This NYC Restaurant Sparks Serious Design Envy

December 18, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

The dishes and other trinkets at Studio at the Freehand Hotel are major shopping inspiration

This post originally appeared on December 17, 2019, in “Add to Cart” — the weekly newsletter for people who love shopping (almost) as much as they love eating. Subscribe now.

I’ve always been envious of homes with that perfectly off-kilter, eclectic, “oh, this old thing?” aesthetic. When it comes to kitchens especially, I aspire to the kind of space that may contain a neat stack of white Crate & Barrel dishes, but also a few wooden bowls here, a few vintage goblets there, a ceramic dish from who knows where — the kind of visual mash-up that seems casually tossed together, yet ultimately conveys a coherent, singular, enviable look.

Restaurants are very good at this, which is why Eater’s senior social media manager Esra Erol and I took a short design pilgrimage to Studio, one of several dining spaces in New York’s Freehand Hotel. Overseen by Gabriel Stulman’s Happy Cooking Hospitality, the space has that enviably eclectic design, with leafy plants, wooden tables, scattered rugs, and — very important — perfectly mismatched dishes, on which delightful baked goods from Eater Young Gun Zoë Kanan (’19) are served.

Gabe gave us a rundown of the dish collection, from the Hasami and Anfora ceramics to the vintage Moroccon tea glasses and painted trivets from Tel Aviv, all of which you can check out on Eater’s Instagram today. Taken together, the dishware conveys that effortlessly cool vibe that I promise will inspire you to hit a few flea markets ASAP.

Anthony Bui

Things to buy

• To me (and to my Eater coworkers and more than a few folks on Instagram), this seltzer sweatshirt is perfect.
• For the natural wine lovers out there, beloved natural wine bar Rebel Rebel, based in Somerville, Massachusetts, just rolled out some great new merch, including this wine-themed illustrated tote bag. (Because there is no such thing as too many tote bags.)
• If you love adorable food-shaped things, you will adore Smoko, which carries items like this boba AirPod case and heated (!) s’mores slippers.
• Pineapple Collaborative, which brings together women in the food world online and IRL, has launched its first products, an olive oil and an apple cider vinegar, made by female producers and bottled up in Instagrammy packaging. The apple cider vinegar is especially intriguing, since I’ve rarely seen one in such a chic container (though it’s a tad messy to pour from) and it’s got a particularly strong, nostalgic apple-juice flavor.

Things to know

• It would appear that McCormick, the ubiquitous spice company, has merch.
• I love this guide to using amari (amaro, but plural — your Italian lesson for the day!) in cocktails. (Amaro Montenegro was the bottle of choice in the 2018 Eater Gift Guide.)
• New Yorkers will appreciate Grub Street’s brief but thorough guide to the new, thoroughly modern outposts of three local dining icons: Russ & Daughters, Sahadi’s, and Di Palo’s.
• Membership is closed at the moment, but the Rancho Gordo Bean Club is a thing I did not know existed until I read this great explainer on the 2019 trend that was home-cooked beans. As my colleague Meghan McCarron puts it, beans, like so many other “extremely 2019 foodstuffs… wear halos of authenticity and goodness” and are as delicious as they are nutritious. If you didn’t get into beans this year, well, you still have two weeks.

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