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Last month I had lunch with my editor at The Odeon, a few blocks from Conde Nast headquarters. New Yorker editor in chief David Remick was there taking out a writer, as was Will Welch, editor in chief of GQ. Not sure what they got, but our Vanity Fair contingent got Diet Cokes and the Baby Kale Caesar, add chicken. Solid order. The Odeon is a two-times-a-week place for me, but it’s not exactly a grand stop on the global foodie tour. You go to The Odeon to gossip about the other people at The Odeon. Which, I mean, guilty.
Jan 20, 2022
Related Recs
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My favorite of the bitchy little salad genre. The Odeon, Cafe Cluny and Cafe Luxembourg all do a really good one (same owners, same salad). It's frisée, Fourme d'Ambert (I get it without this cuz I don't really like cheese but on my birthday this year I forgot to say no cheese and the salad was still really good), croutons, lardon, bacon vinaigrette and a pouched egg. Probably super easy to make at home but I can't really imagine ever doing that. Cafe Luxembourg is definitely the chicest of the three spots but it's pretty far uptown and kind of a pain to get to so I like going to Cafe Cluny and getting the salad and some french fries and pretending I don't have trouble paying my rent on time.
Nov 10, 2023
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Nothing makes me happier than going to Odeon, and Lucien. They’re classic New York. The lighting at Odeon is perfection. It’s impossible to look bad there. Walking downstairs to the ladies room, you can feel the history of it’s patrons of yesteryear: Ed Ruscha, Warhol, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Leo Castelli, etc.I love to go to Lucien alone and have a steak at the bar. The bartenders are the sweetest and I always run into someone I know. I spent New Years Eve there and I swear to GOD it’s the best New Years Eve I’ve had in ages. Everyone’s gorgeous, cool, and interesting. The people watching is fantastic. The owner (Zach) is a hunk with bee stung lips. If he nods at you, it feels like you’ve won the lottery. I’m kidding. But also not. Go there with friends to talk all night about how the person you're dating isn’t watching your stories or texting you back OR have dinner and a cocktail to celebrate, right before heading off to the discotheque. I’m really trying to bring back the term discotheque. We’ll see what happens after this comes out. Maybe it’ll sweep the nation.
Mar 31, 2023
Specifically the downstairs Lincoln Center Whole Foods, with its windowless cafeteria. My favorite place for my thirty minute lunch break. A midtown third space oasis.
You’ve got it all—your tour groups, your business men, Bad Roman, bad public art. A place I’m strangely nostalgic for, as it was one of the first places I visited on my first trip to New York (in 2015, on a high school band field trip).
One day I may have to write a Benjaminian Arcades Project-esque ode to this particular commercial complex.
Apr 2, 2024
Top Recs from @nate-freeman
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Cheap, fine, always the same, you can buy them in all the world’s great cities and nothing makes you feel better than putting on a fresh shirt.
Jan 20, 2022
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My wife Lucy got me a Prada briefcase last September as a present, not for any occasion really. Come to think of it, she was increasingly not down with me carrying my laptop and notebooks in this broken and apparently unfixable Samsonite bag that belonged to my grandfather. The bag had a yellowed card in a tag indicating that, if found, please send to the concierge at the Carlyle. I replaced it with the Prada: elegant but understated, an ideal size and weight, just the thing to break out if you feel like going to work in an office.
Jan 20, 2022
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The White Stripes aren’t like my favorite band, not by a longshot, but Meg White is certainly the best drummer in the history of rock and roll. Pushing tempo as keeping tempo, genius. She was always so, so much cooler than Jack, now more than ever, given the fact that she’s essentially disappeared off the face of the earth and Jack is selling vinyl in Nashville or whatever it is he does.
Jan 20, 2022