Fresh cuts
Fresh cuts
Brass, Sixty Three Clinton, Claud, Centurion NY, Caribbean Cuts, best of the New York Flower Market, bespoke spreadsheets, Jōji, Korin, MORE
RESTAURANTS • First Person
Newly polished
There aren’t many new restaurants below 42nd Street that look like Brass. Just above Madison Square Park on East 27th St. and set deep in the back of the Evelyn Hotel (itself operational since 1903, fully updated in 2017), the restaurant easily captures the feel of old New York: dark mahogany bar, booths lining the dining room, a giant skylight welcoming twilight’s fading wisps, and in the middle of it all, a grand piano.
On a recent Saturday night, the room immediately captivated our crew. The menu, less so. It, too, appears to harken back to another era with greatest hits of a time gone by — steak tartare, crab cakes, crusted duck breast. We weren’t sure we needed this sort of nostalgia.
But there’s much more going on at Brass than meets the eye. Our first evidence of this came with the small hors d'oeuvres, starting with a circle of gougères. Pulling the individual bites apart, I found a perfect consistency to the cheese and bread, and on the tongue, the surprise of fennel seeds. What the menu terms “moules frites” — actually three marinated mussels, set atop a chickpea fritter — also rocked. And then, crab and miatake tartlets, each a small circle of intense flavor, topped with black truffle. Everyone at our table looked at each other: Friends, we’re not at Bemelmans anymore.
Then again, I should’ve known not to take the seemingly straightforward menu at face value. Brass is the latest restaurant from the duo behind two celebrated Lower East Side spots, Wildair and (Bar) Contra, chefs Jeremiah Stone and Fabián von Hauske Valtierra (here, working with restaurant owner Nick Hatsatoruis of Trapizzino on the LES and Moby’s in East Hampton). Their food is never ordinary.
Two appetizers came next: choux farci of cabbage and berkshire pork, sliced like paté and served with a charred sauce of the last of the season’s Jimmy Nardello peppers. Even better marking the summer harvest’s end was tomato carpaccio, served with lobster, atop impossibly thinly sliced cherry tomatoes.
Then, a killer one-two punch to round out the evening. First, the pièce de résistance, a golden Amish chicken roulade for two, served deboned and stuffed with a mousseline of herbs and black truffle, with potato-celeriac pureé. It arrived nearly simultaneously with the knockout: the evening’s piano player. Sitting adjacent to the piano, our table got swept up in the opening of John Lennon’s “Jealous Guy,” segueing into the Beatles and then Alicia Keys’ “If I Ain’t Got You.” All I want on a Saturday night in Manhattan, I thought, is to be sitting in this room, soaking up this food and this vibe.
When the pianist took a setbreak 20 minutes or so later, I realized one more thing about Brass: we could hear each other talk without raising our voices. This is a spot for when I’m 64 — but also, very much for right now. –Lockhart Steele
→ Brass (Nomad) • 7 E 27th St • Mon-Sat 5-11p • Reserve.
Today’s restaurant coverage continues at the end of the issue.
GOODS & SERVICES • FOUND Shop
Tropical dreams
The block of West 28th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues in Chelsea remains an instant pick-me-up. There, the shops of New York’s Flower Market showcase their goods on the sidewalk, so one can happily walk down the street surrounded by blossoms and greenery — an amazing variety of perfectly, freshly-cut flowers, plants of all sizes, vases, and design elements like ribbons and raffia.
On this stretch, Caribbean Cuts is the best source for anything and everything tropical — divinely unique and unusual blossoms like bromeliads and birds of paradise, gigantic foliage, and twisted vines. “The most popular items are the jumbo philodendron leaves,” David, one of the florists, told me. And no wonder: they are gigantic, deeply green, and extremely dramatic. The store also sells its own handmade containers made from hollowed-out bamboo and coconuts, enormous leaves spray-painted in silver and gold so they’ll last, and huge dried husks of the yagua palm designed to turn any floral arrangement a showstopper.
For best results at Caribbean Cuts and other shops on the block, arrive early — the best selection is often gone before midday, and many stores close early. –Karen Moline
→ Shop: Caribbean Cuts (Chelsea) • 128 W 28th St • Mon-Sat 7a-1p.
GOODS & SERVICES • The Nines
New York Flower Market
Caribbean Cuts (Chelsea, above), for unusual tropical flowers and vessels
Associated Cut Flower (Chelsea), stunning specialty roses and wide selection from local farms
Tropical Plants & Orchids (Chelsea), go-to shop for unusual orchids in many colors and varieties
New York FlowerGroup (Chelsea), beautiful selection of unusual cut flowers
George Rallis Wholesale (Chelsea), huge variety of seasonal plants and cut flowers
Jamali Garden (Chelsea), for the vessels — vases, urns, planters, bowls, and other containers in glass, metal, ceramic
International Garden (Chelsea), bouquets made-to-order in minutes
Flowers on Essex (Chelsea), vividly colored classic arrangements
CFD Flower (Chelsea), amazingly realistic silk flowers
The Nines are FOUND's distilled lists of NYC's best. Additions or subtractions? Hit reply or found@foundny.com.
GOODS & SERVICES LINKS: New Tribeca caviar emporium will open in time for the holidays • Nili Lotan Men’s brings ’70s rock star vibe to Duane St. • Rabanne unveils Nano bag, ‘world’s most expensive,’ at Paris runway show • The black hoodie has ascended to wardrobe staple status • We all need a splash of bad taste.
WORK • Quarterly Report
Sheet music
It’s the first day of a new quarter — goodbye to Q3, a bottom-three quarter, with its summer lulls and dogged liminality — which means a fresh start on expectations (and the dashboards that track them).
Here at FOUND, in our infancy and with a predilection for software we don’t have to build ourselves, we’ve got ready-made dashboards available via Substack and Stripe, Meta and Quickbooks. They are all good and fine. At previous, more grown-up companies, I’ve used more sophisticated tracking tools, programs custom-built to pull data from varying sources and slice it multiple ways. Some of those were excellent.
But what really gets me excited these days is a Google Sheet I update by hand. It’s got subscription metrics from the four FOUND cities — NY, LA, SF & Miami. I created it out of necessity to aggregate this data (as each city is a different Substack, with its own Substack dashboard). And now, I’m addicted to it.
I update “Subs Data Network” every morning over coffee before the workday has begun. When I get word of new subscribers midday, via alerts from other programs, I get anxious because they haven’t yet made it in. And I wonder what the day’s paid subscriber upgrades will do to the conversion rate in cell B13.
It’s definitely not the most efficient way to operate. But an obsessed-about, handmade spreadsheet is also the surest indicator I have that a project has taken hold in my psyche. The practice has crept into my personal life, too. I wear a watch that tracks my runs, all available in a sophisticated app. But I also transfer them to a Sheet, day by day, mile by mile.
Someday, FOUND’s new business hires will demand that we employ better tools to track progress. Sheepishly, I’ll agree. But, on this dawn of a new quarter during these evolutionary days of FOUND, I already miss Subs Data Network, and — rudimentary as it is — the promise for our future it holds. –Josh Albertson
WORK LINKS: Hedge fund Bridgewater opening NYC office at 295 Fifth Ave • Chobani takes lease for all 121K SF of 360 Bowery • Former Goldman HQ, 55 Broad, opens as residential rental • Why is NYC losing hotel rooms (6K since 2019)? • Why is the IPO market so lackluster? • More companies are moving comp to bonuses • You’re probably using AI wrong.
WORK • Tuesday Routine
Grand central
GEORGE RUAN • chef / partner • Jōji
Neighborhood you work in: Midtown East
It’s Tuesday morning. What’s the scene at your workplace?
Our restaurant at One Vanderbilt is closed on Mondays, so Tuesday mornings start the week, and it can be quite chaotic. Usually, I start at the Flower Market in Chelsea, picking up the florals for the restaurant. Then, it’s straight to Jōji, as I meet with the other two chef-partners, Wayne and Xiao, along with our management team to start our meetings regarding service, reservations, and events throughout the week. If there are regular or repeat diners, we’ll create special bespoke menus as we serve a different menu for every returning guest, so each dining experience is unique. In between meetings with staff, we receive deliveries for all the ingredients and fish coming in from our purveyors and prep for service for the night and Jōji Box, our omakase sushi to-go.
What’s on the agenda for today?
In addition to our usual routine with meetings and prep, we’re currently getting ready for private events in the upcoming weeks and preparing special menus for those, as well as our regular service.
Any restaurant plans today, tonight, this weekend?
During the summer season, I had a rare opportunity to occasionally have a service off, and like to check out new restaurants. I attended a friends & family at Ikigai. Opened in Fort Greene by a former Masa colleague, Rafal Maslankiewicz, Ikigai is a kaiseki-inspired omakase. Beautiful ingredients and space, just an overall unique experience.
How about a little leisure or culture this week?
Typically, we like to check out new food spots around the city and go to a sports game when we can. My four-year-old loves going to Mets games.
What’s a recent big-ticket purchase you love?
I really enjoy collecting Japanese whisky and during our last trip to Japan, I purchased a Hibiki 30 year. I’m very excited to have this one join the other whiskies on my shelf.
What NYC store or service do you love to recommend?
Korin in Tribeca is a fantastic sourcer of Japanese plateware, cutlery, and kitchen tools. We visit them for our plateware when we’re not able to travel to Japan.
ASK FOUND
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RESTAURANTS • Fine Dining Report
Our fine dining correspondent Lee Pitofsky dines at Per Se as often as most civilians order delivery. Here, now, his latest New York City report for FOUND:
