Penetrating the Veneer of Hospitality Sixty Stories Up, at Manhatta | The New Yorker

"At Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group’s newest venture, Manhatta, I had mixed experiences that combined high style with moments of chilly formality. One night at the bar I was initially told I couldn’t pull a third stool “for ‘numbers and situational reasons’” despite there being space, and a reservationist later put me on a wait list—adding, “But, just so you know, there are four hundred people ahead of you”—which undercut the hospitality I expected. On another evening the experience was wildly different: two smiling greeters in the lavish ground-floor lobby ushered me into an elevator that shot to the sixtieth floor, where a $78 prix-fixe (snack, three courses, and gratuity) was easy to order and the bird’s-eye view of Manhattan—complete with binoculars for spying on neighboring skyscrapers—was breathtaking. The fancy-French-meets-country-club-chic food generally hit its mark: market vegetables with a tarragon-flecked dip, a summer-melon salad with feta and cucumber, and a veal blanquette of white meat in a heavy white sauce with a white pomme purée. Still, a corporate chill lingers from the building’s former use as Chase Bank offices, and the bar’s special menu of fancified pub grub (including a $28 “French onion burger” to be eaten with knife and fork) felt less inviting; after the stool incident the veneer of hospitality was broken and I no longer felt much reason to stay." - Hannah Goldfield