The Best Place To Watch New York Dress Up Again
The storied hotel — the first in New York City to offer room service, have electricity in rooms, and allow single-women guests —reopened last week at 301 Park Avenue, between East 49th and 50th streets, presenting three new restaurants: There's Lex Yard led by Chef Michael Anthony of Gramercy Tavern in the former Oscar's space along with Peacock Alley with cocktails from Jeff Bell of Please Don't Tell. There's also the kaiseki Japanese Yoshoku by chef Ry Nitzkowski, who led the sushi bar at Zero Bond and was chef and partner at The Residence of Mr. Moto.
Peacock Alley is the only of the trio of restaurant openings that remains from the hotel's former life; it still connects Lexington and Park Avenues, but is now more dazzling than ever. During the renovation, Hilton Hotels pushed the guest reception area toward the street. It expands Peacock Alley so it now feels like a grand living room outfitted with tufted armchairs, deep corner banquettes, and polished tables surrounding the iconic golden filigreed clock, a gift from Queen Victoria in 1893.
Also, for the first time, Peacock Alley does double duty as an old-world bar and an all-day restaurant, serving breakfast, lunch, cocktails, and dinner steps from the piano where Cole Porter wrote hits like 'I've Got You Under My Skin.'
The Cole Porter piano and the famous clock from Queen Victoria in Peacock Alley. Paul Quitoriano
Breakfast
Cocooned from the chaos of midtown, Peacock Alley is a peaceful respite in the morning. Jazz plays overhead, mixing with the quiet din of conversation. Blue-suited servers deliver coffees served on Bernardaud china to a collection of guests who apparently still go into the office. Newspapers are unfolded, small perky dogs strut with their Chanel-clad owners, and silver trays of warm croissants by pastry chef Jenny Chiu are ferried to tables where they are quickly demolished. Naturally, there's an avocado toast, but why have another avocado toast when you can have the eggs Benedict ($38), a dish popularized by the hotel back in the 1930s? Here it's reconstructed on a sourdough English Muffin with your choice of country ham or smoked salmon, draped in a glossy sash of hollandaise.
The Waldorf salad. Paul Quitoriano
Lunch
By lunchtime, the crowds of smartly dressed banker types and cliques of fancy friends roll in. It's the sort of place you might expect to find AJLT's Carrie, Miranda, and Charlotte discussing whether Aidan is truly committed to the long-distance relationship.
The all-day menu by chef Michael Anthony includes caviar service, raw-bar towers, and a smoked turkey club properly layered with crispy bacon and ripe slices of summer tomato. The Waldorf salad ($26) feels obligatory given how much time Anthony spent figuring out how to bring it back to life. 'I had no prior experience making Waldorf salads, but I've thought long and hard about this one,' said Anthony. His renovated salad is baby gem lettuces, honeycrisp apples, quartered grapes, and caramelized walnuts topped with a heavy snowfall's worth of grated New York State cheddar. I can't say I ever craved a Waldorf before, but here I am saying just that.
Cocktail hour
As the hour passes 5 p.m., the pianist takes his seat at Cole Porter's piano, and the peacocking that gave the bar its original name begins. While there is no dress code, a nostalgia of bygone glamour travels like a crease in time into the room, with hostesses in floor-length gold sequin gowns and servers in crushed velvet wide-lapeled tuxedos designed by No Uniform. If a Beyoncé tour were a cocktail bar, it would be Peacock Alley.
The 12-seat bar fills up quickly, and the wait for a table can run over an hour, not surprising given the setting and cocktails by PDT's Jeff Bell, whose list of 20 cocktails includes several originals to the hotel. They include the Waldorf (rye, sweet vermouth, bitters), the Commodore ($34, bourbon, lemon, pomegranate), and the Dr. Cook ($32, Tito's Vodka, Luxardo Maraschino, lime, grapefruit).
'Hotel bars are the foundation of classic cocktails,' said Bell. 'The Savoy in London and the Oak Room at the Plaza. I tried to balance the DNA of the hotel with modern innovation.'
There are four ice-cold martinis, three handsome Old Fashioneds ($30 to $34), and seven more cocktails that will change with the seasons, including a Rhuby Slipper ($30) that leans on fresh rhubarb juice and lemon balm.
To snack on with your cocktails, have the housemade Cheez-Its and fancy roasted nuts sprinkled liberally with seaweed and sesame furikake. Add a platter of roasted and raw vegetables with sweet French onion-ish dip ($28) and the pigs in a blanket ($28), made from Chiu's golden puff pastry and Anthony's homemade sausages. 'We wanted to make elevated versions of familiar dishes,' said Anthony. 'We dress them up without making them too fancy.'
The seafood platter is available in Peacock Alley and Lex Yard. Paul Quitoriano
Dinner
While the room is steeped in history, the menu isn't stodgy. Dinner comes together like a party, with a seafood tower ($118), New England crab cakes, Benton's ham with biscuits ($24), lobster rolls ($53) topped with embarrassing amounts of caviar and truffles, and beef sliders ($36) topped with cheese, caramelized onions, pickles, and zesty katsu sauce.
Before you leave, perhaps there's time for a nightcap such as the $75 (!) Reserve Rob Roy, a drink original to the Waldorf that Bell mixes like a serenade from Yamazaki Distiller's Edition Whiskey, Cocchi Vermouth di Torino, La Venaria Reale Riserva, and the addition of Benedictine, a change from the original recipe. 'This is such an artful and historic cocktail,' said Bell. It's the luxurious end to an opulent rebirth.
Garnishing the cocktail at Peacock Alley. Paul Quitoriano
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