Happy Saturday everyone! I hope you’re staying warm and cozy this weekend. Regretfully, Sam and I were freezing outside all week between managing production in the garment district, running shipping logistics and endless meetings. I can’t describe how happy I am to be nestled up on the couch with coffee out of the Arctic.
We have a really fun drop launching very early next week. You heard it here first. In preparation, we’ve been trying all new spots around town. While some are great, and some not so much, it has me thinking a lot about hospitality. It seems most restaurants, reviewers and media care most about decor, menu design and which influencers are eating there…and nothing about hospitality. Which is number one in my book. I would rather eat ok food at a restaurant with spectacular hospitality than superb food with bad service.
While we’ve already put together a very comprehensive uptown guide below, I thought it would be fun today to put together a fast cheat sheet today of restaurants in New York with the best hospitality. Not the best food, or the most iconic, but the best hospitality.
What does that mean? It means you have a dedicated team member refilling your water and a distinguishably different server taking your order. The restaurant has an actual phone number you can call. If not a phone number, a management email that is checked often. The host/ess actually makes eye contact (and a smile!) with you when you arrive. The host/ess greets you first and they have worked at said establishment for more than six months. There is plenty of room between each table. There are complementary feminine products in the bathroom. It sounds silly to say these things, but you would be shocked how many popular restaurants have none of these features anymore.
And yes, I do think we would be fabulous restauranteurs down the line. I think about it often. The uptown lunch scene is a drifting tumbleweed. I digress.
Wonderful Hospitality in New York:
La Goulue
Le Bernardin
Orsay
The Grill
Harry Cipriani in the Sherry Netherland
Gramercy Tavern
Sant Ambroeus Greenwich Village
After all, aren’t we all in the hospitality business? I think the nicest thing we can do is think of how we can take care of others. When a delivery is running behind, it’s the first priority of our business to make sure communication with customers is handled. When I entertain at home, I always serve food, even if it’s just a celebratory drink. The hospitality business is just the business of treating others with respect.
xx,
MM
