Page 60 - Forbes Magazine-September 30, 2018
P. 60
THE
EYE
The gold standard: The new
Four Seasons dining room has
33 tables and seats about 110,
while the Bar Room can serve
50. Below, the restaurant’s
new culinary team: chef de
cuisine Brandon Lajes, pastry
chef Bill Yosses and executive
chef Diego Garcia.
HAIL, SEASONS!
THE BIRTHPLACE OF THE POWER LUNCH RETURNS TO NEW YORK.
(COVER AND THIS PAGE) PHOTOGRAPHS BY JAMEL TOPPIN FOR FORBES York’s billionaires, politicians and social elite have been in a dining diaspora. Now the place
Since June 2016, when the legendary Four Seasons Restaurant was ousted from its home
of 57 years—a landmarked, Philip Johnson-designed space in the Seagram Building—New
where the power lunch was born has returned—to a beautiful new location that cost $30
million to build. The new Four Seasons, which opened in August, is just three blocks from
its original home, and the design by Brazilian architect Isay Weinfeld recalls Johnson’s icon-
ic dining rooms. (The sunken square bar in the Bar Room evokes the old Pool Room, while
the champagne-colored window treatments in the dining room are reminiscent of John-
son’s fl uttering metal curtains.) There’s also an acclaimed new team in the kitchen: 30-year-
old Diego Garcia (who came from Gloria in New York) is the executive chef, 26-year-old
Brandon Lajes is chef de cuisine and Bill Yosses, the former executive pastry chef at the
White House, is in charge of desserts. And of course the restaurant’s longtime ringmasters,
co-owners Julian Niccolini and Alex von Bidder, are there to welcome back the regulars and greet a new generation of
diners. So if Manhattan seems a little brighter this fall, perhaps it’s because the power is back on at the Four Seasons.
SEPTEMBER 30, 2018 FORBES | 67
