From LA to NY, JANET MERCEL discovers new restaurants that serve a feast for the senses
State of the art market giving you whiplash? It might be time to escape to the nearest dining hotspot for your culture fix. A spate of new restaurants from coast to coast make the visuals just as much a priority as the food, and want you to experience a creative reckoning—or at least an intimate viewing experience—with a masterwork of contemporary and blue-chip artists.
Just when we thought we knew everything about Daniel Humm, he presents Clemente Bar, the new member of the Eleven Madison Park family, with Italian artist Francesco Clemente. The Surrealist Expressionist artist is also a celebrated creative collaborator, notably with Basquiat and Warhol as an early 1980s New York art star. Inspired by Zurich’s Kronnenhalle, enticing diners with its Joan Mirós, Picassos, and Paul Klees since 1924, Humm’s version, “takes its place alongside other iconic New York City artist bars—Bemelmans at The Carlyle and the King Cole Room at the St. Regis—made both intimate and distinct through the hand of the artists and designers,” says architect Brad Cloepfil of Allied Works.
Clemente Bar shares an entrance with its predecessor, perched above its dining room like the view from a ship captain’s bridge. Ascending the hushed staircase, our host gestured skyward to a dreamy, evocative ceiling fresco. “We had our own Sistine Chapel experience here for a week while it was created,” she smiled. “We’d do anything for Francesco. We love him here.” Upstairs, the bar is moody, sexy, dim, with hand-carved millwork nooks storing prized bottles of Sazerac and Pappy Van Winkle. Alba Clemente’s original drawings punctuate her husband’s murals, including a mythic panel inspired by Persephone’s story. Sunflowers—a nod to their importance in the kitchen downstairs—blossom as she transforms into a tree. The complete body of artwork took nearly a year to finish.
“If you’re looking to enjoy lunch in a pop-art saturated cantine, savoring coal-roasted oysters and farm lettuces while a museum-quality Cindy Sherman or George Condo peeks over your shoulder, this is your chance.”
Like the reinvented EMP, the menu leaps through plant-based hoops. (Leeks four ways! Pickled, marinated, fried, with a leek martini). At the nine-seat tasting counter, prepare for a five-course prix fixe, or sidecar your cocktail with à la carte snacks in the bar and lounge. While the spaces share DNA, the team tells Avenue: “Clemente takes on a more relaxed, playful vibe—[inviting] guests to kick back, explore, and enjoy a sense of discovery.”
In Soho, Manuela— from Artfarm, the independent hospitality operation by the owners of Hauser & Wirth—is a treasure vault of modern, post-modern, and contemporary artists with ties to downtown. If you’re looking to enjoy lunch in a pop-art saturated cantine, savoring coal-roasted oysters and farm lettuces while a museum-quality Cindy Sherman or George Condo peeks over your shoulder, this is your chance.
The sumptuous draperies guarding the entrance are a commission from Nigerian-British artist Duro Olowu, leading to the pièce de résistance—Mika Rottenberg’s inviting, fantastical bar installation of carved bittersweet vines harvested from upstate forests, mushroom-like orbs, and over a ton of reclaimed NYC street waste plastic. Rottenberg tells AVENUE, “Plastic is toxic, yet seductive. I wanted to make people wonder what it’s made from, and perhaps question why more things aren’t created in a circular, restorative way.”
In both New York and the original L.A. outpost, the menu is devoted to seasonal availability, making the two menus entirely different. In NY, that means fluke from Long Island versus local squid in Los Angeles. Manuela is also home to Manhattan’s only in-house restaurant composter, “The Rocket,” which processes food waste on-site to be used by Project EATS, a non-profit founded by artist Linda Goode Bryant to nourish its six urban gardens across the city. As Artfarm’s Ben Crofton puts it, “We’re doing our part to be good neighbors.” As for neighbors, after you’ve ogled works by Rita Ackermann and Rashid Johnson (whose pieces also adorn the walls at their friend Humm’s EMP dining room), and taken in the Lorna Simpson and Louise Bourgeois’ spider sculpture scaling the stairs, the chalkboard on your way out posts the current programming for the Hauser & Wirth gallery just around the corner.
While Joan Miró may have inspired one of the original art restaurants, a fine dining spot in Los Angeles, Muse, actually has a few. London-bred newcomer Fardad Khayami named his Santa Monica restaurant after “Museum,” the underground supper club he started as a student at USC. By graduation, the twenty-three-year-old restaurateur had served 3,000 guests (with another 6K on the waitlist), using the opportunity to introduce fellow students to art viewings and rare imported vintage bottles.
Muse continues the gallery tradition with a rotating showcase of world-class art, the first exhibit spotlighting a private family collection of Miró pieces. Plush dining rooms with speakeasy-style nooks, all set against a moody backdrop of French surrealism and Italian romance, are designed by Marc Ange (the designer behind the Beverly Hills Hotel’s pink palm tree “Le Refuge”). “The art isn’t just décor—it’s integral to the experience,” Ange says. “The atmosphere is quiet, respectful of the works, and elegant.” Khayami’s childhood foundation of European fine dining and Persian family feasts has evolved into a top-tier operation. Guided by his culinary hero, world-renowned maître d’ Diego Masciaga, with a team that includes Matthew Rogel (responsible for the acclaimed wine list at Felix), Muse’s fusion of high art, design, and cuisine brings a whole new (old) world to L.A.
