An Edible Ode To Art Nouveau: Merchant Roots' New ‘In Bloom' Menu Redefines Edible Flowers
Merchant Roots has long carved out a special niche in San Francisco's dining landscape—an intimate culinary theater where imagination and fine dining converge. Since opening in 2018 as a hybrid artisanal market and café, the concept quickly evolved under Owner/ Chef Ryan Shelton's direction.
'After years of being the chef at restaurants that were always trying to be bigger, open more hours, more a la carte options, full cafe and bar offerings, I realized that what I wanted to offer was something different,' Chef Shelton says. 'I just wanted to create an intimate space where I could cook something I was proud of and present it to the guest myself.'
By 2019, Merchant Roots had fully transitioned to a destination for highly creative, themed tasting menus hosted at 'The Table at Merchant Roots,' a communal experience for just eight guests per evening built around storytelling themes. The first one? Elements, where each course embodied a celestial force.
Themed, experiential dinners quickly gained a loyal following, leading Chef Shelton to close the café and focus entirely on The Table—building the momentum that eventually fueled Merchant Roots' expansion to a new SoMa location in August 2024.
Now, with its new location, Merchant Roots continues to redefine experiential dining with its latest menu, In Bloom. The premise is simple: an entire, beautiful menu built around edible flowers. But at Merchant Roots, flowers aren't just tossed on as a last-minute garnish—they take center stage.
Diners experience the full spectrum of floral potential, from nuanced, aromatic sauces made with jasmine and rose to hearty courses showcasing flowering vegetables like artichokes, cauliflower, and asparagus.
Triple Black Sea Bream
Each dish pushes the guest to rethink the role of edible blooms, highlighting their flavor, complexity, and unexpected versatility. For example, the centerpiece course is a Jasmine Tea Smoked Duck which features jasmine tea glazed duck; duck and jasmine pho; chioggia beet pickles; jasmine candy and milk pudding; and chrysanthemum leaves. This course is served in three dishes, presented with a mini gold greenhouse that's filled with billowing jasmine tea 'smoke' from a bronze watering canister.
For Chef Shelton, the theatrical aspect of the experience isn't just aesthetic or for vanity—it's essential to deepening the connection between diner and dish. 'I've always considered guest engagement to be the 'secret sauce' of a dining experience,' he explains. 'If I can connect dishes in a way that the guest either anticipates or remembers after the fact, the menu becomes more vivid to them.'
Rather than relying on unexpected ingredient combinations, Merchant Roots crafts menus designed to evoke memory, nostalgia, and retroactive enjoyment—making the dining experience resonate long after the final course.
Past menus have transported guests through mushroom-centric foraging journeys in enchanted forests, Victorian novels, monochromatic adventures through all the colors of the rainbow, and Wonka-style candyland fantasies, but In Bloom offers a more grounded, sensory journey through nature's fleeting beauty.
It's another powerful example of how Merchant Roots, fueled by creativity and a dedication to meaningful guest engagement, continues to evolve past the traditional tasting menu format—and remains one of San Francisco's most captivating culinary experiences.
Spring Picnic
As the team at Merchant Roots developed In Bloom, they found themselves drawn to the philosophy that cooking, much like art, is a kind of alchemy—a transformation of ingredients, techniques, and influences into a sensory experience greater than the sum of its parts.
The idea of challenging and expanding diners' perceptions of edible flowers sparked an exploration not just of flavor, but of presentation and meaning. In seeking a creative framework, they found inspiration in the Art Nouveau movement, which similarly sought to integrate form and function in a way that honored the natural world.
Just as Art Nouveau offered a striking departure from the rigid, revivalist styles of the 19th century, In Bloom reimagines how flowers can function in cuisine—going beyond simple decoration to become a central, transformative element of each dish.
We chatted with Chef Ryan Shelton on his unique restaurant and dining concept, legacy menus, the creative process and more. Here's what he had to say.
I've always considered guest engagement to be the 'secret sauce' of a dining experience. If I can connect dishes in a way that the guest either anticipates or remembers after the fact, the menu becomes more vivid to them.
Merchant Roots rarely relies on using novel ingredient combinations, instead, we tend to build dishes on flavors that will trigger memory and incorporate retroactive enjoyment. It's a bit of a trick, but the kind that benefits guest and chef alike. The theatrical theme has been a potent tool for us in achieving this, and it has driven us past the traditional tasting menu format.
In terms of Merchant Roots' origins—after years of being the chef at restaurants that were always trying to be bigger, open more hours, more a la carte options, full cafe and bar offerings, I realized that what I wanted to offer was something different. I just wanted to create an intimate space where I could cook something I was proud of and present it to the guest myself.
Hummingbird
Wanting to create this boutique mercantile which showcased the roots of my craft was what inspired the name. The original plan was to focus on food retail, (fresh pasta, charcuterie, jams… etc.) but knowing my background in fine dining, we envisioned periodic themed series where we could flex on some tasting menus. As demand for our fine dining series grew, (and the fun we had creating them) Merchant Roots evolved to what it is today.
I had the unique opportunity to attend an Art School which had a Culinary program as part of its offerings. Unlike most culinary schools, this meant I had to take classes like Art History and Color Theory. I've always found the material fascinating. Knowing that different cultures perceive colors differently due to language and shared experience almost feels a bit like pulling the veil back on reality a bit 'there is no spoon…'
Chefs normally take such pains to make dishes colorful, and the existence of monochrome dishes are so boldly antithetical that they have an even more intense emotional resonance. Looking at other monochrome dishes in books and magazines, I always found it weird to see an all-white presentation plated in a splashy or violent manner. Likewise, it seems odd to me to see an overly manicured or geometric dish in all green.
Our goal was to create a menu of monochrome dishes presented in harmony with their emotional nature, in style and flavor. We had served this menu as a meal kit during the pandemic, which takes a lot of recipe practice and refinement, so we knew it would be a strong menu with which to start at our new space.
A dish from Color Theory
We design dishes as a team in quarterly brainstorming sessions. Our creative process always starts with the theme. First we break the theme out into its various components. Then we list feelings, emotions, aesthetic styles, and flavors that can accompany each color. We then look at the grouping of ingredients and descriptors and try and conceive of a dish that fits.
The amount of iterations varies—for example, our Black course (a mirror-glazed Black Forest moussecake) was pretty much done in one iteration. Alternatively, we had to try 10 or more completely different ideas over the course of months before we found something to suit Blue.
This ultimately became a blue corn grit soufflé with crab and caviar. Blue is probably one of my favorite dishes on that menu now—I love that it manages to feel novel and familiar at the same time. I also love the freeze-dried spinach fonduta flower pot that we made for Green. It's a technique that we developed in house and I think it's pretty special.
I think the strongest move we've made to strike this balance comes from the fact that we all take turns in service. As a chef, when you are stuck in a traditional kitchen - a stainless steel box in the back, it's hard not to get trapped in all the little imperfections of the food and slowly lose yourself to frustration.
By keeping our kitchen exposed to the dining room and allowing the chefs to share the floor with guests, we can break down those barriers and have an opportunity to feel like we are a part of the party. It makes it hard to take yourself too seriously.
Milk & Honey
We say that the themes we choose represent restaurants that don't exist and could never exist again. We hope to select narrow pie slices of culture, shared experience, or the natural world and explore them to the fullest. Our menus are the product of nine months of brainstorming, R&D, and revision, though we only serve them for 3 months.
We've taken these opportunities to immerse ourselves fully in Color Theory, Pasta & Stories, Summer in 42 Plates… etc. We've tried to make immersion easy for our guests with conversation starters on the table during their dinner and a list of continued experiences on the back of our menus. We hope, in addition to a delicious and satisfying meal, that our guests end up with a bit of thematic food-for-thought.
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Los Angeles Times
a day ago
- Los Angeles Times
Their dream kitchens burned in the Eaton fire. What got them cooking again
Two cooks talk about loss and recovery. Plus, our summer cook-along with 'Chef That!' Also, advice on cooking for dogs and eating with dogs, taquito comfort and fan-service restaurants (or what Day 1 was like at the Tesla Diner). I'm Laurie Ochoa, general manager of L.A. Times Food, with this week's Tasting Notes. The most beautiful kitchen I ever cooked in was far from perfect. It was built into one of six Pasadena apartments that in the 1920s had been carved out of a Victorian mansion designed by Frederick Roehrig, the architect behind Old Town Pasadena's Hotel Green and its surviving annex, Castle Green. The dining room and kitchen had once been a grand parlor room with a fireplace at one end and most of the original wood details still on the walls and ceiling. The kitchen's counter curved with the arc of several windows set into the bend of one wall, with soft sunlight filtering in through the greenery planted outside. But the stove, relocated and updated since the days Jonathan Gold and I occupied that apartment, was a finicky old thing. And the counter, so attractively placed, was too low for serious cooking. Our backs would often ache if there were too many vegetables to chop or dishes to wash. It was a dreamy kitchen, but it wasn't a dream kitchen. And yet, we made some of our happiest meals there. There are cooks I know who have had dream kitchens, spaces that were designed just for them and functioned according to their specific cooking needs. Ruth Reichl, author and former restaurant critic and editor, says she designed her U-shaped kitchen to fit her body and the open floor plan of the home she and her husband, Michael Singer, share in New York's Columbia County. With expansive views of the upper Hudson Valley, it's inviting but also intimate in its footprint; no more than two or three steps are required to reach most of her appliances and tools. During parties, Reichl is easily able to roll out pie dough while catching up with early-arriving guests and there is lots of counter space around the U for setting out platters of food that always tempt some hungry person before it's officially time to eat. Closer to home, I was lucky enough to be invited many times to the Altadena home of Michelle Huneven, novelist and food writer (often for this paper), and Jim Potter, an attorney specializing in environmental law and an accomplished bread baker. From big, crowded Seders at Passover to weekday soup meals, always with something wonderfully sweet at the end, I watched their modest cooking space expand and evolve into a beautiful, functional and comfortable modern space with a dining table at the center of the room that allowed guests to watch the interplay of two excellent cooks at work. 'I had a little 1,000-square-foot house, and when Jim and I married, that was fine for a while,' Huneven said recently in the Times Test Kitchen. 'Then he began to bake bread. And very shortly, everything in my little kitchen was covered with bread glue. I was like, 'We need a bigger kitchen.' Before we knew it, we'd designed a great big freestanding kitchen. I'm short, so in the place of overhead cabinets, we had windows out to our garden. He had his breadmaking area; I had my cooking area. We each had a sink. He had his own oven. And he had his own dishwasher. Praise the Lord.' Cookbook author Molly Baz's dream kitchen in Altadena was one I never saw in person but I interacted with it virtually through her 'Hit the Kitch' video series and Instagram feed. 'My home kitchen was also my place of work,' Baz said, sitting alongside Huneven in the Times Test Kitchen. 'My husband, [Ben Willett], designed the space as the heart of the home. It was an expansive space that was a hanging-out living room, lounge, bar, kitchen, all in this one large room. We designed the kitchen very intentionally to be the anchor of like everything I do, the place where I would shoot my cookbooks and all of my content, where I would develop all of my recipes. So we decided to do it all butter-colored, and it was just this beautiful monochromatic, creamy butter-yellow-colored dream.' As you've undoubtedly surmised by now, both Huneven and Baz lost their Altadena homes — and their dream kitchens — in the Eaton fire. 'We evacuated to a friend's house about 4:30 in the morning with another couple who lived much closer to Eaton Canyon,' Huneven said. 'When they learned that their house had burned, I found that so shocking that I just sat there with my hands over my mouth for about, I don't know, 15 minutes. I just couldn't absorb it. Then, at about 8 o'clock, Jim decided to drive up to our house. He later told me he'd known even before he drove up because he controlled the sprinklers and the solar panels from his phone, and nothing was responding. When he called me to say it was gone, he sent a picture of the house on the corner still burning with flames coming out of the windows, not a fire truck in sight. I was preconditioned for the loss, because I'd already reacted to one home burning down. I didn't cry until 48 hours later.' Baz's story is similar. 'I evacuated earlier, at 7:30 p.m., because some friends and neighbors had seen the fire, and it was creeping closer and closer,' she said. 'We never got a notice, but we decided, let's get out of here. Throughout the night, we were refreshing our phones, watching the map get populated with new homes that had burned. But the whole night, I was under the impression that my house had somehow by the grace of God gotten skipped because of this map. In the morning, my husband wanted to go to the house just to triple check and so, he got in the car and drove nervously up there. I got a call about 30 minutes later and he was just in tears. He was like, 'There's nothing left.' ' Huneven, whose newest, highly praised novel, 'Bug Hollow,' is anchored in Altadena, her longtime home, and Baz, who came to Altadena from Brooklyn in 2020 and started the mayo/sando sauce brand Ayoh! last year, are both terrific cooks with very different styles. When Baz came into Te Times to record a video demonstration of the highly craveable pistachio halva chocolate chunk cookie recipe she created for her second cook book 'More Is More,' I thought Huneven and Baz might want to meet each other. During their conversation about their experiences of loss and recovery, recorded by video producer Mark E. Potts, they immediately found things in common. 'One of the things that I wanted in the kitchen was a sofa,' Huneven said, 'so we had this beautiful, long window seat with big welted cushions. Every morning we would wake up and drink our tea and coffee there with the dog and look out into the garden and get ready for the day.' 'We also had a sitting area where we would start the day,' Baz said. 'We had a built-in couch that my husband designed, the first coffee table he ever made, and a chaise longue, which didn't really have a use until I had my son 10 months ago. It became the perfect place to nurse. I would have my coffee and nurse him on the chaise longue every morning. It was just kind of a perfect place.' After the fire, neither Huneven nor Baz felt much like cooking. 'I rebelled,' Huneven said. 'I didn't cook for two months. Or, rather, I cooked like two dinners, and it was the same dinner where I stuck a bunch of cherry tomatoes on a sheet pan, boiled some pasta and that was it, with maybe some burrata. I don't even remember how we ate. I mean, I say I wasn't traumatized, but it really was a blur.' 'I didn't cook for a while either,' Baz said. 'I got back into the kitchen to finish a recipe I was working on the day of the fire. It was a savory egg quiche, but treated like a burnt Basque cheesecake, cooked at a really high heat, a crustless quiche. I thought about taking it with me when we evacuated, but I expected I'd be back the next day. One of the the last things I said before I left was, 'Damn, I just wish the quiche was a little more burnt.' Because I had this vision of a really burnished exterior. And so later the quiche got burnt. Once I pulled myself together enough to think about food, that's the next thing I made. It was really comforting and cathartic. I made everyone leave the kitchen and was like, 'I'm cooking. I need to be alone.' So it was a bit of a therapy session for myself. And yeah, the quiche was delicious.' Both Baz and Huneven are living in different rental homes in Echo Park while they figure out the logistics of rebuilding. 'So much of cooking is a graceful dance,' Baz said, 'and I felt so ungraceful for the first three weeks that it made me not want to cook. I've gotten over that hump, and I think I'm regaining my muscle memory in this new space now. I feel like I can cook and not fumble around.' 'We moved into a completely empty house, nothing in the drawers. We had a couple of camping pans that had been in the trunk of our our truck. But one of the things that was so amazing is that we landed in a sea of generosity. I'm not wearing any clothes that I bought. They're all gifts. And people furnished our kitchen with a house-warming party, but it was really a kitchen warming. 'The incredible kindness and generosity of people, that's a gift I never anticipated,' Huneven continued. 'It's also really lessened the trauma. Because, you know, it's stuff, and it can be replaced. Houses can be rebuilt. Somebody said to me, 'This is the worst thing that's ever happened to you.' And I'm like, 'No, it's not.' You know, the loss of people that I've loved, some bad breakups in my youth. Now those were bad. This was bad too, but it's not the worst thing.' 'We lost all of the physical things,' Baz said, agreeing with Huneven. 'But it highlights what you do have, which is your relationships and your community. And that becomes the most important thing in the world. My friends and my family, the people who are holding me together in all of this, are everything to me right now. All of the bulls— just washes away. You learn and understand like that living is actually about humanity and people. The rest can burn down, and you're going to be OK.' Baz is just one of the cooks and chefs who have been to the Times Test Kitchen in recent weeks to meet our 'Chef That!' challenge: Come up with a recipe that demonstrates chef skills and creativity but is still simple enough for an average home cook to make. Our 'Chef That!' video series is ongoing, but this Sunday we're publishing a special cook-along recipe section full of summer recipes from the chef series plus a few from cookbook authors in our 'Book to Cook' video series. Among the recipes to look for, home-oven-cooked beef ribs with outdoor smoker flavor from Andrew and Michelle Muñoz of Moo's Craft Barbecue, spicy cold mung bean noodles from 88 Club's Mei Lin, Hailee Catalano's 'mean, green' turkey sandwich, the egg salad sando that Father's Office founder Sang Yoon serves at his Helm's Bakery complex in Culver City and an incredible grapefruit cream pie from Quarter Sheets' dessert guru Hannah Ziskin. Los Angeles, says senior Food editor Danielle Dorsey, is ranked the nation's most popular city to own a dog. It's also a very good city for eating out with a dog. Dorsey put together a guide to the best dog-friendly patios to take your pup as part of our 'Dog Days of Summer' collaboration with our features team. Regular contributor Carolynn Carreño explored the evolution toward human-grade dog food over the last 15 years and provides a recipe for Rufus hash, a raw dog food blend she used to make for her late dog, Rufus. It's made with ground beef, turkey or chicken, organ meat, bone meal, steamed broccoli and steamed sweet potato. Novelist Michelle Huneven (see above) also shares her recipe for the homemade hash she feeds her rescue dog, Tatty Jane. Like Carreño, she uses ground meat and broccoli (or spinach) but also includes peas, brown or white rice, fish oil or sardines, finely ground baked eggshells for bone health and, for the antioxidants, frozen-fresh cranberries. Chef Wes Avila's father, Jose Luis Avila, is a legal resident of the U.S. But he felt so fearful of being caught up in the ICE raids happening all over California that after more than 50 years in this country he recently moved to Mexico. Avila told Food reporter Stephanie Breijo that when he's missing his father he makes a version of the Durango-style caldillo, or stew, that his father used to cook. 'It connects me to him,' said Avila, who leads the kitchens at MXO and Ka'teen. 'I talk to him every other day. We have a very close relationship.' And when he's missing his mother, who died in 1995, he makes beef taquitos, which he thinks was her favorite dish — or at least, he says, 'our favorite dish for her to make when my brother, my sister and I were kids.' He shared recipes for both dishes. And Dee-Ann Durbin reports on Coca-Cola's decision to 'add a cane-sugar version of its trademark cola to its U.S. lineup this fall, confirming a recent announcement by President Trump. ... Coke currently sells Mexican Coke, which is made with cane sugar, in the U.S.'
Business Insider
a day ago
- Business Insider
Before-and-after photos show how a woman boosted her home's curb appeal with a mudroom and statement arch
Steffy Degreff's home has changed a lot since she and her husband bought it in late 2017. Degreff, a full-time content creator, and her husband, Matt Degreff, bought their home in Long Beach, New York, in 2017. They have been raising their sons, Hudson, 8, and Charlie, 5, and their dog, Claude Pepper, there ever since. When they bought the house, which was originally built in 1954, it had three bedrooms and two bathrooms. However, the Degreffs did a big renovation in 2019. Now, it has three bathrooms, and they converted an attic into an additional bedroom. "To be honest, when we bought it, I don't think we viewed it as a forever home," Degreff told Business Insider. "It needed so much work that it was overwhelming to think that we would be the people to do that work, but everything that's good takes time." "Now, eight years later, it's finally in a place where I don't feel like we have anything massive to do on it anymore," she added. Degreff has been putting her personal, whimsical stamp on her home for years. Although their big renovation took place years ago, Degreff updates her home almost constantly, taking on DIY projects and documenting them on her social media pages. She paints areas of her home throughout the year and makes small additions in her personal style, which she describes as "vintage grandma." Some of her projects are meant to be temporary, like painting doors or windows, while others are longer-term. For instance, Degreff constructed built-in bookshelves for one room in her house, painting them green and adding floral touches to the doorway next to them. "A lot of the bigger projects I do with permanence in mind," she told BI. "If I'm putting up built-in bookshelves or redoing paneling in a bedroom, chances are I'm not ripping that out. But paint is just such a fun way to change your vibe year to year." Although they had personalized their home, there was still one part of the house that wasn't working for the Degreffs by 2024: the entryway. From the outside, a simple staircase led to the Degreffs' front door, which had a small patio next to it. Inside, guests entered the living room. "I always knew that the entry to my home was less than ideal," Degreff told BI. "People would walk in, and we had nowhere to put our coats. We had no coat closet. It was freezing in the winter." In 2024, the Degreff family reached a breaking point with the entrance to their home. They decided they wanted an entryway that would provide storage, make their living area warmer, and fit the aesthetic of their home. The Degreffs decided to extend the front of their home to make space for the mudroom and a statement archway. Degreff said she got inspiration for the renovation from other homes in her area. "I started walking around the neighborhood and getting ideas, and the really cool thing about Long Beach is that there's a multitude of home styles," she said, including Spanish, Victorian, and Cape Cod houses. "No two homes are exactly alike, which brings an endless amount of inspiration." As she studied homes in her neighborhood, Degreff found herself drawn to the ones with rounded doors, but she didn't want to commit to the nontraditional shape. "I started to think outside the box of what can I do that looks like that same quaint, cottagey type of look but isn't actually the door, and that's where I landed on the arch," Degreff added. The project kicked off in May 2024 with the removal of the existing steps at the home. The new room and arch extended out of the front of the house, adding just 80 square feet to the space. But it would have the closet the Degreff family wanted so desperately. Degreff comes from a family of contractors, so it was a no-brainer for her to hire her uncle, Pat Gordon Contracting, for the project. She also worked with James Joyce Architect, and she tapped Weathertop Masonry to find brick that would match the home's existing stonework. The arch was the most difficult aspect of the renovation to create. Like the rest of the house, the arch was raised off the ground, and stairs led to the platform entrance. The arch pointed at the top, while the door beneath was designed with a round window atop it for contrast. Degreff told BI that Weathertop Masonry was integral to creating the archway, which was almost entirely made of brick and stone. She said the team initially tried to find vintage bricks to match the house, and when that didn't work, Degreff said Paul Scanio, Weathertop Masonry's president, got creative. "We ended up ordering a blend of two or three different types of brick, and the way that he grabbed and picked each brick, it mixed it in a way that made it look exactly like the old brick on my house," Degreff said. Degreff chose custom tile for the interior of the mudroom. Degreff said she spent "hours and hours" researching tiles before selecting a green, patterned set from London Mosaic. The tile was laid in August, and Degreff held off decorating the rest of the space until January 2025, getting used to it before deciding how to finish it. When Degreff finished the mudroom, green was integral to the design. Thanks to the arch, the inside of the mudroom has high ceilings, and Degreff played up that height by painting the walls and ceilings a deep green. A textured light hangs from the ceiling, and the window above the door lets in natural light. There's a second door that leads to the living room, making the main house warmer. Degreff added a bench to the entryway. When you enter the mudroom, the long-awaited coat closet sits on the right, but the left side was a blank canvas for Degreff to decorate. "I knew I wanted to do a bench seating with a little open shelf, something that I could restyle seasonally, and a spot to hang extra stuff," she told BI. She did the work on the corner herself, adding paneling to the wall behind and next to the bench for some texture. A wooden shelf floated above the bench, and Degreff added hooks to the wall for jackets and purses. Degreff said the mudroom is already making her home more functional. "It's so nice," Degreff said of having a mudroom. "This was the first winter that we walked into having a mudroom, and it's just so much easier having a place to put the kids' sports bags and hang up our coats." "For work, I have a lot of random props that I get, and I have a closet space there now," she added. "It's not just sitting by the front door in the middle of the living room." The archway also improved the home's curb appeal, as Degreff's neighbors can attest. The arch drastically changed the house's appearance, but Degreff said all the work they did on the exterior in 2024 improved its curb appeal. "We were adding sod, we added a fence, we added landscaping, so the arch is just like a piece of other things that definitely made the house more attractive from the outside," she said. Degreff said people who live in her community noticed the upgrades. "The amount of neighbors that are excited about it has also been really cute," Degreff said. "I have at least one neighbor every day, and it's been a year, that's like, 'Your house came out so great. I love how it looks.'" She feels like the exterior finally matches the interior. "Nobody realized that it was cute inside because it had sad grass and it was just so dumpy outside, and now I feel like people get it," she said. "When we first did the renovation, people asked me when I moved in and welcomed me to the neighborhood because they thought I had just bought the house and started to fix it up." She also has fun changing up her doorway seasonally. Degreff has been switching up the decor out front to match the season. "Decorating it every season has been so fun," she said. "I put leaves around the arch for fall last year, and then I did garlands and lights for Christmas, and it's just fun and festive." She told BI that she's also "constantly" repainting the front door. Degreff knows repainting it so often might lead to wear and tear long-term, but she considers it a work expense because so much of her content revolves around her house. "I sand it in between, but it does get thick. It's definitely a casualty, and I look at it as a business expense at this point," she said. "Worst case scenario, I will, in five years, get a different door and start from scratch. There's nothing saying the door has to be forever." Having a clear vision helped Degreff bring her renovation to life. Degreff didn't have an exact cost breakdown for her mudroom and arch renovation because she and her husband also had work done on their driveway and other parts of their home. Still, she recommends people estimate between $50,000 and $70,000 if they want to take on a similar project. She also said that people who plan to take on similar projects should have a clear vision for their transformation. "I think my best advice would be to go on Pinterest and take a look at all the elements that you want to have in your space, whether it's a bench seating area when you walk in or a special kind of tile or special window," she said. "When you hire a contractor, they're just carrying out your vision. If you don't go into it with the vision, then you're not going to get exactly what you want." "The first time I renovated, I definitely didn't do enough research or planning, and there are things that I would do differently," Degreff said. "But with the arch, I 100% feel like it's exactly everything I wanted and hoped and dreamed."
New York Times
4 days ago
- New York Times
How a Former Public Toilet Was Transformed Into an Inviting New Hotel
Welcome to the T List, a newsletter from the editors of T Magazine. Each week, we share things we're eating, wearing, listening to or coveting now. Sign up here to find us in your inbox every Wednesday, along with monthly travel and beauty guides, and the latest stories from our print issues. And you can always reach us at tmagazine@ Stay Here A Tiny, Victorian-Inspired Hotel in Oxford, England By Rachel Felder In the British city of Oxford, there are already hotels in unlikely buildings, including a former jail and a converted centuries-old bank. The Netty took the idea of an unconventional structure even further when it opened last month in a subterranean public toilet that dates back to the Victorian era. The Netty's rooms — there are just two, each reached via its own street-level staircase — are plush and inviting, with wall tapestries made by the heritage French company Pinton, Pierre Frey shower curtains and dramatic headboards. 'It was about transforming this overlooked structure into something that was elevated and intimate,' says Rachael Gowdridge, the London-based interior designer who oversaw the décor. Her design cues came from the Netty's immediate neighbors: the Ashmolean Museum, whose ancient casts inspired some of the bedrooms' artwork, and the Oxford Playhouse, referenced through arched, curtained shower entryways that suggest a stage. The space's original use was an inspiration too: High cistern toilets in pink or blue and small stainless-steel trough sinks are updates on the traditional accouterments of Victorian municipal lavatories. 'Our nods to its previous use are subtle, rather than punching you in the face with, 'Here is an old toilet,'' Gowdridge says. Beyond the undeniable quirk factor, the Netty's allure might well be its sense of privacy: Each room feels like a secret enclave tucked below Oxford's busy city center. As Gowdridge puts it, 'When you go down there, it's like you're in your own world.' From about $250 a night, Gift This Wobbly Door Numbers Inspired by Inflatable Air Dancers By Adrea Piazza During a road trip through the countryside of rural France, Ashley Law, the London-based founder of the small-scale property developer Flawk, passed a car dealership with an inflatable air dancer. On the same trip, she sketched the first iteration of her Bob door numbers, which are now available for sale on Flawk's website. Law hopes the handmade cast aluminum door numbers, with their wobbly silhouettes and playful, nostalgic quality, will serve as 'the first point of ice breaking for any visitor,' she says. Since its founding in 2022, Flawk has transformed what Law calls 'underloved sites' — most recently, a parking lot tucked behind Stoke Newington's lively high street — by building homes that are filled with bespoke objects commissioned from local makers. Law and her team rethink layouts and choose materials, but also focus on smaller details, like banisters and drawer pulls. Along with the door numbers, the studio is selling a brushed stainless steel butter knife with a bubbly handle and a handblown glass cabinet knob formed into a spiral. From about $54 for a door number, Wear This A Polo Ralph Lauren Collection That Channels Oak Bluffs, the Historic Martha's Vineyard Beach Town By Roxanne Fequiere For well over a century, Black leisure seekers have flocked to the beaches and candy-colored cottages of Oak Bluffs, Mass., a picturesque town on the northeastern shore of Martha's Vineyard. The community's history and list of notable vacationers (Spike Lee, Dorothy West) are the stuff of American East Coast legend — and that heritage has now been channeled into a collection of crisp men's and women's clothes by Polo Ralph Lauren. 'We're celebrating not just a beautiful coastal town, but a place where families, neighbors and old college friends have gathered for generations,' says David Lauren, the label's chief branding and innovation officer. The launch also marks the evolution of the brand's ongoing partnership with Morehouse and Spelman Colleges. In addition to patchwork pieces and sun-faded graphics that honor the seaside style of the Oak Bluffs community, the collection includes collegiate jackets, knits, tees and accessories emblazoned with the two colleges' insignia. The campaign features an all-ages cast of Black models set against the backdrop of the area's beaches and gingerbread-style homes, conjuring memories of a bygone era that will come to life in 'A Portrait of the American Dream: Oak Bluffs,' a documentary set to premiere this week in conjunction with the collection and that highlights the history of the town with interviews and archival footage. The Polo Ralph Lauren for Oak Bluffs collection launches July 24; from $35, Eat This Eel Is Everywhere in New York's New Restaurants By Chadner Navarro For the July 16 opening of I Cavallini in Brooklyn, the chef Nick Curtola wanted to interpret classic Italian dishes in his own style. His obsession with the Venetian cicchetti sarde in saor (a sweet-and-sour toast topped with pieces of marinated sardines) inspired a version with eel. Curtola slathers a baguette with agrodolce and adds a piece of lightly battered fried eel. The snakelike fish has shown up frequently on his menu at the Four Horsemen, the Williamsburg restaurant that opened in 2015 and whose team is now behind I Cavallini. Eel has been a hit in a number of the city's new dining rooms. 'It's an incredible ingredient when handled well,' says Erik Ramirez, the chef at the Japanese Peruvian izakaya Papa San, which opened in Midtown Manhattan in February. 'It's texturally unique, and when used creatively, it adds a new dimension to a dish.' He serves a pizza topped with buttery unagi barbecue — his Nikkei twist on the barbecued chicken slice you might find at a neighborhood pizzeria. At Le Chêne, which opened in May in the West Village, Alexia Duchêne reimagines the classic pithivier by stuffing it with pork and smoked eel (instead of the usual foie gras or beef). And on the Lower East Side, Cactus Wren's executive chef Abe Chang, who opened the restaurant in February, whips smoked eel with cream and butter until it becomes a mousse that he then layers onto a one-bite tart with thyme-spiked caramel and apple gel. 'The prevailing opinion is that eel is difficult to work with,' says Chang. 'But, really, it just needs better PR.' Try This Cream Eye Shadow Sticks That Go On Smoothly By Mackenzie Oster I've always preferred applying makeup with my fingertips, and lately it seems beauty brands are embracing that effortless approach, shifting away from traditional pressed powder palettes in favor of cream eye shadow sticks. Designed for quick application and finger-friendly blending, these formulas also seem to last longer than most, so even the sparkliest shades stay put. Earlier this month, the makeup artist Mario Dedivanovic — who works with celebrities including Mary J. Blige and Ariana Grande — launched Master Mattes, his brand's first cream eye shadow collection, featuring ten matte shades, from a peachy cream bisque for a natural boost of color to a cool blue-gray slate for a smoky eye spinoff. Urban Decay recently reimagined its Original Naked Palette as the Naked Eyeshadow Stick, which glides on with a soft-focus blur. Some cream eye shadows incorporate a slanted tip for precise lining: ILIA's Eye Stylus Shadow Stick comes in vibrant shades inspired by Renaissance paintings, while Fenty Beauty's Shadowstix Longwear Eyeshadow Stick encourages experimentation with matte and shimmer options. For added dimension, tap a little sparkle into the inner corner of the eye with Bobbi Brown's Long-Wear Cream Eyeshadow Stick or sweep a full wash of pigment across the lids using Chanel's crayon-like Stylo Ombre Et Contour. From T's Instagram A Brooklyn Brownstone That Channels 'The Garden of Earthly Delights'
