and cocktails at Bemelmans, of course, $1186
The Lowell (Upper East Side), timeless elegance, $1265
The Pierre (Upper East Side), rising over Central Park, $876
The Beekman (Wall Street), new classic with stunner atrium, $530
The Chatwal (Times Square), retrofitted 1905 building with art deco interiors, $1035

All prices one night king, October weekend. Hit reply or email found@foundny.com with additions and subtractions.

GETAWAYS • Paris

La Fantaisie is real

Boutique hotels can be an illusion. They look great on Instagram, but in person, the magic is shattered. This has been my experience with some Parisian boutiques in interesting neighborhoods.

Fortunately, La Fantaisie, a new hotel that opened in July in the 9e, delivers a highly creative luxury experience. The design (by Swedish architect Martin Brudnizki) is bright and optimistic, with enough surface area to cover several contexts. Creature comforts include a lush garden, a perfect cafe for informal morning coffee catch-ups, and a buzzy rooftop bar.

Dominique Crenn, the first female U.S. chef to win three Michelin stars at her San Francisco restaurant, is behind the hotel’s anchoring restaurant, Golden Poppy. Its menu — California-inspired, fish and vegetable-centric — has become a talking point for Parisian gourmands I spoke to, including a former head of the Michelin Guides.

Many of the hotel’s service team have defected from ultra-luxury hotels like La Reserve Ramatuelle in the South of France, professional polish intact. Interactions were warm, with plenty of thoughtful anticipation that a smaller footprint boutique hotel allows.

While the Palaces of Paris (Le Bristol, Hotel De Crillon) charge upwards of €1500 a night for a basic room, La Fantaisie ranges between €350 and €600 for something comfortable, replete with a terrace (and ideally, a garden view). I’ll be taking their charm and execution over icy opulence for my future city stays. –Colin Nagy

→ La Fantaisie (9th arr.) • 24 Rue Cadet, 75009 Paris, France.

GETAWAYS LINKS: First-ever World’s 50 Best Hotels list revealed • Can angry hordes get Delta to reconsider loyalty changes? • Après Delta, the new rules of airline loyalty • What’s wrong with the London restaurant scene? • More La Fantaisie: A special conversation with Dominique Crenn.

CULTURE & LEISURE • Fall stages

PACNYC season

Relatively Speaking: Family as Refuge, Perelman Performing Arts Center (Wall Street), Fri @ 8p, pay-what-you-wish
Global Citizen Festival, Great Lawn (Central Park), Sat @ 2p, Citi Premium VIP Ticket, Lauryn Hill et al., $599 per
Ani DiFranco w/ Kristen Ford, Le Poisson Rouge (Greenwich Village), Sat @ 6p, GA: $228 per

CULTURE LINKS: Longtime downtown gallery, Foxy Production, to shutter • Renovated and re-opening: Tenement Museum on LES and Center for Brooklyn History in Brooklyn Heights • Illuminated steel whale surfaces on Broadway • Bob Ross’s first on-air painting could fetch nearly $10M.

CULTURE & LEISURE • Friday Routine

You only live three times

YOLANDA EDWARDS, founder, Yolo Journal (a quarterly print travel/lifestyle magazine and a weekly email newsletter)
Neighborhood you live in: Park Slope, Brooklyn

It’s Friday afternoon, how are you rolling into the weekend?
Packing up the car to head upstate in Sullivan County, about 2.5 hours drive. We've been going there since 2001 and don't miss a weekend if we're in town.

Any restaurant plans?
Sometimes we'll stay back on a Friday night to miss traffic, and if we do that, depending on the season, we'll head to different favorites. If it's cold weather we love old school Keens or Aretsky's Patroon for steaks, wedge salads, and martinis. If it's summer, we'll always stop in at Dante!

How about a little leisure or culture?
We love to walk the loop of Prospect Park in the early morning with the dog, and if we’re in town on the weekend, we'll try to get to the Met, MOMA, or the Brooklyn Museum.

Any weekend getaways?
Of course we're big fans of Sullivan County (you can read some of my favorites here), but we also love Block Island for the most far away feeling that’s close by.

What was your last great vacation?
We were just on a road trip from the Medoc region to Biarritz, and had the best time checking out all the little towns in between. We stayed at the new Regina Experimental (which was great), and then on our way back, drove through the Landes region, where we discovered the thermal spa town of Dax and checked out the Hotel Splendid, where Hemingway apparently spent quite a bit of time — and then we overnighted at the epic Les Pres d'Eugenie, which has had a 3 star Michelin restaurant since the 70s. It was incredible.

RESTAURANTS • First Person

Radio Kwara dials it up (stand by for new menu)

It took a minute to figure out that the short narrative story on the piece of paper set in front of us at Radio Kwara was our menu. “Someone once asked me, what do you miss about Ilorin [Nigeria]?,” it began. “I miss a time when all I was consumed with was playing Super Mario and eating Indomie noodles.”

Those noodles — very much in the spirit of dorm-room ramen, but served here in a dazzling goat-pepper soup — arrived as the third of seven dishes plated by chef Ayo Balogun in the tiny open kitchen at the back of the restaurant (above). I, too, have already found myself missing them.