Shaun Hergatt’s private restaurant costs $15,000 a year. And breakfast is no longer free.
As part of a new requirement in 2021, residents at 432 Park — one of the wealthiest addresses in the world — must now spend $15,000 a year at the building’s private restaurant run by Michelin-star chef Shaun Hergatt. The service has never been cheap: Property owners were required to spend $1,200 each year at the residents-only restaurant when the building opened in 2015. But over the last five years, residents say the requirement has surged by more than 1,200 percent and, to top it all off, breakfast is no longer free. The New York Times first reported news of the change.
Complaints about the steep dining fees surfaced this week along with a bevy of other concerns from homeowners in the building. Residents pointed to water damage from plumbing, mechanical issues, elevator malfunctions, and walls that “creak like the galley of a ship,” according to the Times. Those issues all appear to stem from the building’s main draw — its height — which briefly earned it the status of the world’s tallest residential building in 2015. (432 Park has since been surpassed by other projects, including one on Billionaires’ Row in Midtown Manhattan in September 2019.)
Hergatt signed onto the residents-only restaurant in 2016, which spans the entire 12th floor of the skyscraper. The chef behind Michelin-starred restaurants SHO and Juni recently opened a new upscale seafood spot, called Vestry, in the Dominick Hotel.
In other news
— COVID-19 hospitalizations and average per-capita case counts are up more than 60 percent this week from when Gov. Andrew Cuomo closed restaurants for indoor dining in December. Defending the decision to resume partial indoor dining in New York City on February 14, a member of Cuomo’s coronavirus task force said it’s not where the numbers are now, but where they are headed.
— The Infatuation published a new zine this week called IYKYK — if you know you know — whose first issue covers Honk Kong-style diner food called cha chaan teng. A portion of sales will benefit neighborhood group Welcome to Chinatown.
— Gertie launched a Valentine’s Day pastry box yesterday, a collaboration between Deb Perelman of Smitten Kitchen and its acclaimed baker Melissa Weller that sold out in just a few hours.
— Crown Shy pastry chef Sumaiya Bangee announced this morning that she is moving on from the Michelin-starred restaurant.
— Doshi, a Korean-inspired pop-up from Chez Panisse alum Susan Kim, is headed to the former Meme’s Diner space this Friday and Saturday.
— Grub Street searches for the perfect mozzarella stick and finds something close in the delivery-only Big Stick Willy’s.
— How to stay warm while dining in the cold, according to Bon Appétit.
— A thread:
Okay Twitter: You’re suddenly able to go to a classic Northeast 24-hour diner with the person you’ve missed the most in quarantine. The menu is eighteen pages long and you’re starving. What do you order? (I’m not trying to figure anything out, I just miss diners.) https://t.co/8eCVkFMYKg
— Carmen Maria Machado (@carmenmmachado) February 2, 2021