Chef Brian Wieler and his arugula planter box.

The answer is on your plate or in your glass if you order an arugula salad or a muddled-mint mojito at LCL, the hotel restaurant and bar.

Last summer the Westin Grand Central turned its rooftop into a modest organic Eden suspended 41 stories in the air. And this year the fleet of 11 dirt-filled planters and four fat barrels are back in business, bearing fruit – and vegetables and herbs – destined for hotel guests once again. (more…)

A daily dose.

Hotel minibars make me think of good times, not good for you. (M&Ms for $7, too, but that’s another story.)

But the minibars at the Standard hotels — including the Standard High Line and Standard East Village in New York – are tweaking what’s good, or at least what you’d imagine to be good in an in-room stash.

A while back the hotel’s minibars started selling Happy Socks for $12 a pair. And the latest this-ain’t-the-Holiday-Inn addition nestled in with the Kit-Kats, Cracker Jack and mini bottles of Ketel and Patron? Vitamins – packets of Smarty Pants Gummy Vitamins for Grownups, to be precise. (more…)

Downtown dining at the Smyth’s Plein Sud.

Week is a misnomer, but who’s complaining? New York’s Winter Restaurant Week, an annual event for, well, decades, stretches luxuriantly from January 14 to February 8, proving a week can be longer than seven days – and that 2013 is already a lucky year, at least for diners out for a deal.

Nearly 300 restaurants – including more than 30 at hotels – offer three course prix fixe lunches for $25 and dinners for $38.  Here’s our list of participants, grouped by location so you know where to book a table – or stop by on a whim – when you want to warm up with a starter, entrée and dessert. (Click on the green letters for additional information.) (more…)

Party in the ballroom.

Bill Cunningham, sporting his signature blue jacket, strode in just ahead of us, a Nikon slung around his neck. Proof positive that there was to be no shortage of social glitter at the launch party for Sirio Maccioni’s new Sirio Ristorante at The Pierre last night.

In the hotel foyer a phalanx of Hollywood-cute staffers in white shirts and black ties collected coats and bags. Opposite them a long line of twenty-somethings in black cocktail dresses wielded guest lists as thick as September Vogue and checked off names.

Men in suits and women in stilettos mobbed the Pierre’s mural-lined rotunda, where photographers snapped Tony Bennett, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Martha Stewart and other knowns and lesser-knowns against a white backdrop. Guests poured into the ballroom, a marble staircase up, where no fewer than three open bars awaited. They filled the evening’s raison d’etre, the swanky-sleek Italian restaurant commanding the long ribbon of space most recently occupied by Le Caprice, an outpost of the plush London brasserie that never quite caught on here. (more…)

Michelin’s newest star: the NoMad restaurant.

October isn’t normally thought of as the start of a new year – unless you’re publishing a restaurant guide. This month biggies Michelin and Zagat unveiled their 2013 guides to New York City restaurants. As always, we snapped up copies (yes, we still like paper guides).

How did New York’s hotel restaurants fare? Thumbs up. The days when no one ate at a hotel restaurant except hotel guests too cowed by the city  are long gone.

Still, getting a nod from a tony guide book is no guarantee of longevity. Two hotel restaurants that scored 2013 Michelin stars – no mean feat – are closing. This summer Gilt, a two-M star restaurant at the New York Palace, is to be replaced by a new, somewhat formal restaurant by French chef Michel Richard, who operates restaurants in Washington, DC, Las Vegas and Carmel, California, Eater reports. Richard is, in fact, planning three properties at the Palace, including a bistro in a room currently used as an event space and a pastry shop in the lobby. (more…)

Pretty in Pink pastries

From the NFL, whose big bruisers sport pink cleats to the comic strip artists who added pink ribbons to their strips, the color of Breast Cancer Awareness Month pops up a lot in October.

So why not at a hotel?

For the month of October staff members at The Peninsula hotel flaunt pale pink ties. Big bouquets of hot pink flowers bloom in the lobby. And guests who indulge in high tea in the hotel’s Gotham Lounge get a choice when they order the pastry portion of the spread – an assortment of seasonal tartlets and sweets or the Pink Pastry Plate. (more…)

Cooked to order.

Long before Shake Shack – and the $32 Daniel Boulud truffle burger – there was Burger Joint, the hole-in-the-wall hamburger heaven tucked behind a velvet curtain in a corner of Le Parker Meridien.  This week it celebrates its tenth birthday.

In a city where lunch at a hotel restaurant rarely costs less than $25 – and dinner costs a lot more — Burger Joint stands apart. (more…)

Warm weather food cart.

On its website The Standard East, the hotel formerly known as the Cooper Square, says that it’s quietly transitioning into the spirit of its new name.

That, of course, is The Standard, the hip hotel straddling the High Line on the opposite side of town.The transition apparently starts on the sidewalk. Parked in front of the hotel this summer is the Standard Ice Cream Cart, a jaunty refrigerated wheelie shaded by a big red umbrella.

Last summer the cart was a fixture at the Standard, where Kaws’ gigantic cartoon sculpture Companion (Passing Through) stood in front of the hotel. This year, no sculpture. And no cart.  An outdoor café – bursting with guests, if this weekend was an indication — eats up the plaza. (more…)

Healthy and sustainably sourced, too.

Hotels like to advertise that they offer all the comforts of home, only better. So why is it so hard to find healthy items like cage-free eggs, low-fat milk and grass-fed beef in the restaurants of most large full-service hotels?

Hyatt Hotels aims to change that and lots more. This week the company unveiled Food. Thoughtfully Sourced. Carefully Served, a soup to nuts food philosophy that in essence overhauls the entire food and beverage service for all Hyatt full service brands. The triple-tined aim is

to serve food that is locally sourced, harvested from sustainable sources and healthy to boot.

As you know if you’ve visited the restaurants at Hyatt’s New York City properties including the Grand Hyatt, healthy, locally sourced offerings have nibbled their way onto the menus – and into Hyatt culture — for a while. (The Andaz Wall Street even hosts a twice-weekly farmers market during warm months.) (more…)

60 Centre Street.

Many are called – and last week we were among them, taking a seat in the gigantic two-room juror’s bullpen at 60 Centre Street.

Jury duty isn’t as onerous as it once was. The officers explaining the rules deliver good patter. The free WiFi is strong. Even the $1.50 coffee at the courthouse cart has improved. Better still, once you’ve served, you won’t be called back for six years.

But New York’s courthouses are still big, brute, soul-deadening places (the wait to get through security was 25 minutes on a Monday morning). Come lunchtime, we wanted out.

Two hotels with inviting restaurants are within walking distance, provided you score an elongated lunch break (think twice you’re if assigned the standard 1-to-2-p.m. window). (more…)