JF RESTAURANTS | EDITION TIMES SQUARE

The Restaurateur Club met for its first event of 2020 at the Times Square Edition hotel on February 23rd. A wave of bergamot and fig, cedar and musk enveloped us in greeting as we entered the hotel.

The entrance of the building was unassuming with its monochrome color palette, save for a giant green metallic globe at the far wall. While we waited for the tour to begin, many of us stood up close to this globe, amused by how the spherical surface elongated our faces. In hindsight, the green ball—curious, surprising and playful—was our biggest clue of what to expect from the powerhouse team behind the Edition at Times Square.

JF Restaurants’ Executive Assistant, Rachel McCloskey, and R&D Chef Rafal M. were kind enough to guide us around the four food and beverage concepts at the hotel and give exclusive insight into the operations of a luxury boutique hotel.

“Do you smell that? It’s a scent made just for Edition hotels,” says Rachel as we exit the elevators. The enigmatic scent we smelled upon entering is the Edition brand’s signature. The Le Labo perfume permeates every room in the hotel—even pumped through the air filters—and ushers patrons into the fine and unique experience that the Edition strives to provide.

The Edition hotels, an offshoot of Marriott International, are a venture by hotelier Ian Schrager who is perhaps best known for co-creating the boutique hotel. The Times Square location is the latest edition of Schrager’s hotels, and is a collaboration with Chef John Fraser’s JF Restaurants. Throughout the tour, we were very struck by the careful consideration dedicated to each component of the experience at the Times Square Edition, from food and drink, atmosphere and service, to the design and architecture. Everything was infused with a flavor unique to the Edition, even the air we breathed was Edition branded!

Paradise Club

Our first stop is paradise… Or rather, the Paradise Club, a comprehensive dinner-theatre experience like no other. We step out of the elevators onto checkerboard floors, which are offset by dusky wood walls. The whole affair is mysterious.

We follow Rachel and Rafal around the corner and behold: two massive murals span the sides of the room. In keeping with the dualistic theme of the black and white flooring, one wall represents Heaven, the opposite is Hell. Ian Schrager is the design influence for Paradise Club. The stage is the setting of the “inventive and chaotic” show, “The Devouring: A Marriage of Heaven and Hell,” but it might be better suited to call the restaurant itself the stage: we are told that a second stage runs through the dining space, and hooks on the ceiling are for aerial performers. A feast to match the spirit of the show is served during to create a singular, immersive experience.

Lobby Bar

A black staircase zig zags across a plant wall as we pass the hotel lobby into the Lobby Bar.

Chef John Fraser also shares a proclivity for deliberate design. We are surprised to hear that he originally comes from a design rather than culinary background. This is evident in the way the food and beverage are symbiotic with the physical spaces they are served in. Lobby Bar Manager Meghan Wachsman tells us about how the Lobby bar occasionally features colorful drinks which are truly vibrant when served in the White Room.

 “The menu [was recently structured] in a way that every drink was a different color, so if you lined up the drinks it looked really beautiful,” Meghan mentions.

Schrager’s penchant for dualism makes a comeback in the form of the all-white bar and the all-black sitting room adjacent. Accent furniture maintains the warm white theme in the White Room, while black horsehair and leather chairs and a black steel fireplace keep the Black Room cozy. Everything is specific and deliberate: even the orientation of pillows is controlled here.

701 West

On the 11th floor sits Chef John Fraser’s innovative and much lauded 701West, the only fine dining at Times Square. The Salon, the restaurant’s bar, is an arresting sight with its lush green design scheme, a departure from the monochromes that dominate otherwise. A large doorway to the left leads into the restaurant itself, where the greens are traded for striking blues. Electric blue velvet sofas wind through the room beneath a more tawny colored wood to reflect the playful spirit of the fare.

Rachel shares her first experience dining here with us: “[my family and I] were crying by the end of the meal!”

 701West holds three stars from the New York Times with good reason: this restaurant is more than fine food; it is about the total experience. It is imperative that every element exists in symphony with the others; specifically, the menu must complement the interior design, another vestige of the chef’s design background. The food, beverage, service, interior design, music, everything is curated with incredible precision.

“It takes months to train people and for operations to start running smoothly. We keep pushing and want to create an experience,” adds Rafal.

Beverage Director Amy Racine has endeavored to make this a space where wine, which can often be intimidating, is made approachable. Guests are encouraged to explore with the support of the gracious servers, all of whom are sommeliers.

The Terrace & Outdoor Gardens

On the 9th floor, white arches and walls covered in nostalgic B&W photographs give way to a cheery restaurant. Linear light fixtures provide warm illumination. Potted palms and other tropical plants are everywhere, curving around guests enjoying their meals. This is a more casual dining site with comfortable foods to accommodate the diversity of hotel guests.

The Terrace’s menu incorporates the vegetable preparations that are Chef John Fraser’s culinary moniker; he is best known for the city’s only vegetarian Michelin-starred restaurant, NIX. Rafal tells us how Chef Fraser wants the Terrace to further a more homey, relaxed atmosphere.

 “If you leave a little food on your plate because you are too full, John is very happy because that means the serving portion is generous [it’s the same idea as] when you eat at home there is always food left over,” Rafal says.

We follow Rafal and Rachel into the terrace seating that lends the eatery its name.

“As you can see, Ian Schrager is super into the whole ‘green’ thing,” said Rachel.

The garden areas are covered by a special translucent canopy woven through with leaves. Plants dangle decoratively from this ceiling and more potted palms abound. The dotted greenery is reminiscent of the Salon bar’s emerald tones.

As we take in the lively space, Rafal shares what it’s like to be in charge of culinary research and development:

“One of the first dishes I developed was cuts with potatoes and broth. We spent nine months developing the broth, because every time it was ready, John would say that it’s good, but could be better! Finally, when we put it on the menu, it was there for two months. Then it was gone.”

Along with creativity and dynamism, Rafal’s position demands hard work and resolve. The reward he looks for is simple: he wants the food he creates to make people happy. When asked what his own favorite dish is, Rafal is quick to respond: the cauliflower mille feuille from 701West (11th floor of the Edition).

From the Bladerunner terrace we are granted an intimate view of the crowds of Times Square below, but from a distance. It is special to watch tourists and locals mill about from so high up, without having to physically join.

At the end of our visit, the Restaurateur Club was granted a mini panel talk by Rafal, Lobby Bar Manager Meghan Wachsman, Director of Events Amanda Tissue, and Beverage Director Amy Racine. We had stimulating conversation about some of the biggest challenges our speakers deal with in their daily jobs, and about emerging food and beverage trends. The kitchens especially need to think about allergies and dietary restrictions ahead of time. In some of the smaller kitchens it is a real challenge to manage.

“The hardest part of the service is always allergies,” Rafal stated.

The main strategy is making the fewest possible dishes containing common allergens and keeping them in a separate space. Rafal mentioned how the appearance of more allergies and food trends like gluten-free are changing the team’s approach to creating menus.

“Vegetarians and vegans—this is the way we are heading now,” he said.

Amy agreed: “being healthy is a very important part of the new lifestyle. People want drinks with lower ABV values.

To stay relevant with these trends, the beverage department is experimenting with hard kombuchas, spritzes without added sugar and other drinks that are both health conscious and popular.

We also spoke about an evolution of the fine dining scene towards more casual atmospheres, with customers interested in shareable meals. The Edition especially prides itself on being inclusive in this respect, prioritizing the overall experience people seek instead.

The kitchen was so kind to feed us light appetizers during this discussion: shishito peppers with shrimp and a topping of fried shallots became a crowd favorite!

To wrap up, our speakers gave us advice on starting off in the food and hospitality industry, but really this advice is for all of us students and for anyone starting somewhere new.

 Work as much as you can and never stop pushing yourself. Be comfortable starting at the bottom, and also be uncomfortable as much as you can. Don’t be afraid to speak up and ask questions. Even ideas that seem off-the-wall can turn into something useful.

The duality of Schrager’s Times Square Edition is literal in the polarized refrains of both the Lobby bar and Paradise Club, the measured intimacy and luxury of the Edition reclines on the screaming billboards and flashing lights of Times Square—a display that most New Yorkers decline to call their own. And yet, during our tour we learned that the Edition has been successful in enticing New Yorkers to rub elbows with hotel guests at these distinct experiences: Paradise Club offers a spectacle performance to match the enthusiasm of Times Square, 701West provides the only fine dining in the area, and the Terrace and Lobby bar afford the rare option of experiencing the magnetism of Times Square from above.

The Restaurateur Club is so appreciative of Rachel, Rafal and our other speakers for taking us through the Edition experience. Times Square is lucky to have its own.