The New Four Seasons Restaurant Will Be Different
In the spring of 2015, art collector and Seagram Building landlord Aby Rosen told Four Seasons partners Julian Niccolini and Alex von Bidder he would not be renewing their lease. The power-lunch icon "was saggy and tired," Rosen told New York. "I mean, I love the creamed spinach and Dover sole, but there’s more to a place."
The news that the beloved midtown institution would close didn't go over well with regulars like Martha Stewart and Henry Kissinger, both of whom told Rosen he was making a mistake. The situation had been fraught for some time though; a year earlier, Rosen battled with the New York Landmarks Conservancy, which owns a 361-square-foot Picasso tapestry that hung at the restaurant, for the right to have it taken down. Rosen effectively won; the work moved to the New-York Historical Society last year, and the Four Seasons served its last meal in July.
Niccolini and von Bidder lost the space but they retained the famous name, and they plan to open a new Four Seasons next fall. They've dusted themselves off after the disappointments of last year (and an assault charge for Niccolini) and last month they began testing dishes for their new venture, a 150-seat restaurant scheduled to open a few blocks away at 280 Park Avenue in November.
The menu will pay respect to the tri-state region's "farms, fisherman, cows, and vineyards."
This dry run didn't take place in New York, however, but rather at a special event in New Orleans. "We hosted a collaboration between two iconic restaurants," Niccolini said of his February dinner series at Brennan's, which opened in the Big Easy in 1946.
Dover sole, Nantucket bay scallops, and Maryland crab cakes were a few of the dishes offered using food from all of the Four Seasons' own purveyors. The commitment to using their own suppliers got them into a pickle when Winter Storm Niko hit the northeast, making it impossible to replenish the supply after the team ran out of food on the last day of the partnership.
"We were delighted to see a lot of our old customers from different parts of the country," Niccolini said when reached by phone on Monday. "The most exciting thing to see that New Orleans is on its way back!"
As for the Four Seasons, the only physical aspect of the old restaurant that Niccolini and von Bidder are bringing to the sign that hung on the 52nd Street side of the Seagram building. Otherwise, they're embracing a clean slate. "Why would you like to open up another restaurant if not to break the whole tradition and start brand new?"
Brazilian architect Isay Weinfeld (who was selected from a field of about 16 assembled by architecture critic Paul Goldberger) is not only designing the new space, he's consulting on the furniture, flatware, and chinaware. The uniforms, however, will likely be designed by Thom Browne (Four Seasons regulars will recall Niccolini's fondness for Browne's suits).
"The space is a little bit smaller, which we really like," Niccolini said, and "it will have a bar and a dining room that will be called the Grill." Outdoor seating is part of the plan. And while there's a pool in the building, he says that patrons shouldn't get their hopes up about a reincarnation of the Pool Room since it won't be possible to put tables around it.
The menu, he said, will go back to the original Four Seasons menu, "the original farm-to-table menu, like when Four Seasons started out in 1959. It's going to pay respect to New York City and to the surrounding area, whether it's farms, fisherman, cows, or vineyards." The wine list will be mostly American, with a focus on older vintages.
I asked the effusive Niccolini if he missed his old job or workplace. "The only thing that I really basically miss is the customers," he said, "and because of that I go out every day for lunch and every day for dinner to places where my old customers are going to be. Every week I have lunch with two or three of my old customers in different places around the city."
Is he angry about how everything went down last year?
"I'd rather walk down the street with my head held high and forget it," he says. "Let them have it-it's all about ego."
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